When I bought a used Leica SL(601) recently instead of the newer SL2 , it was mostly because I didn’t want to spend $6,000 on a camera that I wasn’t sure I’d love. But it was also partly because I really don’t need a 47-megapixel sensor. Who’s got the time and space to manage 80MB per image photos?
I’ve had the SL for a month and that’s long enough to know that I love it. It’s big but not too big. It’s an absolute tank, build-wise, and it’s fast and fun to use. I’m happy. I can shoot my M-mount Leica lenses on it and am finding it even easier to focus them on the SL than I do on the M10-P. So everything’s good then. I wish it had IBIS, though.
And then, just this morning, Leica announced the SL2-S . The SL2-S is, from my standpoint, an updated SL that adds everything in the SL2 except the giant sensor. The SL2-S has a 24 Megapixel sensor, which is a sweet spot for me. It also improves focusing, low-light capabilities, and of course includes IBIS. In other words, it’s exactly what I wanted in the SL2. And to top it off, it’s more than $1,000 cheaper than the SL2.
Apparently the SL2-S is being marketed as a hybrid still/video powerhouse. I guess the video features are great, but I don’t care as much about that. I care about speed, handling, image quality, and reasonable file sizes. Proper video is a nice bonus, though.
I’ve already sold my beloved M10-P and preordered an SL2-S. I have no idea when it’ll arrive, but I can hardly wait.
mi·nu·tia (noun) – a minute or minor detail—usually used in plural
I like the word “minutia”. I’ve been thinking about the various little things that happen throughout a typical day as daily minutiae. Things like “Paid the gas bill” or “Had a minor headache” or “Changed oil in the car”. It’s all trivial and boring, but I find that I value having a record of these things.
But where to record all of this minutiae? If you know me, you know that I can never settle on one single note-taking app or system. Looking for a “better way” is what I like doing, even though it becomes frustrating when I deadlock over the decision. And I’m deadlocked right now about where to keep records of the “minute or minor details” of my day.
It’s not a problem of not having a good place to keep things, it’s that there are too many good places I could keep things. Here are the current contenders.
Tinderbox
Oh my, how I love Tinderbox . It’s one of the most powerful and flexible note-taking tools available. Tinderbox is where I started recording the day’s minutiae back in 2006. I maintained a Daybook file for years and it was wonderful.
But at some point things like iOS and Linux became interesting to me, and since Tinderbox is unabashedly Mac-only, I drifted away from it. Lately though, I’ve removed iOS and Linux from the table and that puts Tinderbox right back in the running.
Day One
Day One is a fantastic journal app for Mac and iOS. I’m not consistent with it, but I do try to record one or two entries with photos each week. I love the book printing features. I’m just not sure it’s suitable for all the little bits and bobs of the day.
TiddlyWiki
Ah, TiddlyWiki . Hidden beneath your cute name is a very capable and flexible tool for keeping notes. Add to that the fact that it’s all done in a single, free, local-first HTML file and you’ve got a strong case for use as a place for record-keeping. Of course I use it for my public wiki at rudimentarylathe.org
Roam
A late-comer to the game, Roam Research is amazing and game changing. I’d say it has single-handedly re-invigorated the entire genre of note-taking apps. It took many of the ideas of Org mode and TiddlyWiki, added proper outlining, and mashed them up into something new and very cool. Roam is almost a perfect solution for recording minutiae. Except that it costs $15/month and is entirely cloud-based and proprietary. See, the thing with record-keeping is that it’s meant to be useful not just right now, but forever. Roam is fantastic for the now, but is risky for the longer term. This may disqualify it.
Org mode
As wonderful and powerful as Org mode is, I think my years-long fascination with Emacs may be coming to a close.
TheBrain
TheBrain was not a consideration for note-taking prior to the recently introduced version 12. With TheBrain 12, notes are not only a first-class citizen, but they offer many of the features of Roam (minus outlining).
Is that a great list or what?! Can you see why I might be struggling with which to choose?
I’m currently thinking of going with either Tinderbox or TiddlyWiki.
For the past few days, I’ve been putting everything into my Rudimentary Lathe TiddlyWiki . It may be a bit too much information to share publicly, but I’m interested in the whole “public self-modeling” thing right now, so it works as part of the larger experiment. TiddlyWiki is also the only valid contender that is free and readable, as-is, forever. By “forever” of course I mean “for a long time”.
Using Tinderbox would be ideal. It’s a great outliner, and I love outlines. Beyond that it pays dividends with fancy maps and summaries so with a small amount of extra work, I get fun and useful output. Tinderbox is not free, however, but it is not (yet) subscription based. I’ve been using it for more than a decade, and the author doesn’t appear to have any intention of stopping development any time soon. Also, I usually export my notes every month to PDF files, so that gets me the necessary permanence.
I’m going to use both for a while, side-by-side, and see if the choice becomes more apparent.
Roam is great and I love it. I’ve tried everything else, and nothing beats Roam for easily taking, linking, and re-using notes. I’m still using a private Roam database for work projects and CRM-type stuff, and it’s great for that.
Roam is efficient, fast, clever…and boring. Easy isn’t the same as fun.
TiddlyWiki is fun. It’s playful. I can’t really explain it, but creating new “tiddlers” and messing around with customization and finding new organizing principles is actually enjoyable in TiddlyWiki. I am probably one of only a handful of people who actually prefer the separate view and edit modes.
So, I’m going to return to using TiddlyWiki instead of Roam for my daily notes and scraps. My wiki is still at rudimentarylathe.org , which is a thousand times more fun as a URL than https://roamresearch.com/#/app/jackbaty am I right? I expect Roam will offer custom domains at some point, but so for they don’t.
I feel that TiddlyWiki’s local-first, single HTML file, free and open-source approach is better suited as a place to do “public self-modeling” for the long term.
When I first saw the Leica SL, I was amazed by its brutalist audacity. Coming from the M series, this was not what I pictured when thinking “Leica”.
Leica SL, the brutalist beauty
And yet the SL appealed to me immediately. It was powerful, flexible, beautiful, and very, very expensive. In fact, it was so expensive that I eventually stopped thinking about it. Then, when the SL2 came out last year it all came rushing back.
So, after five years, I bought one.
This came only a month after I purchased my dream digital camera, the Leica M10-P . Why would I do that? Well, as much as I adore the M10-P; its size, classic design, build quality, and optical rangefinder, I’m finding that I struggle with focusing. Rangefinder focusing has, for years, been my favorite way to manually focus a camera. Snapping those two offset squares together was fast and accurate, regardless of lighting. My eyes must be getting old because I now have trouble doing it.
When talking about the SL, people tend to talk about three things: Size, price, build quality, and the viewfinder.
One of the first things people mention is the price. OK, sure, when new, it was crazy expensive. Fine, but I paid only about 1/3rd of the original price, so let’s move on.
Leica doesn’t build cameras to a price point. They build them to a standard. A very high standard. This, then, is part of why they’re so expensive. And the minute you pick up the SL you can feel it. It is a brick. Solid, heavy, dense, and confidence-inspiring. Machined from solid blocks of aluminum, the camera feels amazingly well-built. Every control feels precise and just right. I value these things highly in a camera.
The SL is weather sealed, which is important to me, even though I rarely find myself needing it. I can’t explain it, but knowing I can use the camera in freezing or rainy weather is comforting, even if I hardly ever do it.
How about that electronic viewfinder? The internet was right, it’s awesome. For a long time, I was dead set against using an EVF. Then, they got better. And better. The EVF on the SL is so good that I barely notice it’s an EVF, except that it shows exact content and exposure of the image I’m about to make. It’s great. I thought the viewfinder on the Leica Q was good, but this is even better.
An EVF like the one on the SL makes manual focusing easy. This is awesome because I have a few nice Leica M-mount lenses that work perfectly on the SL using an adapter. Using M lenses on the SL seems to be as popular as using native lenses. After a day of testing, I can see why. The big, bright viewfinder and focus peaking is a combination practically purpose-built for it.
Let’s talk about the size. The SL is a big, heavy camera.
Here it is next to the M10-P
Leica SL and Leica M10-P
No doubt about it, it’s big, but put an M-mount lens on it and things get much more manageable.
SL with adapted Summilux-M 50mm
For me, there are two modes when it comes to taking photos; I’m either out specifically to take pictures or I’m not. If I’m out to take pictures, the size of the camera does not matter. I might feel differently if I was into street photography or planned to hike miles uphill for landscapes, but I normally do “editorial” type photography or portraits. Camera size isn’t a meaningful factor for me. If I’m not out specifically to take photos, I put the little Ricoh GRIII in my pocket.
Aside from my focusing problems with the M10-P, I bought the SL because I wanted something more flexible. And I still wanted a Leica, for all the reasons above.
Sometimes, I want more than what the M cameras can do. You know, fancy things like focus automatically and use zoom lenses. For this, I bought one autofocus zoom lens, the Sigma 24-70 f/2.8 Art lens and it seems fine as an all-purpose lens, especially considering the cost compared to the other options.
For specific things like portraits, I may consider one of the 85mm or 105mm L-mount options by Panasonic or Sigma. The Leica SL lenses are still way too expensive to consider, as lovely as they may be.
I’ve only had the SL for a couple of days, so it’s too soon to tell how well it will work in real life, but so far it’s everything I expected.
Prepare for an onslaught of dog photos, self-portraits, and snapshot of random objects around the house.
Film photography is a lot of work. Not so much the actual shooting part, that’s work no matter what the medium, but lately I find the rest of the process (developing, scanning, storing) to be more trouble than it’s worth.
Thing is, I enjoy spending time in the darkroom, processing film. It’s meditative; the perfect hobby for an introvert. I have various wonderful old cameras, which are often reason enough to shoot film. But is it worth the trouble?
If forced, I must admit that I like being seen as a “film photographer.” It makes me feel like I’m in a group separate from the masses. I like being an outlier.
The trouble, I’m finding, is that I don’t really like the results I’m getting. I’ve shot maybe 20 rolls of film this year and a couple dozen large format negatives. Not a ton, but I’ve gone through them and there are only a handful that I really like, and most of those I only like because of their filminess.
By “filminess” I mean grainy, blurred or otherwise odd in some way that screams “I’m not an iPhone photo!” Is that really the characteristic I’m going for?
I look at a lot of film photographs on social media. I’ve begun noticing that they’re often not very good. Aside from the fact that they were made on film, they’d be entirely forgettable. A lot of the images look like nothing more than an excuse to use a cool camera or a way to finish the roll.
In fact, this attitude is what I see in my photos, and I don’t like it.
As usual, I’m overthinking things, but the infrastructure I have amassed in order to ease the process of shooting film is ridiculous. If the results were better, I wouldn’t mind. I’m tired of getting to the end of the long, sometimes tedious and difficult process only to look at the images and think, “meh.”
Film photography is a wonderful hobby, but maybe I need a little break from it.
I’ve prided myself on my ability to shoot a Leica M3 or Hasselblad 500C/M with no meter, no auto-focus, and no auto-exposure. Who needs it? Real photographers certainly don’t! Plus, being fully mechanical means that the cameras require no batteries and should be repairable forever. It’s a badge of honor.
Except, and maybe I’m getting lazy in my old age, I’ve grown to like letting the camera do at least some of the work. In fact, I prefer it. They’ve gotten pretty good at it and if I’m honest they do things better than me most of the time.
I guess it depends on the camera. For example, the big 4×5 cameras are slow, deliberate beasts, so having to adjust things just so is part of the experience. On the other hand, when walking around with a digital or 35mm film camera, I want something fully automatic. Since most of the time I’m in walking-around mode, this means that most of the time I want to let the camera do the work.
The realization that I now prefer automation came to me after I bought the Leica M10-P. The Leica of course has a meter and aperture-priority exposure. But it needs to be focused manually. When I must manually focus, I love using the Leica’s rangefinder, but unless I’m range-focusing in bright light there’s no way I’m faster at it than I am with a modern auto-focus camera. Also, it takes two hands and sometimes it’s better when I can just lift a camera to my eye and press the shutter.
Manually focusing a camera is a pain I simply don’t feel like dealing with.
So, I’m finding that although I have my dream camera available, I most often pick up the little Ricoh GRIII. The Ricoh is much faster to use and, honestly, the images are comparable to the M10-P (shhhh, don’t tell anyone).
The same thing has been happening with film cameras. I stopped using the fully manual, no-meter-having Leica M3 and M4 and started using the M6. I wanted a built-in meter. Even more surprising is that lately I’ve been grabbing the big old Canon EOS-1v or Nikon F100 instead. Those cameras don’t have anything approaching the soul or joy of use of a Leica, but I kind of want to point and shoot and move on, ya know?
I don’t know if this slow drift away from manual cameras is simplyi a mood swing or if it’s permanent, but it’s changing how I think about shooting.
Here are my remaining 35mm SLR film cameras. Clockwise from front-left, they are.
Canon AE-1 Program. An AE-Program was my first real camera. I received one from my parents as a graduation gift. Today, though, it’s my least favorite. It just doesn’t feelgood to use.
Nikon F100. This might be the single greatest deal there is when it comes to film cameras. These are semi-professional, high-end cameras that sold for around $1,400 (In 1999 dollars. One would cost more than $2,100 today). These can now be found for under $300. Great cameras.
Canon EOS-1v. The 1v was the best film camera Canon ever made. Or will ever make. It’s a solid, water-resistant, workhorse brick of a camera. I think if I were forced to keep just one SLR this would be it (with the F100 a close second).
Nikon F3. In production for nearly 20 years, the F3 is was a professional staple for as long as any camera I can think of. Mine is in great shape and works well, but I’m not in love with it. I can’t put my finger on the problem, but I never seem to reach for it other than to be sure and run a roll or two through it each year.
Olympus OM-1n. What a wonderful little jewel this is. And by little I mean little. Just look at it compared to the others. My copy is interesting because it came in a box of gear I bought on Craigslist. It was all dented and bent and basically unusable. The guy I bought it from said that it had literally fallen into a volcano (he was a geologist). I had a local camera repair shop attempt to fix it, and they did. It works great still today. The OM-1n has one of the biggest, brightest viewfinders I’ve ever used. I love it. I wish it didn’t use mercury batteries, though. I’ll never get rid of this one. I used to have a couple of the later OM-2ns and often consider picking up another.
I’ve been thinking of selling some of them. Instead, I’ve been loading them up with various films and shooting with them. It’s been so much fun that I’ve changed my mind and I’ll be keeping everything. At least for now.
I have lots of film stored in my fridge. Some of it is very old. I’m determined to shoot it rather than throw it out, so I ran a roll of Ektar 25 through my Nikon F100.
Let’s just say the results were less than stellar.
Negative Lab Pro v2.2.0 | Color Model: Frontier | Pre-Sat: 3 | Tone Profile: LAB – Soft | WB: Auto-Neutral | LUT: FrontierNegative Lab Pro v2.2.0 | Color Model: Frontier | Pre-Sat: 3 | Tone Profile: LAB – Standard | WB: Auto-Neutral | LUT: FrontierNegative Lab Pro v2.2.0 | Color Model: Frontier | Pre-Sat: 3 | Tone Profile: LAB – Standard | WB: Auto-Neutral | LUT: Frontier
To be fair, this roll had expired nearly 25 years ago, so I wasn’t expecting much. Another thing I wasn’t expecting was that someone had already exposed about half the roll. It wasn’t me. I wondered why the number “13” was written on the leader. Now I know. They’d exposed 13 frames and then removed the roll from the camera.
The thing about shooting film is that even disasters like this can be interesting.
Gutenberg is powerful and useful for enabling those of us who don’t feel like working too hard to create decent-looking, complex, media-rich layouts. But, most of my posts are just an image with a paragraph or three of text. I don’t need a fancy, complex, block-based editor for creating those.
So what to do? There are some great options for creating posts right on my Mac and publishing to WordPress. I’ve used MarsEdit on and off for years. It’s great at what it does. It allows me to write and publish to WordPress from a solid, well-developed macOS app.
I’ve tried publishing using other writing tools on my Mac. For example, Ulysses is a lovely app and enables posting directly to WordPress. Well, that’s not exactly true, since for many of us hosting our own WordPress installations, there are things that can prevent xmlrpc from working, rendering Ulysses incapable of properly connecting to WordPress. There are workarounds, but I don’t feel like dealing with workarounds.
None of these tools, as good as they are, address my favorite thing about managing a blog with WordPress, and that is WordPress is a Typewriter. As I wrote then, the problem is that…
…creating and editing content is too far removed from the actual rendered page.
This applies to static sites as well as local tools for publishing to WordPress. I prefer to edit in place. I want to read over a post, find something I want to change, click “Edit”, type, and click “Publish”. Using local tools like Ulysses or MarsEdit or even plain ol’ Markdown files forces me to work “over here” when I’d rather work “right there”, if you know what I mean.
So, I just ignore the things I don’t like about Gutenberg and use it anyway. There are ways around it, but not using Gutenberg feels like swimming upstream and I don’t have the energy.
I sometimes use the Iceberg plugin, which is basically a wrapper that makes Gutenberg look and feel more sane…more like just writing text in an editor. But it’s still Gutenberg, and that’s going to have to be OK.
I hate scanning film negatives. Especially color film negatives.
Scanning software is universally atrocious to use. Getting good color from scanned film is such a hit-or-miss (mostly miss) proposition that I’d largely given it up.
Many people are moving from using film scanners (flatbed or dedicated) to “scanning” with digital cameras. I’ve been skeptical of this, but ever since the introduction of Negative Lab Pro it’s become more interesting. NLP makes it easy to get decent color from a digitally scanned negative.
To scan film using a camera, you need a copy stand to hold the camera, a lightbox or other bright, even light source, a macro lens, and something to hold the negatives.
I’ve been using my Fuji X-T3, 7Artisans 60mm Macro, Kaiser Slimlite, and the MK1 from Negative Supply . This all worked pretty well, but was limited to scanning 35mm film. I also shoot 120 and 4×5. Putting together a kit for every format using the pricey Negative Supply gear would run me well over $1,000. More like $1,699 for the pro kit .
I started looking around for something a little more reasonable and found the Skier Sunray Copy Box 3 . The kit for 35mm, 120, and 4×5 costs $299, so I took a chance and ordered one.
My scanning station looks like this…
Skipping to the chase, the Sunray box works great. The light source is ridiculously bright, allowing me to stop down and keep a fast shutter speed to avoid any shake. The holders are easy to handle and do a good job of keeping film flat. I was able to digitize a roll of 35mm film in less than 10 minutes.
My workflow for this is a little convoluted, since I use Capture One Pro for editing but NLP requires Lightroom Classic. I import the “scans” into Lightroom, crop, and convert in NLP, save TIFF copies of the edited RAW files, then move them into my C1 library for finishing. I’m still working on making this more efficient, but I’m getting the hang of it so it gets easier every time.
If you are looking for a (relatively) inexpensive way to scan film negatives using a digital camera, the Skier Sunray Copy Box 3 is a very good option.
Your host, Jack Baty
I write about technology, photography, software, analog tools, etc. | More...
