Golly gee, guess who finally got out of his winter rut?

After months of navel gazing, lens fixation, and a general malaise, I finally got out of the house this morning and took the camera for a drive around town. Wow. Turns out it's beautiful out there.

These panoramas are a new thing for me. And, much as I hate to admit it, it's all thanks to technology. Time was that stitching together digital images required specialized software, and the results were still kinda iffy.  Nowadays Lightroom just takes care of things for you, and the results are really spectacular.

It's not apparent viewing these images on the blog, but they are comprised of up to seven 50 megapixel files each, resulting in .dng's as large as 900MB. The detail is fantastic. 

Great. Got over any urge to purchase lenses, and now I *really* want to consider a bigger printer. Stay tuned. :)

Two posts ago I referenced an article on dearsusan.net by my friend Pascal, where he discussed his recent platform switch to the estimable [and uber-expensive] Hasselblad.

As I sat house-bound and cabin-feverish his discussions had me thinking of past loves. The quirky primes of my misspent youth. The Leicas, Zeiss T*'s, Bronica-mounted Nikkors, the Schneiders on Koni-Omega Rapid bodies. The list is goes too far back in the mists of time to recall.

So as I said, I did the obvious. I re-purchased a Voigtlander 20mm lens I'd loved in a past life. I've posted about this. I'd owned it, loved it, sold it in a purge, and missed it.

How did it go? Not well. The lens was great at first, and there was a lovely reunion. Then the aperture blades started sticking, error codes popped up, and that was that.

Buying and selling through Amazon is bittersweet. As a seller you accept predatory pricing; and unwarranted, at times, returns. OTOH as a buyer you have the full faith and credit of the corp. That's what happened here. The lens failure was within their 30-day window, and I returned the lens and received a full refund.

Full. As in Full Stop. Done. 

Repeat after me. The. Lens. Doesn't. Matter.

​The photos above were taken with a 30-yr old Canon 20-35 zoom. Film era. No longer supported on their site, nor recognized in Lightroom. I love it. It's fine. More than fine. It's perfect.

Get out and shoot. Practically any lens and camera you have up to your eye will produce a good image if the scene is worthy.

That's where you come in. Get out there, and put yourself in front of some great images. The hardware will take care of the rest.

We here in Maine are coming down with a bad case of Spring [or 'Cabin'] fever. We can feel that Spring is just about to be sprung.

Temps over the weekend reached into the 50'sF and the annual great melt is underway. It's still below freezing most nights, so we have a ways to go, but we can feel it coming.

On Saturday we cranked up some jazz, got the wood stove blazing, and opened up one of the French doors to the backyard for the afternoon to let in some fresh air. It was exhilarating.

My son enjoyed it so much that he asked to do it again today. But we only got to 33F, so the window has passed. 

Photo/technical notes: These images were taken with my 'poor man's Leica Q'. aka my Canon with a 20mm f3.4 Voigtlander manual focus lens. It's not the fastest lens, and not the fastest to use either. I'm still re-learning the predictive manual focus skills of my youth. The shot of him dancing is not as sharply in focus as it could be, and the shutter speeds as the light faded got pretty long. But I really enjoy the image quality of this setup, and you'll probably see a lot more of it in weeks to come.

Funny thing. I owned this lens for a while up until two years ago, and took many of the photos on this site with it. At that point I went through a cleansing, I've spoken of it often, where i came to the realization that 'equipment doesn't matter', and so forth. With this in mind I got rid of all the oddballs in my kit and attempted to focus on a few core, flexible, pieces of kit. But I missed this lens for it's unique qualities, and jumped at the chance to re-aquire one.

Hmmmm. I remember an old axiom that said something like 'If you love something, set it free. If it returns, it's yours forever.' Guess that's apt here. :)

You'd never get away with telling a Leica or Hasselblad owner that 'the equipment doesn't matter'. Maybe they have a point. I do enjoy this particular lens quite a bit. We'll see what else, if any, returns to the flock.

I have no one to blame but Pascal. 

Oh, OK...and me.

Well, me.

I've been re-evaluating my position lately. On many things, which is healthy. But on my previously held discovery that 'equipment doesn't matter' in particular.

I've re-purchased an old love...a Voigtlander 20mm f3.4 Skopar. 

It's been fun. The way this lens handles light is amazing. Stellar. Liquid?

Not sure what words to use, but I love it.