Some Leica Testing

Hobbies. I guess if I have any hobbies than taking pictures must be one of them? And, truth be told, it's not so much "taking pictures" as "taking pictures with a Leica." I snuck into Leica ownership via craiglist and great deals on barely used second hand equipment (shoutout to my amazing dealer Ken Hansen—google him if you're in the market yourself). But last month I had a couple of chances to try out some first hand Leica goods firsthand. 

First, there was this photo expo at the Javitts Center where Leica had a booth and was very patient with everyone asking to try out all their different lenses and cameras. The first one I tried out was their 21mm Summilux f/1.4, a very fast very wide lens I have been curious about for such a long time even though I have a hard time filling the frame with just my 28mm lens. None of these pictures are going to be too interesting since I was constrained to the booth area for taking them and Square Space doesn't let you click on pictures and make them bigger, but here they are.

After the Summilux I took a look at the smaller but slower 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar and got an interesting little lesson on zone focusing. It was little and handy and neat, I could see why you'd pick it over a monster like the 21mm if you didn't need the speed.

After shooting wide I tried out the 75mm f/2.4 Summarit and 75mm f/2.0 Summicron, I really liked the feel of the Summarit and, shooting at ISO 3200 in the convention center, didn't see much a difference in needing speed in that environment. I tell myself I'm good with lenses (I haven't bought one for over two years!) but if I "needed" another one, it might be a 75?

Summarit:

Summicron (missed focus a bit I'll admit):

After the 75's I dared to ask if I could try out the new-ish Summicron-APO 50mm f/2 ASPH, which so many people say is the most perfect lens ever made, a triumph of the most advanced possible lens design and engineering and ingenuity and etc. etc. to produce a lens that's a few impossible percentage points better than anything else out there. It makes me think of swimming where you'd work all season to improve your best time by less than a second. To my untrained eye, basically I couldn't tell any difference between it and my standard 50mm Summicron non-APO, non-ASPH with this first generic high-ISO picture 

BUT I was more impressed by this photo, the subject separation of my lens on the glass from the other lenses and (too bad you can't click to make this bigger) the incredible sharpness and clarity of the numbering on the barrel of my lens. Granted, I didn't try taking an identical picture with my lens afterwards, BUT it seemed impressive to me. I guess that's why the APO is $8000? YES, they just handed me an $8,0000 lens and let me mess around with it, but also, YES, Leica made an $8000 50mm f/2.0 lens. The price of perfection!

For the sake of attempts at a comparison, I then took this picture with my normal Summicron that I bought for a song off a guy that I met up with inside a Chase bank vestibule.

So that's all I've got right now from the world of the M. But a little while later I was informed that the Leica store was doing free one day try-outs of the SL, Leica's new pro mirrorless camera—something of a monstrous Sony A7r competitor, if you can compare it to anything. I was very excited for this opportunity (as I was two years ago when they lent me an M240, and now here I am shooting with an M240). They included a 24-90mm lens with the camera and, as I have NEVER shot with a zoom or auto focus, it was a weird reverse learning curve (since most people complain about the adjustment to using manual primes on an M after switching from their DSLR's or whatever) for me. Also, I had never carried such a heavy set up before, the body weighed just a little more than my M but the lens itself was something like two and a half pounds, bringing it to a total of 4 or 5 pounds for the whole system. I woke up sore after my first day's shooting, was not expecting that. Also, a lot of people make a big deal about the electronic viewfinder on the SL, saying it's the best and most lifelike they've ever used, but since I've never used an electronic viewfinder before, just the nice clear glass of my M, it sure seemed like looking through a computer to me! Still, the camera was fun. Would love to have a chance to shoot it with my M lenses (possible via an adaptor) or the 50mm f/1.4 they've got coming out for the SL next year.

Ok, here's a lot of pictures that chart my picking the camera up in Soho, walking east, then walking down through Chinatown to City Hall Park, then over to West Broadway, then through Times Square, then taking the camera to church, then walking around Lincoln Center and my neighborhood that night, then taking the camera down to the Met the next morning (Halloween morning, by the way) before returning it to the store in Soho.

Prague Reunion Weekend

At the beginning of November Jeff and Noelle were in town with young Benjamin and I met up with them at the Museum of Natural History.

So guess what? After the museum Ben and Noelle went to the airport but Jeff, Jeff stayed in New York. To party.

First we partied by walking to the river

Then we partied BIG time watching the last game of the World Series from Henry from swim team's restaurant, Hank's Juicy Beef. What a roller coaster! And what a win!

Then Thursday we woke up into that new world of Cubs being World Series champions and went and had lunch at White Gold, April Bloomfield's new UWS butcher shop/restaurant. If you're looking for a place packed with the worst and most obnoxious Upper West Side stereotypes imaginable at lunch time, may I suggest this establishment? My fancy chop cheese and roasted broccoli were pretty good, though. (And the bathroom had cool wallpaper)

Then we learned about the Ansonia Hotel and walked around Fairway 

Then we had to run back to the apartment because my friend, Jeff's former roommate Ryan, flew into town to participate in this long weekend adventure, too. But I don't have any more pictures until that night when we went to Famous Sichuan with ex-Nashvillain Matt. I love Famous Sichuan and it was a big hit with everyone else. Success! Also: the last time Jeff and Ryan and I had hung out was Jeff's wedding in Prague, so that's why I called this post "Prague Reunion Weekend." And also, clearly this all took place over well over a weekend. 

Friday we started off with lunch at Momofuku Ssam. I'm not crazy about their new barbecue-vibe lunch menu, but the classics are still classic and these new Korean ribs were dope. File this place under: "Visit for dinner" for the time being.

Then we went down to the Financial to look at where Jeff used to work and do a lot of walking around

Then it was dinner at the Chelsea Market (no pictures of that, apparently) and hit up the Whitney with Mattias. The portrait exhibit is sitll dope but I wish I had set aside more time for the videos exhibit

Saturday morning we saw Dr Strange with Jeff and then headed to Dumont Burger, followed with ample Brooklyn explorations

Now I'm getting confused, but I think these pictures are from Monday? I must not have taken an Sunday pictures? But here's Monday. We started off with slices from Patsy's, went to the UN, and walked around midtown a little before taking pictures inside a building lobby we weren't supposed to take pictures in. 

October Food was Carnitas

I did a nice amount of home cooking in October, but what turned everything upside down was my deciding to try out a carnitas recipe I found on seriouseats. Reading the recipe, I felt there was something going on there, so I decided to try it out. Maybe you saw my snapchat/Instagram story about it? Heavy production values there. 

As you may have seen in the video, just after I started roasting the pork, I got called into work. So I had to wait until the roasting was done, then I put the pork in the fridge to finish another day (the recipe said that would be ok).

The "another day" came that Saturday when Alexis and Angelique came over to help me finish the cooking and test what we wound up with. Here's the pork come out of the fridge. All I had to do was add the pork fat I had separated and held onto back to it and put it under the broiler and then, Wow. Things got serious.

I mean, maybe that looks burnt to you but actually it's just right.

There was a salsa verde recipe that came with the recipe but I used a different one from Alex Stupak's Taco cookbook that I had a hunch about. I was cooking on hunches all over the place.

And here's the spread, just before testing. But actually it really didn't need testing. I could have thrown it all out if my intent was really just to test it because it was 200% clear from just the smell that this recipe was dynamite and that the carnitas would be killer.

One taco of many many.

My helper guests. 9 months in my new apartment and finally having people over to eat!

Inspired and motivated by my success with the carnitas, the next morning I dared to cook chilaquiles from scratch from my leftovers. Those chips? I fried them out of my tortillas! They're not from a bag!

So, in conclusion: this carnitas recipe was great and is easy and makes the best carnitas imaginable. When I was in Utah this past week I whipped it up for Kristen's family and they were all nuts about it and then I brought it over to Grandma's the next day and she ate FOUR tacos. Four tacos! This pork is great! I'll make you a taco! Just ask!

Epilogue

I also wanted to show you these lentils I made, plus the Arby's pork belly sandwich, which was so good.