Sometimes, when I go for a photowalk, I don’t want to be a loner…

When I go out to shoot photos I normally go alone as it fits my time table perfectly and I dont have to do any coordination with anyone else. I just grab my kit and go. Well, today is different.

So on this day I linked up with Tim Childers at Mean Mug coffee on Main street in Chattanooga TN and started out with a cup of coffee and some chatting about our youtube channels. Then it was off to find interesting photos and explore some of the old industrial part of the city.

We begin by making our way down to the old foundry turned farmers market. On the way I noticed some interesting stuff at a local processing plant before getting to the farmers market. After grabbing a couple of shots there we headed over to the market space and make some photos of the skate park.

The skate park was basically abandoned so once we worked the scene over as best we could we decided to head over towards the river. From the skate park we make our way to the riverfront industrial area where we grab some photos occasionally while walking down to the aquarium. This is a unique are as it is being converted to modern condominiums and there is a huge development project slated later to construct a park and such as well.

Once we got downtown, we decided to get out of the heat for a little while and grab some lunch at Taco Mac before making our way back to our cars on Main Street. The longer we walked, the hotter it got on this day and by the time we got to Taco Mac I was soaked. We stayed there till I dried out and then went back out in it for more. Haha. Market street has a fair bit of shade fortunately so we was able to avoid most of the sun while heading back to the car.

Some notable stops along the way for me were the intersection of Main and MLK, the HWY 27 bridge, the skate park and the processing plant for me. I hope you enjoyed this little AAR about our photowalk and if you haven’t done it yet, go check out both of our videos from this day at the links below.

Links to both videos are here:

David Saylors Photowalk VLOG

Tim Childers Photowalk VLOG

Also, wanted to thank you for following my blog as well as my videos, It means the world to me.

An updated treatise on my travel camera gear.

When I wrote the last blog post about flying with cameras gear, I had only considered the airport and airplane overhead space only.

Well, here I am again in a different scenario and this time the kit looks very different. The overarching theme here is apparently that you should tailor the kit to suit the trip. Lol. I have done just that.

For this trip we are being tourists more or less, so the camera kit will reflect that. I am taking the Leica CL and just two prime lenses. The 17mm and the 35mm lenses are perfect for tourist type photography and there is two more reasons for taking two primes over a single zoom… read on to learn why.

When choosing kit for trips now, I start with the premise of the trip. For a long time, I would have these illusions of grandeur and would take all this gear for events that never happened. You see, I dont plan the trips, the wife does so she plans on things the I don’t consider. She will arrange tours and such and I am just too busy with other things to pay much attention. Well, I finally learned and now I dont bring hardly any of that stuff and this makes travel SO much easier. Some types I have encountered are tourist, wildlife, street, and such as that. Once this is nailed down then I choose a camera that best fits that type of trip. Usually between crop sensor and full frame first as this gets me the right camera. For wildlife I prefer my crop sensor Z50 but for architectural purposes I prefer a full frame sensor. Things like street photography can be shot with either but on long days, the little crop sensor Leica CL is a much better choice over the much heavier Leica SL2.

Now that I have a camera picked out, I will decide what is the most likely scenario I will be shooting in and choose a lens for that. Next I will look at what else there is and choose a lens that will work for this as well as loosely backup for the main lens.

Using this process, I chose the 35mm f0.95 TTArtisan lens as my main lens and the TTArtisan 17mm f1.4 lens as the backup. These are designed for the Leica CL which is a crop sensor camera so the equivalent field of view for these lenses is 50mm and 28mm respectively. These are two VERY useable focal lengths for a travel kit. These will also both work just fine if one or the other gets damaged at some point. I might have to adjust my shooting style a little but the trip is not a loss…

I want to take a moment here to mention TTArtisan and how they are making some amazing lenses for crazy low prices. The quality of all three of the lenses I currently have that they made are just stellar. I have one they gave me as a review sample but I bought the other two on my own. They are great little manual lenses.

Another reason I like using prime lenses for trips is the maximum aperture is much larger than on general purpose zoom lenses. General purpose lenses work great in broad daylight but the lack of large apertures make them less than desirable for me in the evening and early morning.

What this means is I will end up with a really compact kit with this camera and two lenses. These being native L mount lenses also means they are smaller than adapted lenses as well. (This is something that I do regularly and dont sweat it and that is how I know.) Native mounted glass means they are more compact though and that is what I wanted.

Since we are hiking this trip, I wanted to make sure that rain didn’t ruin my camera gear. This is why I put all my camera gear into a dry bag and then put that inside my backpack.

Once inside the dry bag, they are divided into three different lens “dump” bags I used for this trip to organize this gear loadout. These are made by Thinktank Photo and are great for street photography photo walks as you can stick batteries and a spare lens, business cards and lens wipes and such in them and they are still small and lightweight.

I realize now that I desperately need to clean my lens! Will do that asap!!!

Armed with this kit I am ready to take on just about any tourist, street, or even landscape type photo with hood confidence that I will come away with something reasonable. The next blog post in regards to this kit will be a photo spread describing what I found to photograph.

Until next time, get your camera out!!!

Is Leica right for you?

Since moving to the Leica camera system I have learned that the brand is super polarizing in the photography community and the odd part is there is no one other competing brand, except maybe Fujifilm and Ricoh in some genres.

You see there is the Nikon vs. Canon rivalry which everyone knows about. People either love Leica or hate them and there seems to be no middle ground. What I hear the most has to do with the extreme price of Leica cameras and what I usually hear second is how (insert their favorite brand here) had a list of features that Leica lacks. By far these are the two main complaints I hear with there being a few odd things otherwise.

Let’s take a look at some speculation on this topic and see if we can get a better understanding. Now, this next part is pure speculation on my part with only a little actual research behind it. But I did make a simple questionnaire for a few people to see what they thought.

Here is my question list:

1. Why dont/do you currently own any Leica gear? (Cameras and lenses)

2. What is your opinion of Leica in general?

3. Why do you have that opinion?

Armed with these questions let’s see what we get. I got the following answers…

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Why don't you own any Leica gear?

1. Between the price point and lack of a body geared towards sports there wasn't a setup that fit into my shooting needs.

What is your opinion of Leica Gear?

2. From my limited experience the camera I used felt well built and the quality I have seen produced by Leica cameras and glass is as good as other brands but seem more geared towards fine art, street or portriat style photography.

Why do you have that opinion?

3. Most photos produced where Leica has been identifed as the camera in my opinion have fit into the fine art, street or portrait categories.

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Why don't you own any Leica gear?

1. I have thought about buying a Leica as a street camera or personal camera, but the cost, even used, is a bit prohibitive for me.

What is your opinion of Leica Gear?

2. In general, I have a very favorable opinion about Leica. They are well-built, feel good when holding them, and take most excellent images. I am especially enamored with the M10 that only shoots monochrome. That is my dream, money is no object camera. And I love the look of those square frames lenses. They are quite aesthetically pleasing.

Why do you have that opinion?

3. I have this opinion partly from trying one out previously, but mostly from watching them used on YouTube. They are/were the camera of choice for some of the most famous photographers in the world.

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1.Why don't you own any Leica gear?

I would love to own some Leica gear. It’s a little on the expensive side, but I think they truly are pieces of quality kit. Lenses I think are pretty top notch. Also quality of lens construction seems to be pretty great.

2.What is your opinion of Leica Gear?

I think that Leica is focused towards a certain type of photographer. One that wants no compromises, while being methodical and authentic at the same time. They produce a different shooting experience for a more niche audience. But for those who enjoy Leica, they know exactly what they want from a camera. And Leica seems to know what their shooters want as well.

3. Why do you have that opinion?

I met a friend through a friend who was obscenely wealthy and he only shot on Leica. That, and general impressions based off of YouTube and other avenues where stereotypes are routinely expressed. I’m certainly open to change if and when I shoot on one!

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1.Why don't you own any Leica gear?

Leica doesn't make a single camera that interests me.

2. What is your opinion of Leica Gear?

I respect the brand and the company. I think they make really great lenses. Their bodies, while well made don't have the features that I look for in a camera body. I like their simplistic beauty. That's just not what I'm looking for. I think they are probably great street photography cameras but not too good for sports and wildlife. On the other hand, there are other brands that make great sports and wildlife cameras. The difference is, these great sports and wildlife cameras can also handle street, portraits and basically any kind of photography with no worries. So I need a camera that can do everything as opposed to a camera that can only do a few things.

3. Why do you have that opinion?

You don't see a lot of Leica shooters on the sidelines of a sporting event or at the wildlife refuge. There is a reason for that.

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1.Why do you currently own Leica gear?

What drew me to Leica is it’s history and mystique.  Leica is the originator of the 35mm camera, and a great deal of great photographers have used Leica. I wanted a piece of that mystique, not that it would make me a better photographer but it was very enticing.  I started with the Leica Q, probably the most affordable full-sensor Leica and I was hooked the color science of that camera is godly, better than any other Leica camera I have owned.  Then the Q2 Monochrome,  I have always wanted a monochrome camera, so why not.  Followed by the Q2 because I wanted more megapixels for cropping,  The color science on the Q2 is not in my opinion as good as the Q but it improves on the Q in many other ways.  Then finally the M10p,  I don’t any Leica glass except for the lenses mounted on the Qs which are all 28mm. I have always said I can afford the camera but not the lenses.

PS.  The real reason is David Saylors,  I had beaten the bug to get a Leica, then I met David and ended up with a Leica Q

2. What is your opinion of Leica in general?

My first thought is a prestige brand for the affluent.  In reality, it is much more than that. I see them as an extremely high-quality brand manufactured in Germany for the most part,  you have to pay for that labor and Leica is not a high-volume brand.  They need to charge that kind of money to stay in business.

I am lucky enough to have a Leica store near me and I have learned how much they do to promote up-and-coming photographers, free gallery openings, and photo walks and that is at the local level.  World wide they have awards to promote photographers no matter what brand they use. They look at photography as an art form and help to cultivate new photographers.

3. Why do you have that opinion?

On the built quality of Leica, all you have to do is pick one up.  They are solid and rugged. I could use my M10P to protect myself and still use it to take a photo of the attacker. You can still buy old M2 and earlier that still work perfectly well and they will service them.

Regarding fostering photographs look at the Leica Oskar Barnack Award or the countless events available on Eventbrite for free.

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As you can see, the price is what gets most people right away. To be fair to both the consumer and the manufacturer let’s take an honest look at what makes these cameras cost so much. I have been given a unique perspective to see both sides of the transaction event so to speak. For Leica I understand what they have done over the century of their operation as a camera manufacturer.

They were “first movers” in that they invented using 35mm movie projector film in a still frame camera. This gives them a market advantage of sorts… or it did… that is until Nikon released the SLR in 1959. The SLR changed the game, no longer did you worry about your camera getting out of calibration and the photos being out of focus as you are actually looking straight through the taking lens directly for your composition. A large portion of the world that was using Leicas at this point wanted this new technology and went over to Nikon and Canon (who saw the light and jumped into the SLR game as well as many others). Leica stuck to their roots though and this almost proved fatal by the 1970s.

They tried making an SLR in conjunction with Minolta but it was too little too late and the R series never did really take off even though they made them for over 20 years. Leica on the other hand, always stayed focused on the M system. They also spent a lot of time cultivating their target audience as well. But since their company could not employ large scale manufacturing and the mechanical complexity of the M system makes them costly with skilled labor to manufacture, they could never compete in the world of high volume, mass production like the big players. How do you sell something that by its very nature has to have a high retail price due to high fixed costs in manufacturing? Market to the wealthy is how… The mantra of “exclusivity has its price” is true and if you make low volume but yet high quality products you can market to a niche group like the wealthy. There is a reason people joking say Leica is the brand of dentists and lawyers. Because Leica realized they could not compete with Nikon and Canon on low price/features, they had to figure out where they fit in the photography space. This turned out to be in reportage and street photography mainly. This and the aforementioned exclusivity adds up to a potent mixture for a brand that is for the affluent.

The reasons for the cameras price is multifaceted and I am straight speculating here too. I am pretty sure that I am right though as I have worked in the field of manufacturing and selling of products. You see, first the cameras they make are basically like fine mechanical watches, in that they are hand assembled and tuned individually. All this meticulous labor runs the score WAY up. Especially when you consider that it takes a skilled craftsman to build one of these and not just someone off the street trailed to do an assembly line job. Henry Ford figured out that low skill labor can complete complex tasks if there is enough people to break down the job into small enough tasks. Problem with Leica is that they don’t have the business model or the sales volume to be able to setup this sort of operation, so they instead lean into the individual craftsman concept even harder.

Today though, you are starting to see a lot more people shooting on Leica cameras and it is because the world has improved (whether we like it or not, the industrialized “1st world countries” are, over all, wealthier than they have ever been). People have learned that they have enough disposable income to be able to get that M6 with the 35mm Summicrion now, and the do! I am starting to see more and more youtubers using Leica cameras…shoot, even good ole Pete has a Q2 now!

Now does this mean that people need to add one to their arsenal to be cool? No. Absoloutly not, they should use whatever makes them happy and gives them the results that they want. If this means shooting a Leica M11 with a 12,000$ Summilux lens, then you do you. If it means shooting on a Sony RX100, then that is the camera for you.

In the end Leica will never be a cheap camera system, nor will it ever have the bleeding edge features like Sony or Canon, but it will continue to serve a dedicated niche market that they have carefully cultivated over decades. For me, that fact alone makes them an awesome company. They are out there doing there own thing and really dont care about the rest of the market.