Year: 2022

My Leica failed me

Leica SL2-S broken
Broken | Jerusalem | 2022

Sometimes the worst case happens. You are on vacation, bringing your best gear to capture all the magic of the places you visit. And then disaster strikes. My Leica failed me. My brand new SL2-S decided to stop working while we visited Jesus’ baptism site on the River Jordan this morning. “System Error” was the bright orange message on the display. Switching on and off, removing and re-inserting battery, changing SD cards and lenses. All the tips I googled in the Leica forum, nothing helped.

I send a message to the Leica store where I purchased the camera, pointing out that I was three days into a once in a lifetime vacation and I needed help to reset the camera (the SL2-S seemingly has no hard reset) or with whatever trick they have up there sleeves to somehow overcome the failure.

Well…I even got a return message two hours later. They wrote that they talked to Leica Service and they indicated it most likely is a shutter failure and they need to resend the camera to the factory for repairs.

Leica, in case you read this: My Nikons never ever failed me like this. My Olympus workhorses never ever failed me like this, whatever I did to them. This Leica SL2-S is a brand new camera that costs triple what I payed for these other cameras. And it simply stopped working, without warning, being handled and operated with care. Shutter Failure. Are you kidding me? And I’m simply being told I will have to send in the camera for repairs. No apologies, no nothing. A suggestion that I might want to look for a retailer in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that maybe can take a look. Not even sending me addresses or phone numbers. Not even a simple sorry for having a new high end 5000 Euro camera fail on vacation.

Leica, your customer experience sucks! I would have at least expected some kind of “sorry”. Or a proactive suggestion how I could get it looked at here in Israel. And even when I get this thing repaired within warranty…how can I ever confidently take this camera on vacation again or use it on a wedding gig? So disappointed…so disappointed….

Now the old M240 and my iPhone 12 will have to cover the rest of the vacation. At least I brought a 10 year old backup and some vintage primes. And the iPhone camera is also quite capable. I’m looking forward to the challenge to get the best of the failed SL2-S luxury camera. To still capture all the memories of our trip to beautiful Israel.

Thanks for nothing, Leica!

Marcus

62

Israel Explored – Sea of Galilee

Boatride on the Sea of Galilee

The first day of our trip to Israel took us to the holy sites at North Shore of the Sea of Galilee. A first opportunity to take out the Leica and capture some vacation memories. Classic travel photography, so to speak. Being part of a tour group, the day and the evening are fully packed. So I decided to just dump the memory card onto the Macbook and share some out-of-camera jpgs captured with the Leica’s high-contrast monochrome program for a first episode of Israel explored – Sea of Galilee….

Continue reading “Israel Explored – Sea of Galilee” →
15

Travel Day (18)

Little Mr Traveler

I can’t believe I’m posting about travel again….at least air travel, that is. My last time on a plane was November 2019 on a business trip to India. After that, and thanks to Covid, my travelling live (for the job that pays the bills) came to a crushing stop.

But this morning, after some crazy months back home, The Significant Other and I took to the skies to fly to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport for two weeks of vacation in Israel. And for sure, this was the perfect opportunity to revive my Travel Day series of posts with episode 18. Continue after the link for some impromptu iPhone 12 travel shots from my first air trip in 30 months….

Continue reading “Travel Day (18)” →
10

A Fair evening

Nächtliches Karussell am Nürnberger Frühlingsfest
1/12 sec | f/8 | ISO 100 | 44mm

The other night, The Significant Other and I headed to the Nuremberg Fairgrounds to visit the “Frühlingsfest”, the Spring Fun Fair. After a two year, Covid induced hiatus, Franconias largest Fun Fair was finally on again. And a good opportunity for me to try once more the low light capabilities of my new Leica SL2-S. And I must say, I had a fair evening …

Continue reading “A Fair evening” →
7

Blogger Meeting

Blogger Meeting in the GNM

One of the most important aspects of my blogging is getting in touch with people from all over this planet. Since starting the “Streets of Nuremberg” more than six years ago, I have connected with many wonderful people. One of them is Marion, a.k.a Little Miss Traveler. She runs a wonderful travel blog, the Love Travelling Blog. There she blogs passionately about her own travel diaries to provide her readers with plenty inspirations to plan their own trips to great locations. We’ve started our blogs about the same time six years ago and have been following each other pretty much from the beginning.

We’ve always talked about meeting each other in real life once the opportunity arises. And finally Little Miss Traveler made it to Nuremberg for a long weekend, accompanied by her son. The Significant Other and I met them Sunday afternoon for a joint trip to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, and after that enjoyed some local beer and food and great talks. For some further photos of our meeting continue after the jump….

Continue reading “Blogger Meeting” →
8

Eye in eye with a master

Monet - behind the maze
1/100 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 6400 | 70mm

Wow…there was never a four week break between posts on this blog. And this when I wanted March to be the month to pick up the pace on the “Streets of Nuremberg”. But then, two years into the pandemic, the Covid bug finally caught up with us. First Big Boy, then myself, then The Significant Other. It was no fun, for none of us. But all of us were triple vaccinated, and so we were able to weather the virus at home. While it felt like a typical winter flu, it still took me the good part of two weeks to really get back on my feet. Two weeks also without any creative energy. But here’s a few photographs I took just prior to the virus attack in an exhibition of the works of French impressionist Claude Monet. The Street Photographer eye in eye with a master…

Continue reading “Eye in eye with a master” →
29

The world this morning

Piece behind bars
1/125 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 200 | 70mm

The saying in street photography is, that the street speaks the truth. It seems, the street is right indeed, when looking at the world this morning.

Taken early today on a little walk with the Leica SL2-S and the Vario-Elmarit-SL 1:2.8/24-70 ASPH. Remember – always carry a camera!

Give peace a chance – please!

Marcus

StoNur on the Road – Blood Mountains

#We Remember

StoNur on the Road – Fotografiska

New Memories and Remembrance

8

The winter that wasn’t

Winter Forest Sunburst
1/50 sec | f/16 | ISO 400 | 12mm

The last day of February is upon us. And it’s time to finally say goodbye to the winter that wasn’t. This winter was too warm, it was grey on what felt like 90% of the time, it was unusually stormy. We had some snow worth speaking off just before Christmas, that was it. The winter 21/22 was a winter to forget.

How it should have been shows this throwback photograph from February last year I took in the woods on nearby Moritzberg. While I get there is post-processing software out there that helps you to place a sunburst in any given image, it is much more gratifying capturing it in camera. You just need the sun, an object to partially hide it behind, and a camera that allows you to set a small aperture (I usually capture sunburst with f/16). E voilà!

The good news is that you can capture sunbursts also in spring. Now we only need to have a spring that comes with some sun days! But as the saying goes…hope dies last.

If you are looking for more tips and inspirations around photography, check out me free Learning Center.

Have a great start into March and an awesome (photographic) spring

Marcus

Related Posts:

Shoot against the sun

Time to relax with a coffee in the sun

Sun’s Out

Nuremberg’s Best Sunset

9

Self-Isolation

Girl in self-isolation wrapped in blanket talking from a window
Isolation | Nuremberg | 2022

Two years into the pandemic, the family had its first case. Big Girl came down with Covid. Properly vaccinated and even boostered, her symptoms subsided after three days, but then she had to go into self-isolation for a good week, which turned out to be really hard for her. Living in the same house as grandma, aunt and cousin, she at least got her needed supplies delivered to her door. Being a pediatric oncology nurse, Big Girl took her self-isolation serious. Which meant we were able to see the kid only from down the sidewalk. But thankfully she’s healed, back at work now and up and running again.

February was a busy month that left not much time for photography and blogging. But I got myself a new camera. And sold a lot of my old APS-C stuff to pay for it.

And then, last weekend, after years of following each other’s blogs, I finally met another of my virtual friends face to face on the Streets of Nuremberg.

So plenty stories still to tell.

The photo of Big Girl at her window was taken with my iPhone.

if you are looking for tips and inspirations around photography, check out me free learning center.

Have a great Friday

Marcus

Related Posts:

Isolation

Tranquility

Weekly Photo Challenge: Shadow

I bought a Fuji

23

Antelope Canyon in black and white

Rock structures in Antelope Canyon

Arizona’s iconic Antelope Canyon in black and white. Seems a real contradiction. As the Antelope Canyon is an explosion in light and colors. But last weekend I visited an exhibition of renowned nature photographer Norbert Rosing with his breathtaking black and white photographs of nature’s monuments in the West and Southwest of the USA. His photographs are very much inspired by the work of Ansel Adams. They show an inspiring and exciting play of light, contrast and composition, which make these shots quite unique. The exhibition inspired me to look back at my photographs from a tour of the US Southwest back in 2012 and convert some of them from color to black and white. I started with images from amazing Antelope Canyon. I invite you to continue and take a special tour of Antelope Canyon in black and white…

Continue reading “Antelope Canyon in black and white” →
66

Impromptu Indoor Portrait Session

Homeshooting Portrait of a young lady
1/125 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 1600 | 59mm

Having had the opportunity to test a Leica SL2-S full frame mirrorless system over the weekend, I have asked Big Girl to pose for an impromptu indoor portrait session. I wanted to do another test of the high ISO capability of the camera and find out how usable the files are in terms of noise when shooting at higher ISO. And, I have to say, the Leica performed admirably. But see for yourself…

Continue reading “Impromptu Indoor Portrait Session” →
23

Up ↑