BACK IN TORONTO

The new year started off with a trip to Toronto, then another, and another, and so on... The last trip was 2 weeks, so I decided to pack a camera know that I would have some spare time on the weekend for sightseeing. The options were either the Leica M9 with 4 lenses, or the Canon 1Ds3 with a zoom lens. Both would cover essentially the same focal range. After alot of back and forth, the compromise was the Leica M9 for this trip and the Canon on the next trip.

Ironically, last year the Leica M9 had its first outing in Toronto with some pictures of CN Tower and Niagara Falls (galleries here). The Leica M9 and 50mm Lux ASPH combo did great, but the Leica M9‘s over-the-top blues in the color images were not to my liking. Those “blues” have been an ongoing issue and while I am getting better at dealing with them during post processing, they still bug me.

PLANNING FOR THE WEEKEND

During the week we drove downtown 5 or 6 times. While my co-workers were talking about meeting agendas and planning their call strategy, my nose was pressed to the car window scouting for locations. By the end of week I had a simple plan - start at the parks along Lake Shore Blvd, maybe go into the semi tourist areas around Queens Quay and then head slightly further east to the ports. Basically I was following the water’s edge.

The weekend went more or less as expected and by Sunday I decided lens changing lenses in the cold temperatures and windy conditions was not viable. The 35mm Summilux-M ASPH was used for almost every shot. Shooting solely the 35mm focal length is limiting for my shooting habits, but it has been working well when back home in Dallas. If I could afford a second Leica M9, my travel kit would be a M9 / 35 Lux and M9 / 90 Cron. That way I could easily ping-pong between wide and tele. But that is a stupidly expensive idea...

POST TRIP WRAP-UP

Taking 4 lenses was stupid, and I expected as much when packing for the trip. One surprise was that only a handful of pictures were taken at F1.4. With snow on the ground, alot of light was reflecting and brightening the scenes, so I did not need a fast aperture to get decent shutter speeds. Nor did I need to use upper ISO’s. There was no indoor shooting either. F1.4 is always good option to have on hand in my opinion, but it proved unnecessary this time.

I do shoot much shallow DOF either. Part of that was due to the bright conditions, and then factor in the Leica M9’s base ISO of 160 and the 1/4000 shutter. Shooting wide open during the day was not possible (unless using a neutral density filter). And most the images were broad landscapes of the city skyline or Lake Ontario. Pretty much everything was F5.6 or F8.

Since the 35mm focal length has been working well for awhile, I am very interested in the upcoming Fuji X100. Normally a fixed lens camera with a 23mm prime (35mm FOV after the 1.5x crop factor) would not interest me. But for business travel the Fuji might be a really good option. It is small, easily fits into the computer bag, has good upper ISO (CMOS), Live View, the hybrid optical finder and so on.

I will be in Toronto at least one more time this month, and that will be the Canon 1Ds Mark III’s trip. To be honest, I am not looking forward to carrying around the Canon. The Leica is much easier to carry. While shooting the Leica M9, I always wish I had more lens options. But after the images are processed, I am surprised at how well 35mm does as a single lens solution for landscapes and cityscapes.