Small Cameras pt.2-Leica x1
When I finally won an eBay bid for my long-coveted Leica x1, when it arrived, after I finished marvelling at the packaging (what care, what consideration these people have) the first thing I did was to climb online and see if it was fake. Search: "Leica x1 counterfeit scam." Hmm. Nothing. But this camera is so light, surely it's a plastic knock-off of the dignified Leica of which I've dreamt. I snapped a picture of the desk in front of me. Hmm. Best picture I've ever seen. Not fake then. Or at least, a very, very good fake, featuring luxury optics that outperform any camera I've ever held.
It took me about two hours to love everything about this camera.
When I finally won an eBay bid for my long-coveted Leica x1, when it arrived, after I finished marvelling at the packaging (what care, what consideration these people have) the first thing I did was to climb online and see if it was fake. Search: "Leica x1 counterfeit scam." Hmm. Nothing. But this camera is so light, surely it's a plastic knock-off of the dignified Leica of which I've dreamt. I snapped a picture of the desk in front of me. Hmm. Best picture I've ever seen. Not fake then. Or at least, a very, very good fake, featuring luxury optics that outperform any camera I've ever held.
It took me about two hours to love everything about this camera. The leather strap (!) the camera comes with isn't adjustable, but it's the perfect length. I never wanted to mess with those silly plastic toggles on another camera again. I never wanted to be responsible for choosing a proper camera-hanging-from-the-shoulder-length. Above all, I never wanted to be weighed down with another clunky piece of kit again. Compared with this light little beauty, all other cameras seemed like carrying a laptop around one's neck. People walking aroudn with thier d5100's or whatever started to look awfully silly.
No viewfinder? A little ghetto, but that's okay, I thought, I'll just compose right here in this--wait, completely horrible LCD screen. Hmm. Back to the counterfeit theory. Leica is a terrific, and a terrifically arrogant company. They make dictatorial choices, which are admirable in thier audacity sometimes, and sometimes infuriating. They've decided, see, that people don't really look at images on the camera's LCD screen, or, they shouldn't be looking at images that way, so they've put a perfectly-functional, but woefully basic screen on a screamingly sharp piece of design; having maxed out the sensor quality (within reason) and lens quality, they've cut things that don't matter (in their estimation) so much. For more thoughts on the company's approach: its glories and attendant frustrations, check out my favorite camera review ever, or find this beautiful essay by Anthony Lane about the history of Leica Cameras, recollected later in Best American Essays 2008.
I had a great time making pictures with this device. I carried it everywhere, some days not clicking a single frame, and still not feeling bad about having toted it around due to its size, weight, and ergonomic reward. I was often frustrated with not being able to focus (the camera does a great job of focusing on its own, but I like to decide what's clear and what's not; plus, I'm faster) but all frustrations melted with the easy intuitive menu, the simple button placement (everything I need in a click, or turn of the smart metal wheel atop the camera), and big, bright files (if occassionally over-saturated colors).
Self. Photo by Amber Willett. Taken with Leica x1.
I had to sell it in the end, because I had to feed my family, and because it can't make videos. I don't know anything about these things, whether video would be hard to impliment, or whether it's a simple software add that Leica doesn't deign to grant because they're being purists. Either way, I'm often called upon to make little videos of dance performances, or poetry readings, and I can't very well have a house full of tech equiptment to accomplish tasks that an iPhone can handle. I miss it though. I sympathize with camera critic Steve Huff, who loved his Leica x1, then sold it, then bought it back after a year because its magic--and that's really what it seems like--called back to him even over the twenty cameras he'd had in between. I may just re-buy one myself when I'm in the position to, unless I find an unbeatable deal on the nearly-identical-but-for-the-added-possiblitiy-of-an-EVF Leica x2.
Small Cameras pt.1-Fuji x100
I haven't had a proper camera since the digital revolution made my years as film photography student seem quaint, like minoring in tannery, or taxidermy. Granted, there is still great work being done in film, and I'm not sure that even the best digital cameras match it yet--though they're close--but it still feels a little funny having been in likely the last class to learn hand-processing not as some retro-choice, but as the only option for aspiring professionals, just as it must've felt when the French perfected a county-wide canal system just in time for the automobile to render that method of goods transport adorable and less cutting-edge than they imagined and budgeted for.
Since I'm travelling around Europe a good bit this year, I thought it was time to step up.
I haven't had a proper camera since the digital revolution made my years as film photography student seem quaint, like minoring in tannery, or taxidermy. Granted, there is still great work being done in film, and I'm not sure that even the best digital cameras match it yet--though they're close--but it still feels a little funny having been in likely the last class to learn hand-processing not as some retro-choice, but as the only option for aspiring professionals, just as it must've felt when the French perfected a county-wide canal system just in time for the automobile to render that method of goods transport adorable and less cutting-edge than they imagined and budgeted for.
Since I'm travelling around Europe a good bit this year, I thought it was time to step up. Thing is, I'm sort of particular about what I carry on my person. I choose my wallet based on whether it will disturb the line of my trousers, and carry my keys in a side-bag for the same reason. I'm not a diva exactly, but cheap or badly designed things not only disturb me ethically, and obviously, aesthetically, but sensually: the touch of most plastics turns my stomach. I know enough about myself to realize that if I was actually going to carry a camera with me, rather than have one on my shelf at home, it would have to be small, and pretty cute.
So DSLR for me then. At the same time, I didn't want to settle for the quality that comes from most compacts. Anybody that pays attention to such things will know that we're in the middle of a small-camera revolution, with the advent of the (really strangely beautiful) iPhone camera, and the Micro 4/3, and other mirrorless systems making quality files available from much smaller packages than were concievable a few years ago.
I spend entirely too much of my time reading reviews of these cameras, and by this point I've owned most of them, and been really satisfied by none, and thought I ought to say why.
Fuji x100
The first one I bought was the legendary--really this camera and the hype surrounding it will define this decade of camera manufacture in any history thereof--Fuji x100. I don't want to provide a full review here, since they exist really by the thousands all over the internet; I just want to say a little more loudly some things that all those reviews say in the footnotes. That is: though this camera makes amazing images, better than anything in its class, including narrowly, the Leica x1 (more on that in a minute), and though it is beautifully-designed as an object (I notice whenever anyone walks by with one around h/ir neck), its menu-design and sluggishness take nearly all the joy out of shooting with such a pretty thing.
Amber Willett in Dresden, Germany. Shot with Fuji x100.
Again, every reviewer notes this camera's focus-problems and slow start-up speed, but they don't say with sufficient strength (or didn't anyway to stop me from buying it) that what this means is that you'll often miss shots while it "boots up," that if you see some great moment--your wife smiling, kids playing, and bird overhead--you'll likely get to save that only as a memory, while you look at the little rotating wheel on your x100's screen. If somehow, by the time you're ready, something else great happens, you'll likley get an out-of-focus picture of it, since it's another 10 seconds (more like 3, but that's an eternity to a smile) while the thing focuses.
I look back at the few good images I made with it from time to time and think: these are gorgeous, but not since the Sega Genesis have I so badly wanted to physically damage a piece of equiptment for dis-obeying me. If you have a world of patience, or a studio, or if you take pictures mainly of food or other things that hold still, this is the camera for you. Otherwise, let's all be thankful for Fuji's having moved the proverbial ball so far down the field in terms of style, but lament their accompanying ham-fisted approach to the engine that drives it. A great camera to look at then, just not much of one to look with.
Favorite Things: Rdio
There are heaps of great music-steaming services out there, now that, apparently, music is free. Really, they should be used as over-qualified previewers in determining which LPs or CDs you really need in your collection, if permanence and sound quality matter to you. Among them,
- Spotify: of which I might be a terrific fan, where it legal in Germany, where I am currently living, but alas, it is not.
- Pandora: the great pioneer and game-changer that plays a virtual radio station built on a matrix of similar-sounding artists. A great service, but it won't play an entire album, and I've never been much of a singles guy. Also illegal in Germany.
- Naxos: this is the largest classical record label in the world, and they're buying up smaller companies by the cello case to add to their online streaming service. It is a subscription service, so you pay for access to their 800,000+ tracks but can stream them at CD quality, if you have the bandwidth. They also have a pretty deep bench when it comes to jazz.
- Rdio: Another subscription service (my plan costs something like $6 a month), Rdio features the best interface of the lot, tons of obscure recordings, a social feature that is (for once) actually useful--I'm not talking about updating one's facebook automatically every time a new record comes on, but the "playlists" feature, where some pretty tasteful people put together great jazz mixes, Christmas tunes, KEXP-based melodica, and other turn-ons for this traveller.
Year's Best
Last year, one of my favorite musicians ever, Iron and Wine, released their new album on my birthday, which felt like a gift from the world. The year before, the band that has taught me more than any other (about art, about life) Bright Eyes, released two albums on my birthday. It seems fitting then, that I should offer something back, in the form of a Best-of list, since this year's birthday has just passed without fanfare from the musical community. Here then are my favorite albums from 2011, offered in a spirit of generosity rather than contention, for those of you with whom I no longer share car rides or mix tapes.
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| Girls- Listen Here |
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| Iron and Wine- Listen Here |
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| The Antlers- Listen Here |
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| Youth Lagoon- Listen Here |
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| Bon Iver- Listen Here |
On the Town
My wife and I were missing our hometown (Seattle) the other day, as we are exiled and adventuring abroad for the year, and counting its many glories, not least among which is the thriving theater scene. "Remember that one play?" she'd say, and I: "that was great; remember this other one?" Suddenly it seemed like we'd seen a lot of plays during the last two years. Suddenly it seemed we should try to make a list of those we remembered particularly.
Comedy of Errors
dir. George Mount for
: we saw this Shakespeare-in-the-park production twice, once at the show's open, and again at its close, as a treat for our out-of-town wedding guests.
Julius Caesar
: Another Shakespeare-in-the-Park, this time at Seward, and a season before.
Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World
dir. Anita Montgomery for
: Staring my good friend Carol Roscoe in a breakout role.
The Tempest
at Seattle Shakespeare Company: featuring, on the night we went, live music by
, composed especially for the show.
Crime and Punishment
: one of the only competent productions I've seen at this beleaguered, (since closed) regional playhouse more concerned with furthering a sociological agenda than with making good art.
Othello
Intiman: Officially the worst play I've ever seen, despite (because of?) the cast's having been shipped in from New York, to the understandable pique of Seattle's own talented acting pool; we walked out at half-time and were dismayed for weeks.
On the Town (a musical)
at 5th Ave: the actress/singer/personality Sara Rudinoff enlivens everything she touches.
39 Steps
Seattle Repertory Theater: disarmingly charming and British.
Jude the Obscure
Erikson Theater: My own entry in Book-it's Novel Workshop Series; actors reading from stools on stage hasn't been so entertaining since Dylan Thomas' reading of
Under Milkwood
in New York, which I unfortunately missed, having been born forty years too late for the premier.
The Cider-House Rules
(parts 1 and 2): an epic production full of moving performances, which addressed, I think, social problems we're not really having. It made terrific sense when they staged it 15 years earlier, to general acclaim.
Great Expectations
: Unbelievable directing, a terrific supporting cast, and Jane Jones (as both Havisham and Betsy) in a performance I think I'll always remember.
Oh Lovely Glowworm
dir. Roger Benington for
: A flawless production of a flawed but terribly-inspiring play. Magical in nearly-every way: this was one of those rare (for me) pieces of art that made me want to do everything differently.
Hunter Gathers
: This tiny theater is (was) the most important thing happening in the Northwest for the last decade. The ambition and level of artistry on evidence was just stupefying. Then, they lost most of their ensemble, artistic directors, and lighting designers either to New York or to theaters with bigger budgets, and have since become a gay teen youth center that sometimes does plays.
Twelfth Night
Seattle Shakes: A Christmas production! So fun and Dickensian!
Two Gentlemen of Verona
: A mod-production that used technology in a smart way: characters texted each other and we could read their screens via subtle projections. Sounds fishy, but it wasn't. Definitely the coolest production I've ever seen of this play.
Electra
: This was kind of a play, but mostly a vehicle for the emoting of its female lead Marya Kaminsky. She's a phenomenal actress, but it was unsettling to basically watch someone hurt for two hours straight; like watching
Passion of the Christ
, that.
Those were the big ones anyway. Added to the concerts (notably, the XX, Sunny Day Real Estate, Rufus Wainwright, and Mark Kozalek) and dance shows (importantly Nacho Duato,
--which may be the single best thing I've ever seen--Pacific Northwest Ballet's
Romeo &Juliet
and year-end
Gala
, Seattle Opera's
Don Quichotte
, and the powerful modern company Sonia Dawkins' Prism Dance Theater), well, we were busy. Still, what a city.
