Last Bloom of Camellias

Typically, we get the last flowers from our Camellia shrubs, here in Southern Califiornia, towards the end of January. Here are two photos showing the last blooms taken with my favorite lens - the 31mm Limited. Photos shot RAW at f/6.7 and ISO 400 with the K20D. Images processed by CS3 with no post processing. The 31mm is one of my "must-have" lenses due to it's very accurate and well behaved handling of colors. The flowers are sharp with great color and not overly saturated. Just as the blooms appeared to my eye when taking the photograph.

Tempest in a Teapot?

I recognized that by posting my purchase and comments on the Leica D-Lux 4 might stir the simmering juices of the cauldrons (dictionary definition: "a large vessel used for boiling") which we affectionately refer to as web forums today. Of the various comments I've read so far, Richard Day's reaction is the sanest and most level-headed, to which I owe him a thank you.

Obviously this is my personal post, but I recognize I have to carefully navigate between my personal observations and what might be construed as representative of the thoughts or views of the company. To this end, and not because I was told to do this, I thought I'd share some comments about my D-Lux post and respond to some of your reactions.

To those that say it's incredible (or stupid or worse) that I would acknowledge buying another brand camera, please refer to the camera market chart above. As you can see, the D-Lux falls into a category that we do not participate in. Of course when I'm surfing or near the water, I carry and thoroughly enjoy my W60. Like wise, as you all know from my posts here, I'm very active testing and shooting with our SLR's.

For those of you that are old enough to remember film, my fascination with the D-Lux 4 is very analagous to those days when many working photographers, regardless of whether they shot with Canon, Nikon or Pentax SLR's, also owned a Contax T2 or T3 for those times they wanted to travel light yet still have a camera that gave them very high-quality results.

As I have been active with this blog for several years, I would assume most of you recognize that being an active photographer, I also view it my responsibility to be the "voice of the customer" and really try to understand what drives our passion for photography, as well as truly understand our wants and needs. With this in mind, it's incredibly important for me to understand and evaluate what other companies are doing in the photography market. By acknowledging that I am now shooting with the D-Lux should actually be viewed as a positive. Would you rather have me cloistered in a dark room oblivious to the trends in the market and the direction that our competitors are heading? By comparison, I heard that when Honda starting shipping the Accord, General Motors forbid any of the senior management to drive or own this car. In hindsight, it's clear someone in Detroit should have had their eyes wide-open.

I also realized that my desire for a high-quality compact camera that offered near-SLR quality was probably shared by a few other Pentaxians. After posting this blog entry on the Leica forum of dpreview, it was interesting that several folks have already bought the D-Lux 4 or the Panasonic equivalent LX3. If there was any method to my madness in publishing this post, could it be that I was just throwing a lure out on the calm waters of lake pentax to see if anyone took the bait, or what your interest in this type of product would be?

In closing, I hope that a few of you now recognize the "intent" of my post about the D-Lux 4. At the very least, give me credit for being a "photographer first" and recognize that this passion and knowledge is not necessarily a bad thing if you are in the business of making cameras :-)

Leica D-Lux 4

My 42 year old Leica M4 has a new companion to keep it company in my original Domke bag!

I travel often on business and prefer to carry a minimum of gear. The last few months I've obsessed about having a compact camera with SLR-like image quality and sharp optics.

A week ago, I finally decided to buy the Leica D-Lux 4. Thanks to the great service at B&H, I ordered the camera on Wednesday night, had it in my hands Friday and then promptly flew off to Japan last Sunday. I didn't have much time to play with my new camera, but was able to spend an hour and half walking around with the camera Friday morning near the Ikebukuro station, in Tokyo. By coincidence, they were having some type of disaster readiness drill, so it gave me an interesting event to photograph with the D-Lux 4. While I always shoot in RAW, I don't believe CS3 supports the camera yet, so I had no choice but to test out the camera's JPEG setting.

Overall, I'm really impressed with this little gem. It's truly pocketable, the interface and controls are well thought out. I really like the focus option allowing you to move the point to any part of the scene, thus eliminating the need to focus and recompose. The lens is very sharp and distortion seems to be very well controlled. And, I was pleasantly surprised with the JPEGs from this first outing. Colors are spot on, with a pleasing and natural saturation.

While there are a few things about the D-Lux 4 (like the easily turned Mode dial) that could be better, this camera comes very close to satisfying my desire for a compact camera featuring high quality optics and manual controls that I can slip into my briefcase and take with me anywhere.

Note 1: All photos shot in Standard JPEG setting. I kept ISO at 200 or 400. Aperture varied between f/4.0 and f/5.6. Exposures ranged from 1/20 to 1/200. Except for minor cropping on three photos, and setting the black and white points (levels) using CS3, I didn't do any post processing to these JPEGs.
Note 2: The last photo is not part of the disaster readiness exercise, but I thought it was a nice example of the sharpness of the D-Lux 4 lens. This is a store display for an opticians shop near my hotel.
Note 3: Click on any of these thumbnails to see a larger file.

Downtown Golden, CO

Quite a few Pentaxians have emailed me asking to see where Pentax's US headquarters are. After a storm on Monday, today dawned sunny and clear. Since my condo is in downtown Golden, I took a few shots from my balcony with the K20D and the DA 35mm Macro lens. My corner condo view is pretty limited, but I can see our office which is only a few hundred yards away, and makes for a pretty easy commute. I also have a nice view and two minute walk to one of my other favorite places...Starbucks.

Beach Walk with DA* 300mm

We took pretty much the same walk on the Coastal Trail in San Clemente today, as we did a few days ago. Only difference was today was warm and sunny, and I brought along the DA* 300mm lens versus the DA* 200mm lens. All DA* 300mm samples here shot with the K20D and processed with CS3.

Granddaughter's First Horseriding Lesson

We gave our granddaughter, who's 10, horseriding lessons for her Christmas present. Today, we took her to the stables in San Juan Capistrano, CA for her first lesson. I took along the K20D and the DA 18-250 to capture a few photos of her first ride.