The Lucky Photographer

One well-armed photographer!

That's about $200,000 worth of cameras and lenses, give or take. It's also about 1% of all the Leica S2's in the United States. The occasion was a photo expedition to take pictures of fall foliage in New England organized by Leica dealer and photo blogger David Farkas of Dale Photo & Digital. Participants who didn't have their own S2's were loaned one for the week by David. Thanks to Jack for forwarding this.

Mike

P.S. And speaking of wretched excess, at least the cameras above are eminently useful. Here's something for people who truly have everything, and truly can't figure out any better use for their money. Thanks to Ken for this.

Follow-up by Jack: "The subject of this photo is Josh Lehrer. His worry regarding this shot was not dropping the cameras, but getting the right camera back to the correct owner. His quick solution was to take a photo of each owner with their individual camera as they handed their camera to Josh. After the photo of Josh was taken, Josh then pushed  the review button on each camera as he removed it from his neck and he quickly determined who was the rightful owner. It's a useful technique to remember when ten people are handing you their cameras for you to take a picture of something for them.

"It was interesting to learn what these S2 owners used for a backup camera when his/her camera was hung around someone else's neck. Everyone but one reached for their cell phone to photograph Josh. David Farkas used Josh's Leica D-Lux."

Follow-up by Josh Lehrer: "Before we left for this trip, I had this picture in mind. I don't think there is a limit to the amount of 'photo geek' pictures of myself that I could have. And do not fear, no S2's were harmed in the making of this photograph. Although my neck is a tad sore...."

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Jeff]

Photo blogger and Leica camera salesman, David Farkas. Good job regarding the latter.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

"...pictures of fall foliage in New England.."

Awk! Surely the pinnacle of the cliché pyramid! Shame on you for even mentioning it in the wake of your resent "Eschew!" missive, regardless of the jewlery!

;-}

[Robert Roaldi]

That makes my neck hurt.

[Patrick Perez]

Mike, I imagine you'd be paralyzed with fear if you had 7 S2s around your body (or even 1). Enjoy the A900!

Patrick

[Mike Johnston]

Ken,
I don't know why you say that. I've even published some pictures of fall foliage here on TOP. I demonstrated that the Sony A900 does a much better job of showing fall foliage than the Nikon D3, remember?

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2008/11/the-sony-a900-f.html

Mike

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Aww, Mike, I'm pulling your neckstrap a bit! But in doing so I am rolling over that "cliché" ground again. Who doesn't like to look at pretty fall foliage? Who can resist taking a shot at such chromatically exuberant scenes with a camera...any camera?! I'm preparing to head to Japan for a while where I expect to get my first encounter with that country's fall color in the Kyoto area. Yes, I'm sure I'll snap away!

But it really is ... you know.

[Bill Rogers]

Well, we have beautiful "dead leaves" (as the French say) here in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, and I'm heading out to take some black & white photos of them. That should eschew a cliché or two.

[dale]

Cliche?
on Monday I drove from my house in coastal Maine to a jobsite in Middlebury Vermont and back. 508 miles 11 hours of windshield time through fall foliage prime territory in ME,NH and VT. Had my D300 and a reasonable complement of lenses. Only shot I took was with my Canon IVSB 50mm and Tri x. ..

[Rob Atkins]

Nice Halloween costume.

[Mark Kinsman]

Where is that line drawn for cliche'? .... at some point we could say that everything has been photographed...I hope I never reach that line, it would then seem that there is no longer a point to making images...
As to the S2's. ... That allota dough to be slinging around ones neck. Hope they didn't get dinged in the process. Maybe there will bea run on slightly used S2's soon ;-)

[David Bostedo]

The most wretched thing about that Sigma? The wood veneer isn't even done well! It's not like they actually made a wooden body - it's just glued on on top of the usual plastic body!

To me it looks like one of those cell phone cases you slide your phone into to protect the corners. They usually cost about $15.

[John H. Maw]

So is he now selling a few ex-demo S2s at a knock down price I wonder.

[Kalli]

It's a crying shame that you can't mount a gold Vivitar lens on that woody Sigma.

[Roger Bradbury]

I bet that wooden bodied Sigma takes grainy photos!

[The Lazy Aussie]

Re link: I believe the wood also covers a layer of snakeskin.

[MarkB]

Re: "wretched excess" - I think the S2 and the D1 fall into the same category of not enough for way too much... at least for me.

And Re: "the Sony A900 does a much better job of showing fall foliage than the Nikon D3"

Damn the clichés, the (forlorn and not-to-be-talked about on TOP) Pentax K5 does a great job of capturing the burgeoning fall colors in Ontario... when popped on a pole and processed until it looks as brilliant as it did to my eyes.

[Kim Brebach]

Mike, I know this is nit-picking but I also know you care about your writing (or take care). There's no apostrophe in Leica 'S2s' (the plural). There is an apostrophe in lines like 'the Leica S2's attributes are many ...'

Enjoy your writing, happy to write you a guest piece on the gradual destruction of the English language by the gadget brigade.

[Mike Johnston]

Kim,
Technically, no, there's not. But it gives rise to problems with alphanumerical nomenclatures because the plural s can seem to be part of the designation. For instance, when I write D3s, do I mean the Nikon D3s or more than one Nikon D3? For that reason I make an exception in the case of these designations and use an apostrophe to set off the plural s. An ugly solution, I know, but I prefer clarity to elegance.

Mike

[Ed G.]

Ah, the wooden Sigma. At this point I think they're just trolling us.

[Stan B.]

How much do the lens hoods cost?

[Mike Johnston]

Stan,
Assuming the four lens hoods you can see in the picture are all the 12401 hood for the 70mm Summarit-S normal lens, then the B&H price for the four of them is $799.80, not including taxes or shipping.

Mike

[Emmanuel Orain]

With that many photographers around, and that many cameras around (granted, no S2 since they were all in the picture) ... how come it is such a bad picture ?
I mean, I recognize that it is a "fun" shot ... but why not make a good one at that ?

How is it that when taking "fun" shots, photographers stop there, just at the "fun" part ? How come they (usually) do not go all the way and make a "nice and fun" picture ? ot is it an oxymoron ?
Is there an inherent contradiction ? I wonder ...

[Stan B.]

Interesting. I thought the lens hoods would actually cost more- only twice the cost of my Tiltall.

Plastic or metal?

[Allen George]

Emmanuel:

I'm surprised - I didn't think that this picture was bad. It won't go down in the annals of great photography, but...most pictures don't. That said, what exactly is bad about it?

[Mike Johnston]

Allen,
The color, for one thing. The JPEG Jack sent me was essentially uncorrectable. I did a lot of correction on it just to make it look halfway neutral. I'm sure whoever has the original file (Josh?) could do a better job.

Mike

[Chris Y.]

Great time to get up to vermont right now - it's kind of two cliches for one. Foliage, (so-so this year) but also miles of "Ruin Porn" from hurricane Irene. I was up there last week - still massive amounts of earthwork going on, lovely riverside houses rduced to matchwood one after the other, and a lot of post-traumatic stressed people with terrifying stories to tell. Just pick a road by a river and drive up it....

[Tom Duffy]

The wooden Sigma SD1 makes no less sense than the factory production model at it's pricepoint.

[MIkal W. Grass]

Emmanuel,

Crap in, crap out. Even with an S2.

[Emmanuel Orain]

Ok ... maybe the word "bad" was a bit vague. What I meant by this is that it looks like these snapshots taaken at parties, that you can see so often on Facebook (for instance)

I know perfectly well that most pictures will not make it to the annals of great photography.
I think my comments was more a general comments about the fact that I find it "sad" that photographers so often do not take the few seconds it would only take to make a "better" picture than just taking a quick snapshot. I can easily understand that from people not so much interested in photography, "casual shooters" if I may say
... but from people who are involved enough in photography as this group seems to be, I find that it is as if they suddenly forgot that they are photographers, just because this is a fun shot.

... but there's nothing inherently "bad" about this speficic picture, I fully agree with you in that regard.