Dia de Los Muertos - Pilsen Chicago 2014

So here we are in January 2015 and I'm finally getting around to posting some shots from last years Dia de Los Muertos in Chicago.  There's a really great sense of community in Pilsen - the entire neighborhood comes out for the parade - which was preceded by a massive amount of face painting.  We were lucky that the weather cooperated - chilly but not extremely cold.  

Most of these shots were taken with the Zeiss 50mm Sonnar-C.  Normally I wouldn't try to shoot a fast 50mm lens wide open but decided to take a chance - I thought a smaller DoF would enhance and really isolate the face painting.

Maxwell Street Market - January 2015

The market was a little sparse this weekend - usually things don't start hopping until spring.  But Maxwell Street is open year round so there's always something going on.  This Sunday it was almost 40 degrees so I grabbed a couple of cameras and sprinted out the door.  Maxwell Street is pretty much my default go-to location for street shooting, there's always a broad & diverse group of people and you can usually find a few characters as well.  

Two things to note - I finally got around to using my 21mm f/3.4 Super Angulon on the Monochrom. The rear element on this lens sits very close to the sensor which means light will hit the corners at an angle - causing corner softness and vignetting (and a red color cast if you're shooting digital color). I'm not terribly pleased with the results - the vignetting is a bit strong for my tastes.  But I don't have any other super wide lenses so I'll just have to make do or use it exclusively on film.

Point 2 - I'm super in love with the Ricoh GR.  As a street shooting pocket sized camera it has no equal.  I just put it in 2m snap focus mode at f/8 - everything from 1 meter to infinity is in focus so taking shots is instantaneous. And image quality is just incredible when you're shooting f/8 and ISO 200.  

Nikkor 5cm f/1.4 Images

I've recently taken to shooting this lens on a Leica body using an Amedeo Nikon S to screwmount adapter.  Prior to that, the lens was used exclusively on a Nikon S2 - another interesting camera body that I'll review soon (having used it for 3 years now, it's due for some comments).  

The adapter itself has the build quality you'd expect if you were going to use it on a Leica - pure metal and impeccably finished.  Since the 5cm f/1.4 is basically just an optical unit, the Amedeo adapter provides a mount plus a focusing helicoid.  It also has the outer bayonet (used by the 35mm f/2.5 & 85mm f/2 PC, among others).  My current plans are to use this on a screwmount Leica IIIF along with my M bodies, so I bought the screwmount version which I then couple with a LTM-M adapter (he also sells adapters that are native M mount).

My overall feeling on this lens is that it runs loops around the 50mm f/1.5 Summarit (another comparable lens from the same time period).  Of course, my Summarit has a good amount of haze and some cleaning marks - a mint copy might be a better lens.  Wide open, images are rendered with a pleasing "roundness" - stop it down and it becomes as sharp as any other lens.  This is a low contrast lens - great for using with the Monochrom sensor as the RAW files give you a great palette to start postprocessing with.  

I'll continue to update this post as I continue to use this lens:

Nikon S2 - Fuji Acros 100

Nikkor 5cm f/1.4 on Monochrom

Nikon S2 - Fuji Acros 100

Nikon S2 - Centuria 400 converted to B&W

Roy Hargrove Quintet - Jazz Showcase Chicago

These were taken during the Sunday matinee at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Every year Roy Hargrove sets up camp for a year end "residency" - this year from December 26 all the way out to January 4. With at least 2 shows per night, that's a lot of time for the band to  hit its stride.  Overall, a great show and I can't wait to see him again next December.

These shots were taken with the E-M1 and Ricoh GR. The Olympus is outstanding for concerts - autofocus is very snappy, there's no mirror slap to distract the audience or band, and the 75mm 1.8 really lets you get in close to the action.  My biggest problem stemmed from my own stupidity - I had the OM setup for JPG shooting instead of RAW.  The noise reduction applied to JPGs is pretty heavy handed - the 2nd shot below is with the 12-40mm 2.8 lens and the ISO bumped up to 3200.  If you zoom in 100% the noise is pretty awful, details are smeared and the noise looks "clumpy".  If I had left the camera on RAW then I could have used Lightroom's NR sliders and gotten a much better result.

The GR is (not surprisingly) not ideal for concert photography especially when light levels start dipping down.  The 2.8 max aperture means that you're shooting at ISO 2500-3200 which isn't where I want to be with this camera.  I find ISO 1600 to be really nice with RAW and 3200 starts to fall apart, especially in the shadows.  

E-M1 with 75mm 1.8

E-M1 with 12-40mm f/2.8

Ricoh GR

Ricoh GR 

Olympus 45mm f/1.8