The Grey NATO – 148 – Perfect Product 4
Published on Thu, 17 Jun 2021 06:00:35 -0400
Synopsis
Jason and James discuss a variety of topics in this episode, including Jason's recent book signing event for his novel Depth Charge, James sharing stories about his father's vintage Gruen watch and Jason's experience with his Nikon F3 film camera. They also explore James' experience with the Leica Q digital camera as part of a "Perfect Product" segment. Additionally, they touch on other subjects like recommended shows, articles, and James's experience testing out the Garmin Descent Mark II S dive computer.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 148, and we thank you for listening. Hey, James, how's it going? Hey, pretty good, man. Yourself? Great. Doing well here. It's finally cooled off a bit. Get our weather reporting out of the way so you can actually go outside without just collapsing from heat exhaustion. But no, it's We're in the thick of summer. I went for a bike ride early this morning. And, uh, yeah, here we are. |
| James Stacey | Very nice. Yeah. I just, just got back from the cottage, uh, last night. Uh, so came, came back for the recording and to shoot some, um, some photos of those Serica divers I mentioned on the last, uh, last episode. Yeah. Um, yeah, but, uh, it was a really just a fantastic weekend in terms of whether the, the weather app kept saying, you know, rain in a few hours or lots of rain on Sunday. And it just kind of kept pushing back and pushing back. It ended up mostly doing it on Monday, which was a work day anyway. So I was kind of sitting inside for most of it to, uh, to get some deadlines done. |
| Jason Heaton | I saw a nano puff sleeve on your Instagram. Is it that cool up there? |
| James Stacey | It was. Yeah. I mean, it warmed up pretty considerably Saturday and parts of Sunday, but when we showed up on Thursday, it was, uh, you know, it was in the, in the, in the teens. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, by the time it started actually cool off at night, uh, I put it on and there was also a, like a, it's mayfly season. somehow still. So there was just about a billion mayflies and I got tired of them landing on kind of my bare arms and just opted for a sweater or a nano puff for much of the weekend, unless we were out in the sun. But yeah, went up and put in a vinyl flooring in the kitchen, which is not something I've, I've, I've installed kind of engineered click in floors before, but nothing kind of this easy. Yeah. You know, just being vinyl, like, pretty simple to cut, pretty simple to smash it into place. We'll see how it holds up, you know, coming from me, it's a floating floor. So we'll put the trim in, uh, probably in a couple of weekends time. Yeah. Uh, other than that, you know, ample dock jumping, snorkeling opportunities, water was nice and clear. Uh, there's a bit of a pollen bloom that we had to dive under, but, uh, lots of fish and that kind of stuff. It was a, it was a great weekend. How deep is it right off the dock? Uh, maybe eight feet. Oh, |
| Jason Heaton | So jumpable. |
| James Stacey | I mean, not going to, Oh, Oh, for sure. Yeah. And it's a, no, no, it's a, and it's a flat sort of semi muddy bottom. So even if you overcooked it, your hands would just go eight inches into the bottom and you'd be fine. There's not, it's not like a rocky thing. Um, but no, it plenty of room for dive in and jump in. And then you go a little bit further out and that area of the Lake really maxes out around 15 or 17 feet. Oh, it's not, not a deep, not a deep overall thing. So lots of sunlight, lots of, um, lots of, uh, seaweed and small fish, that sort of thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Well, I, we had some change of plans. I don't know if a few weeks back, I think I had talked about this road trip we might be taking, uh, over to Michigan and the Land Rover and, and we've had some, uh, sort of things come up here with Gashani's work. And then, uh, our elderly cat just isn't quite up to being left for, too long without supervision. So we've, we've been hanging around here, which is, which is fine because the weather's been good and we've been, you know, hanging out on our patio and doing some gardening. And I managed to, uh, to get under the, under the hood of the Land Rover recently. It had a few outstanding issues. I was getting this faint diesel fuel smell in the cabin regularly, which was a little disconcerting. Um, and I thought I'd tackle that. |
| James Stacey | More than they recommend in the manual, I guess. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. there are these fuel return lines that come off the injectors that with a sort of just gravity fed return lines that take excess diesel that isn't injected into the motor and kind of bleed it back down into the injection pump. And they, they're, you know, a little small diameter kind of rubber tubing, which, you know, sitting next to a hot engine for what, 35 years, they just wear out. So, It was an easy fix. And then while I was kind of tinkering there, I put in some new glow plug leads. It's been, it's been interesting going from the old Land Rover, which is a petrol powered vehicle to, to the Defender, which is a turbo diesel. And you know, the, the different, you know, fueling mechanisms that are, that are in this one have been fun to learn and kind of compare and, um, You know, my, my one concern not to go into this too long, but you know, over the winter here, when it gets very cold is, you know, the, the horror stories about diesels not starting and between the, the winter blend diesel that they use here. And then, and then these glow plugs, which basically just heat up to like 850 degrees Fahrenheit inside the, inside the cylinder head there to kind of preheat the engine. Um, I I've replaced all the components to that now. So I've got new leads, new glow plugs and a new relay, which I put in. So now we should be. we should be good to go in what, five months when winter returns. So that was, it's satisfying. I like doing these little things, you know, as you know, it's just, it's fun to tinker. I think that's part of the fun of, of having an old vehicle and it's what you sign up for. |
| James Stacey | So, you know, especially if you know, gas motors that you're always kind of basing any problem on either air, fuel, or spark. And it's a whole different thing when you get to diesel, cause there's no spark. |
| Jason Heaton | No, it's just a compression. It's compression. And so, you know, if it's not running well or it doesn't start well, it's usually there's an air leak. And that's exactly what the symptom is with, with these, uh, what they call the spill rails or these fuel return lines, if they're split. Um, and it sits overnight, you get air in there and it just doesn't start very well the next day. So aside from the diesel smell, it, it cured that problem too. So it's, it's, uh, it's running well. So when we finally do get around to this, this. road trip around Lake Michigan that we had planned. And we definitely will do that probably in the fall. I've got some news that I keep forgetting to share and I finally put it in the notes. So I'd remember I've have a book signing event, um, for depth charge on July 1st here in the twin cities in St. Paul, there's this, uh, uh, brewery called Lake monster brewing, which has some really good beers and they've got a beautiful space. It's in kind of like an old brick warehouse space with open air, kind of big doors that open up to the outside and, Um, just a big space and, and lo and behold, they have a, an IPA, uh, called depth charge, which I, you know, I like this place, but I never noticed that. And when things started to open up here a little bit, uh, within the past few weeks, Gashani and I went over there and I had a depth charge IPA and I was like, the light bulb went off, like I should do a book signing event here. And so I spoke with the owner and they've set aside some space and I'll be, uh, I'll be selling some of the coveted depth charge and deep blue t-shirts and some, I made some posters up and, uh, signing books and selling books. If, if anybody who comes doesn't have a book. So, uh, it's from five to 8 PM on July 1st. So that's a Thursday. And if anybody, uh, is still in town before dashing off for a long holiday weekend, uh, be sure to come by if you're, if you're in the twin cities or in the drivable radius of the area, I'd love to, I'd love to see some folks and that's so fun. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. I wish, uh, I certainly wish I could make it. That's, uh, unfortunately we're not quite there yet, but, uh, maybe, maybe for book two or for a summit sometime later this year, if we can. Yeah, definitely. Uh, that's, uh, that's exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures from that and I hope, yeah, I hope there's a good turnout. If you can make it, you know, go celebrate Canada Day for me. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, cool. |
| James Stacey | At Lake Monster Brewing. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Right. |
| James Stacey | That's, uh, that's very cool. |
| Jason Heaton | And I got to start on the second book. So we've been on, Gashanina kind of sat down with a big sheet of paper last night and started mapping out a timeline, kind of teasing out some plot ideas. And I wrote a chapter a couple of weeks ago to just kind of, you know, warm up a little bit. So, uh, for people that have been asking indeed, uh, indeed there will be a sequel of sorts and it's underway. So I'm not sure how much of it I'll get to, you know, this year we've got a lot going on. Um, certainly we're ramping up TGN where we're weekly episodes and the weather's nice. So I'm less compelled to sit inside and write, but, uh, it's, it's going to happen. |
| James Stacey | That's great. |
| Jason Heaton | I can't wait. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you haven't, if you haven't picked up your copy of depth charge yet, uh, now's a great time to do it. Get a copy for your dad for father's day as well. Um, if you're, if you're a dad, you have my permission to simply buy a copy for yourself. Uh, if, if you want that in writing, just send me an email. Uh, I will, uh, I will approve any, any, uh, depth charge purposes, uh, purchases for all any and all dads. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. So in speaking of dads, you know, on how dinky this week, uh, you guys have been writing the series of articles about father's day related watches and watch stories and things. And, and there was that great one yesterday from, from Jeff about his father's Rolex. And it was quite an Epic story. Incredible story. Yeah. You know, there was some, a lot of emotion in it, but then there was this sort of like crime solving aspect to it, which I thought was really, really fascinating. And check that one out. And then, and then you had one that popped up, um, about your dad's watch, which is that old Gruen. What a, what a cool, What a cool piece that you never told me about that. I'm, I was, I was surprised. And then to see the photos of it, what a beautiful watch. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. It's, you know, it's, it's one that I kind of had my, I made my story about, um, kind of years ago even. Um, so it's not a story, a full story that I've ever written about, but there was a prompt to, you know, do a father's day post. So I approached my dad to see how keen he would be. And he was keen, you know, uh, thankfully, uh, you know, wanted to be supportive of, uh, of me and that, even though he's a pretty private guy. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | So yeah, back in 1974, when my dad graduated from Glendon College here in Toronto, part of a larger university, he went to his graduation, his parents came and they gave him this gruent that was on a bracelet and that was his gift. And gift giving is certainly a thing in my family at times, but luxuries really aren't Yeah, I'm a bit of an outlier in my appreciation for things like this. And in many ways, the you know, my family really just they love experiences and they love spending time like my greater family. My dad is one of six, I'm one of six. So it's a it's a large family. And, you know, a lot of it's more about experiences and time spent together and, and that sort of thing. And that's, of course, a fantastic kind of framework within to understand a watch. Yeah, so yeah, we did, we did a hands on with his watch and When he first kind of pulled it out of a drawer as I was just getting into writing about watches at a higher level, 2013, I had kind of made it out of the, I do one piece a month when Watch Report has a watch that they can send up to Canada, to it being a little bit more of a constant side hustle. He pulled this out of a drawer and it was broken, the crystal was cracked, the crown was gone, it had no bracelet. And he gave me a little bit of a background on the watch and said, it was always special to me. But he's a, he's a lefty. So it was on his right wrist. It caught something. He thinks maybe a desk at the edge of a desk or something. And the bracelet popped out and the watch fell and broke. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Well, he'd always kind of planned on having it repaired and it just didn't happen as these things sometimes do. So in 2013, I got my hands on it. I sent it to this guy, Al Jensky at Archer watches. If you're part of the Ontario watch scene, or even just a deep watch, you seek user from say 2010 to 2015, especially. You'd recognize Al's work. He did some incredible restorations of watches that had been left in a lake for a year and stuff. If I, if I can find that, that was a Seamaster chronograph. If I can find that post on Watch You Seek, if it's still there after all of their transitions, I'll put it in the show notes. But Al was kind enough. I had met Al at a time zone meetup. The first watch get together I ever went to. Wow. I met Al at this one, and he was very kind and generous and shared his watches. He had a beautiful MN Canadian-issued Tudor, and he also had his own brand, Archer Watches. I'm not sure if they're still operating. So we sent the watch to Al, and it wasn't expensive. It took six months. He did an incredible job and preserved all of its vintage elements. It's not like... Sometimes you see them that are over-restored. Yeah. This one still had scratches on the case. and some patina on the dial, but it mechanically absolutely perfect. He replaced like new jewels and the watch really needed some work. And then since then, my dad wears it as kind of his special occasion watch, a watch, you know, if he wants to kind of add to his sentimentality, he'll wear it. And if you need something that kind of slides under a cuff and is kind of innocuous to check the time at a meeting or whatever, this is his kind of go-to. Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful kind of early maybe late 60s to early 70s design from Gruen that uses a really simple, straightforward, automatic 25 jewel movement. It's about 36 millimeters, silver dial, has this beautiful bezel and great lugs, mostly sterile case back. And he wears it on a kind of an expansion bracelet. Yeah. So he was kind enough to allow me to get kind of the oral history of that watch from him. And then he even posed for a wrist shot or two, which I thought was pretty special. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and, and so that went up, I'll put that in the show notes and I'll definitely include Jeff story. Jeff story is just, it's, it's a really, really incredible story. Cause there's all sorts of different facets, his, his father being part of it, but also the watch and then the watch is theft. And then the work to try and recover the watch and then to try and find closure with his father, uh, including kind of his father's possessions in that watch. It's a, Jeff did an absolutely remarkable job and it couldn't have been a super easy story to tell. Uh, so I think we'll, we'll leave it to, for Jeff to tell, but please do hit the show notes for that. And if you want to check out my dad's watch as well, uh, I'm quite fond of it. It's a, it's a beautiful little thing. It's beautiful. Um, and in, in, in return, I, uh, I, I, I passed on my, my SKX double Oh seven to him as a little thank you. Um, Uh, you know, I, I wear my SPB a lot, but I didn't want the, I didn't want the double seven to be, you know, quote unquote, out of the family. Yeah. Seiko's that just sit in the box. Make me sad. Yeah. Especially ones that, you know, that have that, that, that I'd put that much time into. So while we were doing these sort of recordings that I used to reference the story to put it together later, he mentioned, you know, he spends time on, on various kinds of used item forums, Kijiji, Craigslist, the rest. And he, he always kind of liked the, uh, the Seiko dive watches. So I figured I'd pass that on. So that was. That was our little trade for that and a nice kind of Father's Day, a Father's Day event. So that was good. Oh, perfect. Nice. And yeah, one, one more thing before we get into jump into risk check a quick shout out to Tom from expedition 16, 6, 10. He sent me a hat and some stickers and a patch for this expedition. Um, I don't want to, I don't want to necessarily bury the lead for a different show, but Tom has embarked on a really interesting project to try and recover a lost watch that was lost in a, in a lake. and has been working on it. I think, you know, most of last summer and it has picked it up again this summer. Um, we're hoping to have him on to kind of tell that story. He also has a very interesting job. I don't want to again, step on his toes. So we'll let him kind of get into that, but, uh, definitely, um, a huge thanks to Tom for sending that. I appreciate it a lot and, uh, be sure to check out his Instagram. Cause you can kind of follow it for updates from each of their dives. If they find stuff as they, uh, as they hunt for this. So that's expedition, uh, 16, 6, 10, uh, the reference number of the watch that he's looking to, uh, to recover and, you know, Godspeed on that hunt for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Tom's a good guy. He's, he's an interesting guy. He's a, he's an enthusiast, uh, through and through and, uh, and longtime TGN listener. I know that. And, uh, and another connection with TGN is, uh, Matt Ludvigsen also helped him with the logo for, for those hats and stickers that he, he sent us. So, um, Matt, Matt, that would explain why I like it so much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The big circle. Yeah. Very cool. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | So are you wearing the Gruen today or have you moved on to a different watch? |
| James Stacey | No, no. I got back from the cottage last night and Garmin was kind enough to send a Descent Mark II S, the 43 millimeter. Oh, very cool. So after our chat in the last podcast, I had expressed some interest in, you know, if they had a sample available, I'd love to try it up at the lake with some free diving. And, you know, I'm itching to get back to, back to some scuba. So I think I'm going to reach out to a shop and get, get my stuff serviced and see if I can tag along on a Lake Ontario dive or something like that. So, uh, I thought I would give this a run and, and, uh, you know, I've been pretty effusive. I think both of us with our praise of, of the Garmin stuff, especially if you're willing to spend the added money to jump into a Phoenix. And this just feels like a Phoenix kind of plus. Yeah. The weird thing is it's 43 millimeters and it's a bit thicker. It's 15 millimeters thick. So it's a hair thicker, I think than the, the, the 6s, which is the 42 millimeter Phoenix I like to wear. But the ergonomics are such that it does not feel bigger in any way. It's an impressive piece of packaging. I got it in this sort of light ocean blue coloring with a matching kind of desaturated light blue rubber strap. As I get a chance to actually use some of its features, just follow me along on Instagram. Obviously, a thank you to Garmin for for sending sending out a sample. And so far, I'm really impressed. I mean, it feels like a Phoenix, but it has you click the little activity button and it's got a pretty serious list, you know, single gas, multi gas, CCR, gauge, apnea, apnea hunt. You can plan your dives. You can watch the tides. I like all this kind of stuff. So I'm excited. I think this will be a nice like second summer watch. I spent all weekend wearing the the the military, the Synchron military. And it's super fun to wear that watch in the water. It feels great. And I get kind of a buzz from that. And yeah, so this is a nice addition and a very impressive piece. I kind of expected it to sit a lot taller because they had to integrate so much more stuff to do the dive computer. And then it weighs nothing. It sits pretty low to your wrist. The strap is really nice. Excellent job on packaging is kind of my first impression of the watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And you mentioned wearing the Synchron and then this now, and it's fun to, it's fun to move between like old school diving watches and, and like a state-of-the-art modern dive computer. Like you, they're the same thing, right? I mean, back in the day that Synchron or the historical predecessor of that would have been, you know, used by someone to do similar functions, albeit much less functions and with other equipment. But yeah, it's, it's kind of fun. It's, it's weird. It's like this sort of, historical dissonance, you know, to move around between modern and old stuff. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, the Synchron is a bit like getting into a car that still has carburetors. Yeah. And, you know, it's a very analog sort of experience. And then this is a little bit like maybe jumping into a Tesla. Yeah. Or some other electric car. |
| Jason Heaton | Right. Right. |
| James Stacey | There's a lot of functionality. And yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, it's a whole different vibe. I'm just super impressed by both, both the watches, the Garmin and the Synchron. But I wasn't expecting to put the Descent Mark II S on and instantly think, oh, well, I could wear this instead of my 6S Phoenix. Yeah. I thought it would be too thick and feel like a dive computer. And it just feels like another Garmin Phoenix, basically, which is, I think exactly, that's exactly what they needed to do. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. And how about you? You've got something cool as well. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I've got the Scurfa on. I finally pried Seiko's off my wrist. I've been wearing for the past few weeks straight. I have the Scurfa MS21 that I got a few weeks back and you know, I love this watch. It's such a great size and being titanium and it's got this really chunky, grippy, great action bezel on it with these bold numbers. And then what I really love about it is the blue. That's what kind of sold me on this watch when I saw the photos of it when Paul put put kind of his teaser photos up, you know, weeks before it went on sale. And, um, I just feel so fortunate to have this watch and it's, it's like, it kind of wears like one of my CWCs, but, but then it has the look and the titanium kind of nature of, I mean, to me it feels like, like a Pelagos meets a CWC quartz diver or something, you know, it has, it has both those vibes going, um, you know, uh, Utah watches provides the NATO straps for this. And it's this great gray kind of heavy textured kind of thicker nylon strap. And yeah, I'm just really, really excited to wear this watch. It's so much fun. Big, bold, huge hands on this thing. |
| James Stacey | Does the titanium just make it feel kind of weightless or does it just feel like it might weigh less than it would have in steel? |
| Jason Heaton | You know, it's hard to tell. I mean, you know, when you move from one watch to another, the only watches I really notice weight on are like My Bremont S 2000, you know, just a massive thing, you know, or, or even like you put on a Seiko turtle and it's kind of a bigger, heavier watch, but a lot of the stuff I've been wearing lately, you know, smaller Seikos, the, the, the safari, um, even the CWCs, I mean, being courts, I think they, they're all automatically a little bit lighter, I guess, than their automatic counterparts. And I don't know, you know, to me, I don't so much notice the lightweight of the titanium, but you know, titanium just has a look to it. And I think when you see this one from the side, Mm-hmm with the drilled lugs and then the the helium valve on the left side of the case It just it looks the business, you know, it just looks that's killer It looks like a watch Paul would make and and speaking of Paul, you know, he promised me that he was gonna take Depth charge down on his next dive outing and sure enough today. He posted on Instagram the he's got the book in saturation at 150 meters of depth and that inspired me to strap this watch on today, so thanks. Thanks to Paul for For posting up that photo, I think that's probably the most unique place we'll see that that book featured. Yeah, I'm really excited about that. But anyway, yeah, the watch is fantastic. |
| James Stacey | And speaking of Paul, I was tracking, you know, I'm watching all the comments on the new Substack platform. I promise this won't be our only mention of the Substack. But it is the first and we're 30 minutes into the episode. So I guess I'm kind of proud of us. Uh, but, uh, there's been a few comments saying, uh, you know, we, we need a round two with Paul and I, I don't disagree one bit. Um, I think we definitely should have him on to chat, uh, chat depth charge to chat about the MS 21 and, and, and things like that. So, uh, uh, maybe we can make that happen a little later in the summer. We have some cool guests kind of just outside of being tied into a date. Uh, which I'm, I'm pretty excited about. There's some people that I think are going to make a good chat, especially now that we're on weekly episodes. So if you want to get in and be part of those comments and, and the rest of it, it's a notes.thegraynado.com or thegraynado.substack.com get in there and make an account. If you subscribe to the newsletter, actual delivery, then that means the show, including a player and all the notes are delivered to you Thursday morning. about an hour after the show hits the podcast feed. Cause I have to do it by hand and I don't, I don't really wake up at six these days. Uh, not by choice anyways. Uh, so closer to seven. Um, but yeah, we, we encourage you. We we've had a really good response. People are actually opening them. This means a lot to us. So please, uh, if, if you want to engage with other, other listeners with Jason and I directly, um, the easiest way these days is probably on, uh, on the sub stack. And it also gives you the ability to skim, skim through the other notes and, and keep up with what we're chatting about on the show. So, That's that's gonna be our main substack plug as always subscribe if you think it would add something to to your email inbox. Yeah All right, Jason. What do you think we hit up some some perfect product? |
| Jason Heaton | It's been a while It has been it has been a long time and and you know, we liked doing this series. It's it's not always in fact I don't think to date it's been watch focused at all and we like to kind of dip our toe outside of that line every now and then and Kind of talk about some of the stuff we enjoy using and I think you know, when we say perfect product, you know, perfect is a subjective for everybody, obviously. But I think, um, you know, in the past we've done, you know, bikes and, and camera lenses and, and, uh, Blundstone boots and Nana puffs, coffee makers, coffee makers. And, you know, these are things that we use regularly that, that we love particularly. And I think today we, we overlapped. Um, you asked me what I wanted to do and I told you, and you told me, well, let's, let's do perfect cameras. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. So this is perfect cameras. And again, this is perfect for us. Um, and, and mine actually comes with a lot of caveats and it's one that I've thought about talking about on the show a lot, but the price point kind of freaks me out. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to say, we'll get to that in a moment. I'd like to start with yours as I think yours is more of an egalitarian suggestion that I think could actually expand a lot of people's appreciation of, of photography. So if you, if you agree, let's, uh, let's start with, uh, with your perfect camera. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And I, I think, you know, our earlier discussion about moving from an old dive watch or old style dive watch to the Garmin Descent. I think it's kind of parallel to what we're, what we're talking about today with our two camera choices. Um, you know, my, my choice is clearly the old school, uh, mechanical watch version of a camera, carbureted camera. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's the Nikon F3 and specifically, um, for me, it's, I've got an F3T, um, and I'll kind of get into the nuance of that in a, in a bit here, but this is a manual focus, uh, film camera from, uh, mine is particularly from the late eighties and I got it in 2014. So coming up on what, seven years ago, I saw that movie and I think, I think I might've added this to film club, uh, when we did film club not long ago, um, about the movie secret life of Walter Mitty and Sean Penn plays a kind of philosophical photojournalist named Sean O'Connell. who still, you know, still shoots film and he kind of travels the world and he's, he's kind of this enigma. And there's a scene where, um, you know, Ben Stiller's character goes off to find him and finally encounters him in the mountains of Tibet. And he's got a camera on a tripod and he's shooting snow leopards. And I saw this camera and it was, it was kind of a chunky looking thing. It looked very Nikon like, but the name, the Nikon name on the front had been inexplicably taped over with like black electrical tape or something, but it said F3T on the front. And so, you know, after seeing this film, I was like, what, you know, what is that camera? So I Googled it and kind of started looking into this and it turns out that there was this titanium version of the Nikon F3, which was arguably Nikon's greatest film camera. And the one that that's kind of its most legendary one among photographers, old school photographers. Um, so I started looking for one and then I found this in, uh, in about 2014 on eBay, uh, got it largely new old stock or, or, you know, with visibly very little where to it. Uh, I think I paid less than 500 bucks for it. I think there, there might be a lot more than that now. And, uh, you know, that, that might sound like a lot for some very antiquated technology, but you know, this is, this is truly kind of the pinnacle of Nikon's engineering back when they were arguably the number one kind of camera brand at that time. I think that. In the film days, they were kind of on top. Canon was a bit of a second choice. And then I think when it kind of flip-flopped when Canon got the leap on digital, but, you know, Nikon was kind of the business back then and the F3 was their, their flagship. And, you know, it's just, it's just a fantastic piece of engineering. I, I already had a number of old Nikkor manual focus lenses from, I used to have a Nikon FE, which was a similar camera from about the same era. Um, and, and, you know, Nikkor manual focus lenses are so cheap. I pick them up every time there's like a camera store swap event or something, or if you find them on eBay or Craigslist. So I've got this beautiful 55 millimeter macro F 2.8 and 85 millimeter F2 and a 35 millimeter F 2.8 lens. And between the three of those three lenses, I can do pretty much anything on this camera. So that's kind of what I, what I use it for. And I've, I've had this camera, I've taken it to. I was on a Lange press trip to Iceland of all places. Uh, Jack Forster was on the trip and, and Ben Clymer was on the trip and, um, it was just kind of this, you know, rollicking several days in pretty wicked weather up on glaciers and driving Land Rovers around. And, um, and I took this camera along and I, you know, shot rolls of, of black and white there. And then I've taken it to Glacier National Park and Yosemite and I like to take it on hikes and then I'm using it back here in the garden to kind of practice some macro photography on flowers. And, mm. Um, I think what I like about this camera is, you know, I guess this is a general statement about film cameras themselves, but they kind of encourage a different type of. Photography as, as we've discussed, I think, and as you know, you know, because it's manual focus only, and you have to, you know, you wind after each shot and you only have, you know, 24 or 36 exposures, you just take your time. You you're, you're kind of enjoying the mechanical process, the, the composition And the manual focusing kind of forces you to look differently at photographs in a way that people used to. But I think when we got into digital, it's just kind of a lot of times it becomes spray and pray or you sort of cheat a little bit or get a little bit lazy. And this one's a much more deliberate process. But the camera itself, a testament to how good a camera it is. Nikon made this thing for 21 years. I mean, they started it in 1980. And they discontinued it in 2001, you know, well into kind of the early days of, of digital photography. And even after they had launched the F4, the body was designed by Giugiaro, who was, you know, very famous product designer. He designed some Seiko watches. He worked on car design and his designs have kind of trickled down to even, even modern digital Nikons. And then I found out something recently, I was kind of looking for links about this camera to include in show notes. And I didn't realize that, that when this camera, was being developed in the late seventies, NASA had approached Nikon with certain specifications for a camera that, that the astronauts could take on the first space shuttle missions. And those specs were actually incorporated into the F3. So, um, it's got, it's got quite a history and impressive. You know, if you kind of look at the spec sheet for this camera, it's incredibly modern. Uh, you know, a lot of the features that we look at in, in cameras nowadays that we sort of take for granted were non-existent in the seventies. You know, we, It had, you know, shutter speeds up to one 2000th and an aperture priority mode. And there's this incredible motor drive that you can get for it that I've kind of been eyeing, although it seems a little kind of wrong to put a motor drive on this thing. So that allows you to kind of, you know, shoot in burst mode, so to speak, and just sort of fire away. As long as you hold the shutter down, it takes photos and it can do like six frames per second. And you could just blow through a roll of film in no time, which feels counterintuitive for counter counter to the purpose of having an old film camera. So I think I'll, I'll hold off on that. But, uh, um, titanium body, you know, it's the, again, it's the scurfer or the Pelagos of film cameras. It's got a, so it obviously does use batteries because it has a electronic shutter and an LCD viewfinder. But if the batteries do go flat, which is fairly rare with this thing, there's a mechanical shutter backup that allows you to release the shutter at one 60th. So if you, if you, if you're stuck and you needed to, you know, Take a few more photos. You could shoot at 160th and kind of adjust your aperture to suit that. What's really cool too is the eyepiece on this. It's a big prism on top. There's two little levers on the side that you can release and take it off and you can add, there's like four other viewfinders that you can click onto this thing, including a, what do they call it? You know, like a top down where you can kind of shoot like a hip one. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Like you can shoot facing down. Oh, those are so cool. I've always wanted to shoot a camera with one of those. |
| Jason Heaton | Do you use one? I don't, but, but I can take the prism off. I can take the viewfinder off this and I can, I can look down and I can see, you know, using the mirror, I can, I can, I can compose a shot at hip level, which at this point it's kind of more of a novelty, but it's, it's fun. It's fun to do that. It's kind of just take it apart and use it that way. Uh-huh. It has, uh, you know, self timer mirror lockup. If you want to do like long exposure stuff, you know, star photography or whatever. There's a depth of field preview, which is fairly crude, but you know, if you want to kind of eyeball what a certain aperture setting is going to look like in the, in the photo, you can press a different button and it kind of gives you this rough, you know, bokeh preview of what the photo is going to look like, which is really strange. And then I think this was the first Nikon to use an LCD viewfinder for the light meter display, which. you know, it kind of changes as you're, as you aim the camera around and as you change your, your aperture and shutter settings for over and under exposed and, and, and that sort of information. But it's a little in the old days, they used to use a needle that would kind of go up and down, which was a little bit quicker to kind of intuitively understand. I find the LCD, you know, I'm sure at the time it was cutting, cutting edge technology, but it's kind of like the LCDs on those old, uh, the old Arnie watches or, you know, some of the old the early analog digital citizens and things, they're a little kind of hard to read. So, but I don't know, other than that, I mean, just the physical presence of this camera, it actually feels, I would say better. And I haven't spent a lot of time with Leica. So that could, that could be the difference for me, but you know, with, with even a lot of the modern Nikons, Canon, Sony's that I've handled this, this camera just feels better. It's just, it's, it's got a weight to it. And it has all of everything is metal and mechanical and the switch gear and the shutter release. And the, you know, the way you engage the lens, there's like no plastic on this and it just feels so precise and so well-made. It feels like, you know, like when you pick up like a Rolex deep sea, you know, or, or some big or like a Pelagos or something. And you, you know, you, you, you just get that enjoyment of winding the crown or, or screwing it down or, or you know, ratcheting the bezel. It just, it has that feel to it that I just enjoy. I just, I love carrying this thing around. I love, I love shooting with it. It suits my kind of preference with photography. I would not call myself a, a great photographer. I think, you know, I lean heavily on Ghoshani for the photos that I've done for articles and stories and projects. Um, and I think she's a far superior photographer to me and she does very well with, uh, modern digital photography and using Lightroom to edit and that sort of thing. for what I like to do with photography, which is kind of just take my time and enjoy the entire process. Um, it just feels like the perfect blend of, you know, mechanical tactility and, and kind of pleasure with the slow form of photography that, that it, uh, it necessitates. |
| James Stacey | So, yeah, I, I think this is, I mean, one, it's a marvelous looking thing. even if, even if you're the type to buy and put it on a shelf, obviously put some rolls through it for sure. But they are really, really pretty. Um, you know, I've, I've had the fortune, good fortune to shoot on some of the cameras that would have played second fiddle to the F3, uh, a one programs. And, uh, I have a Minolta X 700, both like really fun cameras. And, and, and once you get the learning curve of, of these really purpose built DSLRs, um, SLRs, You can really get repeatable results. Like I've been shooting a ton with that little Olympus XA. Oh yeah, yeah. And I have no idea what I'm getting. The focusing is almost impossible. There's a light meter that's sort of projected to the left of the viewfinder. But if you don't have enough light, then you can't even tell where the little arrow is pointing, like what shutter speed you're going to get. Because you don't really set the shutter speed on the XA. It's weird because I manipulate the shutter speed by changing the ISO. Oh, yeah. Which is which is kind of a little cheat with these cameras. And sometimes it leads to images that are a little bit blown out or a little bit undershot. I'm still learning the process. Yeah. But when you invest in something like an F3, let alone the titanium, what you're getting is you're going to go one or two rolls where you're still figuring out the focus. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's locked in and you just trust the camera and you go with it. I love that it'll operate without a battery. Very early on in TGN, we talked about the story of a photographer shooting. I want to say it might've been in Antarctica, but it also might've been like in the Alps somewhere. Yeah. And he favored a Nikon because he just didn't bother putting a battery in it. Yeah, I track some of the vintage film camera stuff. They're more expensive than if you paid 500 bucks for a really clean one. They're a little bit more now. I'm seeing more like $700 to $1,000 for one that would have the box and the paper, the real collector thing. But if you follow the Contax market, those little 35 millimeter point shoots, those haven't gone up two or $300. They've gone up two or 300%. Wow. Wow. It's a whole different thing. So this is still a very high end film camera. Yeah. Um, with, like you said, you could, you could put almost any lens. I think that that that's my main question for you. Cause I, of all the brands I have shot, I don't know Nikon or Nikon lenses. If you were, if somebody were picking one of these up, I'm seeing a lot on eBay that are being sold without a lens. What is the lens that you'd recommend? Is it as easy as saying just find a 35? with the fastest possible aperture? Or do you think that you get more use out of a 55? |
| Jason Heaton | I think for walking around and for travel, if I were to just take one lens, I think the 35 is probably the one I would take of the ones I have. You know, the 55 has a much narrower sort of field, you know, focus. And then of course the 85 is more of a portrait lens, but the 35 is just that kind of natural focal length that when you pick up the camera and look through it, it kind of looks like what you're seeing with your eye. It also is a relatively compact lens and easy to pack. And so I think that the 35 F 2.8 is, is, is a wonderful lens. Now, of course, this camera will take every lens Nikon has made since I think they say 1959. So, you know, there are a lot more lenses that I don't know about, and it will even take some of the later autofocus lenses, even though this doesn't have autofocus ability. So as long as there's a, an aperture ring that you can adjust the aperture, manually, you know, you could pretty much use any Nikon lens. And I think that's, that's pretty, pretty incredible. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. I know I'm seeing 35 millimeter F2.8 Nikkors for less than 200 bucks. Yeah. So in the lens world for a lens, that's actually good. That's a good deal. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, it's, I mean, as we've discussed, I think manually manual focus shooting is it's, it's difficult and you don't, I would never, I would never take this camera to like, something where you need to catch some action, you know, like, like a nephew's sporting event or something, something, you know, I mean, certainly back in the day, I mean, there were sports photographers that were shooting, you know, a lot of spectacular, you know, very high profile sports events with manual focus, long lenses at, you know, super bowls and championship matches in the Olympics and whatever, um, that, that would say otherwise. But, but for me, I would, I would never rely on this for that. I would take something modern, but, uh, but for anything that's not moving, Um, you know, or even moving slowly, manual focusing is actually quite a pleasure to see it sort of come into focus in the, I agree in the viewfinder is, is there's something kind of magical about that instead of letting the camera do it. |
| James Stacey | So, yeah, yeah, for sure. I agree entirely. Especially the focusing mechanism. Is it like a split prism where you have the circle with the two halves? Yeah. So that's a pretty reliable way of focusing, especially if you're in medium to low contrast. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | sort of settings where like a rangefinder typically gets kind of difficult, especially to focus quickly. Uh, so I think that that also makes it pretty applicable to someone who wants to jump into something like this. Um, you know, you can, you can, you can go, you can spend less money by going to a one route or, or a Minolta, but I don't, you're not buying into a legend essentially, right? Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | And I think that's a good point. That's a good point. I think, you know, if I were telling someone, you know, Hey, you should, you should get an old film SLR. I mean, we've talked about this before. This is, this might not be the one to get. I mean, like I said, I had an F E which is a very similar camera from, from the eighties that, that Nikon made perfectly fine. It operates very similarly. And, um, but I think the, The reason I bought this one is it is a legend. And I think just the way it feels in the hand and kind of knowing a bit of the history of it, it's kind of the same way you buy a watch. I like a, I like a watch that has a little bit of a story, a little bit of a Providence or some kind of a connection. And it gives me the pleasure of, of a great film camera. I think the AE-1 cannons look amazing. I've, I've handled them. They feel amazing. Old Minolta's, old Pentax's. I mean, you can't go wrong. I mean, most of these old, you know, Japanese film cameras were just so, so good back, back in the seventies and eighties. |
| James Stacey | So yeah, I would say, you know, avoid avoid ones that used I have an older Minolta, you know, pre 700. I can't remember the series specifically, but the the setting dials on the top of the camera. Yeah, they're actually connected to their respective endpoints, the control points by silk thread. Oh, wow. Weird. So if if that gets messed up, You're either going to have to become an expert in fixing silk thread or find an expert. So I think that's where you spend the money on something like the Nikon or maybe even an AE-1. And what you're getting is a very robust, provable platform that wasn't necessarily like experimental. I've had some where I bought them, or in this case with this silk-threaded Konica Minolta. was given to me and I thought, Oh, I'll put a roll of film and I couldn't get anything to change. I started reading about it and apparently once they're kind of damaged, they just keep damaging other parts. It's like a cascading effect. So I haven't opened it up and, and, you know, dug into the surgery. Yeah. Yeah. Of, uh, of repairing that thing. Silk spinal cord. So we'll see. But, uh, yeah, no, I, I think it's a fantastic hobby and, and this would be jumping into it at a pretty high level, but man, is it a cool and a titanium camera. Yeah, they make a titanium version of the camera I'm going to talk about and it's one I've always wanted. Really, really, really cool stuff for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | I think we should, I think we should move into yours because I was on that trip with you up to Tobermory and you had this camera and it's also quite a, quite a specimen in a very, very different way. |
| James Stacey | So why don't you talk about it? What I'm talking about today is my Leica Q. I've talked about it on the show before. I was involved in a Leica commercial for the Q2 with Hodinkee a couple of years ago. Um, you know, I, like I said, I, I am a little bit reticent about promoting something that costs this much money. A brand new Q2 is 5,500 bucks us. And that's for a camera with a fixed lens, right? You're, you can't change the lens on this. You can't change its focal length. You can, you can do some tricks in digital to do focal length crops, um, especially on the Q2, which has so, so much resolution that it's actually useful, but we're going to talk about my Leica Q, um, because it's a camera that I, uh, and a brand in some ways that I discredited a lot, or at least kind of thought it was just kind of rich guy stuff when I was shooting Canon and then Sony. And then when I got an option through Hodinkee to essentially buy one that had been used in a loaner program and then refurbished by Leica. So I'm able to buy it at close, a little bit under their normal use prices, but with a warranty. I had enough people kind of say like, this is kind of depending on what you want to shoot, the greatest camera ever made, the greatest digital camera ever made. And I was like, yeah, I might roll my eyes, but they hold their value really well. If I don't like it, I'll just sell it. Um, and, and I picked it up and, and honestly, they're not wrong. Um, if, I mean, if you want to shoot, if you want to shoot birds or sports, this is a terrible camera. It's a 28 millimeter. Um, it has basically the same focal length as your iPhone is the easiest way to think about it. Um, so it's a little bit wide, even for people, uh, typically, but man, if you want to shoot, uh, travel. If you want to shoot a watch, if you want to shoot, um, wider scenes of people, maybe something that's not necessarily a portrait, but a portrait kind of zoomed out. It's an immense thing. If you want to shoot portraits with it, you're going to have to learn to do a little bit of kind of correction because it is just too wide for people's faces typically. Like you had mentioned, you have an 85 millimeter F2 for your F4 and F3, sorry, And, you know, at 85, that's typically where they say that the, the proportions of the face kind of work out the way that people see them, you know, between say 78 and 90 and, and, and a lot of really good 50 millimeter lenses. If the face is in the center of the lens that will render the face correctly. But a 28, if you're near the edges, even on a fantastic 28 millimeter, there's still some distortion. So you just have to kind of correct for that. And I've done that when I've, when I've used this camera to shoot portraits. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | It's an expensive thing, a used Q. So they've now made the new one, which is the Leica Q2, obviously, but a used Q is going to be between $3,000 and $3,500. And really the only reason that I was kind of OK making this a product for perfect product is I thought to myself, like, well, if this camera was broken or stolen yesterday, would I buy another one today? And the answer is easily yes. I would not question. I would sell a watch or, you know, figure out what my tax thresholds were for work that year. and I would get myself into a Q2. So that's kind of the only reason I feel comfortable kind of promoting this, because it is a very expensive thing. We don't typically talk about stuff this expensive that isn't a watch or a car. And I've owned almost all my cars cost less than this camera, maybe short of the Jeep. But I absolutely adore it. So this is the older model. So the specs may sound a little bit out of date at this point, and that's because they are. So it's a 24 megapixel sensor. It's a full frame. sensor. You have a fixed, uh, 28 millimeter Sumilux that has a macro setting, which makes it great for wrist shots. You have manual control over everything. Uh, for the most part, uh, you can shoot as, as, as stop down or stop to open as much as F one seven. So that's, that's a ton of light, the files that come out of it, the DNGs, uh, that they use. I I've, I've really come to like for their color profile. It's a super flexible camera. You know, Because you're buying kind of a closed unit, now I don't have to worry about lenses. And sometimes I miss the fact that with my 6500, I could put an old Russian lens on it. I could put a new Sony lens on it. I could adapt it and run a Canon lens. Yeah. But if you're traveling and what you basically want to shoot is scene plus watches or a car plus watches or a car in a scene, this is the camera for me, for sure. And it shoots video as well, right? You can shoot. Yeah, it shoots 1080 30. It doesn't, I believe the Q2 does 4K. I, you know, I've shot some video on cameras. It's just, it's a, it's an entirely different skill set and, and a level of planning to shoot video that's actually useful. Most of the video I use is something, you know, you would, you just kind of shoot it on your phone to show somebody later on, like not, not to actually produce for something. But I've certainly never owned a camera that made it so simple to go from taking the photo to having it ready to go into a magazine or a Hodinkee post or whatever. The files are really nice. The lens is incredible. The way that the lens kind of deals with light and glow is maybe a little bit less analytical than some lenses I've used, like the 50 Canon that we talked about in, I think, the first episode of Perfect Product. Yeah. Um, which if you have a Canon camera and you like to take pictures of watches, that's one you should definitely own. Yeah. But if you're, if you're looking for that kind of one stop, excellent camera, this is so good. I don't need, I've never, I have yet to really feel the need to, to move to a Q2. I still feel like after three years with this camera, I still haven't gotten to the point where it's holding me back in any way. Yeah. I'm still learning how to get the most out of it. And you look at it, you look at a guy like, um, like Brett Curry, who we've talked about plenty, a lot. And he puts the camera in, in the caption for every one of his photos. A lot of his like most iconic photos were shot on Leica's equivalent of a high-end point and shoot. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. It's a really nice camera and don't get me wrong. It should be for the money. It absolutely should be. If it, if it didn't deliver, it wouldn't matter. Cause it's, it's a very expensive thing. Even in the world of cameras, it's an expensive thing. |
| Jason Heaton | I've got a couple of questions about it. So, I guess two questions and you sort of partially answered one of them, which was the hesitation. I have zero problem with spending that much on camera. We've spent that much on underwater camera housings, which become obsolete when you upgrade the camera, you know, obviously we've spent more than this on a few watches, et cetera. If it's good quality and a great tool that you'll use for a long time, absolutely. No problem. And it sounds like it's, it's worth the money, but yeah, The hesitation I have with anything digital or technology is that it will become obsolete in not much time. And then that amount of money feels, it makes me hesitate to spend that much on something that will become obsolete. So that's my, that's my first question. And then, well, why don't you answer that first? And then I'll ask my next one. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. So I would say, you know, the Leica Q came out in June of 2015. And, uh, and it, it does not in any way, there's only really one thing I don't like, and it has nothing to do with the tech. It's the power switch has two positions. So, uh, three, sorry, off on, and then continuous, which is like a higher, a higher frame rate of photos. And I never want continuous. I just want on. I want to be able to click it on without looking at it. And I do have to glance down to make sure I didn't inadvertently get continuous. That's literally, that's my one complaint about this camera. That's as far as I would say. The image quality, I mean, you might be doing different work than me, but for anything I've ever done, the image quality is so far and beyond what Instagram resolves or what, you know, the 2200 pixel wide image for Hodinkee. You know, I have all these things and you end up cropping two thirds out of the frame. And not even cropping, maybe you're just compressing, right? I'm taking a, 4,000 by 6,000 image and dropping it down to 1,800 wide if it's portrait or 2,200 wide in landscape. Yeah. I think it's a, it's a very flexible platform. You make concessions. Like I said, 28 is not going to suit everybody's kind of scene, but keeping it like a 24 megapixel sensor behind a good lens. Yeah. That's a, that's, that's a lot of resolution that I definitely think that, that despite the money, it's going to stay relevant longer than a lot of its competition. Yeah. Yeah. So you spend, you spend more, but like if, if I bought a, if I went out and bought a new Canon DSLR or even one of the new R series, I would want to know I could get five years out of that camera because they're expensive. Right. And because I would want to then buy lenses, I'd want to buy batteries and new chargers and faster memory cards and all that kind of stuff. And, uh, and, and for me, it's always, you know, I'm still shooting a Mark three, which again is a 24 megapixel, give or take sensor with full frame sensor. And I haven't needed more than that for the work I do yet. I don't shoot a billboard. I don't, you know, I don't need this, uh, this huge resolution in the Q2. You also have to deal with the fact that the files are way bigger on a 50 megapixel camera. Right. And you've come into that with your, with your, uh, Z seven, right? Oh yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Massive files. Yeah. And I don't remember what the, I don't remember what the Z seven costs, but I mean, once you do that and then if you want the native sort of Z lenses for that, I mean, you're pushing, that same amount of money. So, you know, I think I didn't realize that the Q was that you could get into that for under 3,500 bucks. I don't find that unreasonable, um, for, for, for what it is. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Z7's on sale right now, but $2,800 looks like the list price. And then of course you don't end up with a, with a really good, super fast lens. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Right. The, the secret sauce here is, is the lens and you'll get some people who will say, Oh, but Panasonic makes their version of the Q. And you're like, yeah, you're not wrong. Um, they, they do basically the same thing, but you don't get the, the, the 28 Summa Lux. And I would just say, go ahead and just find comparable images from the same cameras. They're not the same. They might have the same sensor. They might use same image quality or image processing and that sort of thing. But the one thing is that because there is a longstanding partnership between Leica and Panasonic is you can use Panasonic batteries. So you don't even have to buy the expensive Leica batteries. So the spare batteries that I carry for this are Panasonic's. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anything else where like, I wish I could charge it on USB. Oh, okay. Like I could plug a USB cable in and it would charge the battery, but you have to have an external charger. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then when they went to the Q2, they use SL batteries, which are magazine style. So the battery has its own O ring and slides flush into the bottom of the camera. Yeah. for weather sealing. Yeah. The Q has a battery door. Yeah. And we'll see, you know, my Q was used when I bought it and I've now put a few years of good use into it. We'll see how long things like the door holds up. But so far, great. Yeah. Yeah. It really is a no fuss sort of thing that you you pick up. It has an incredible digital viewfinder. Yeah. So you can see your focus. You can see your focus point. You can see the depth of field live in the image. Um, you can get a really good idea of highlights and low lights, even without flagging those, um, which you can in, in the UI. And then you have, um, obviously a shutter button, you have a thumb wheel to, to raise and lower the shutter speed based on certain bumps that you can, you can jump between. And then there's a wheel on the top for the larger steps and shutter speed. Like if you wanted to go from 500 to 2000 and then you can use the wheel to kind of wiggle your way down from 2000. It's a neat sort of thing where you kind of set the playing field on the top of the camera, and then if you just want to massage it one way or another, you do so with this wheel that's right at your thumb. Aperture is on a ring on the lens, so you don't have to do that. That feels very much like a manual thing. And then ISO is in a menu, and I don't ever change ISO. Like I was saying, I really like to keep things at 100 unless I'm having kind of a weird performance from a flash. Uh, at which point I might use a little bit more. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And now, now you've moved on actually to answer my second question was, which was about ergonomics and kind of, you know, how you, how you play with this, how you shoot with it. And, um, I remember seeing this camera, but I don't, I don't remember observing you using it or actually using it myself, but it, if I remember right, it's, it's kind of a flat, Like I, the only kind of camera I can think of, although this didn't have a fixed focus, but like the RX 100 from Sony, like that sort of size and very flat, like a deck of cards and then a big screen on the back, you know, bright, very legible. But do you find that when you shoot, you do use the viewfinder? You don't, you don't compose using the, the screen or the LCD. Um, and then the, the using the wheels, like I find a lot of times I find with like smaller quote unquote I hate to say point and shoot. It always sounds like cheap, but it's not like little cameras like that, that, you know, I've got kind of big hands and I feel like I'm holding something so tiny and like the buttons are always, I, my hands always just feel too big for, for cameras like this. And I'm just wondering what your experience has been going from Sony S or sorry, Canon SLR to this. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. The Canon is a hand filler, almost two hands in many ways that that's how they, and then when I went to the 6,500, which is a very small camera, Um, I found that camera to be too small for me and, and sorting out the ergonomics and your Sony, everything they do needs a lot of buttons. It's just the way they operate. If you like Sony, you know what I'm talking about. They, they like buttons, they like nested menus. Once you have the camera set up, it's intuitive enough, but if you have to go then change that setting, it's not intuitive. Um, as far as the, you know, comparison to an RX 100, I would say this camera is maybe two to three times the size of an RX 100. Um, in terms of, um, you know, in bulk and weight, I don't know how you'd necessarily stack the two together to show that, but it's quite a bit bigger. And then of course the lens doesn't suck back into the body. It's always there. So you it's there, there, it has some dimension to it. And as far as the right hand grip, and then you have this big lens barrel for your left hand. Okay. I would say it's as small as a camera could be before it was kind of too small for my hands. Okay. And I think I have normal sized hands for someone, you know, I'm six, three, So it's a nice size camera. It has a good weight on a strap, but nothing like a big DSLR. If I'm running my Canon, I typically hold it in my hand and then I put it down when I'm not shooting it. With the Leica, I keep it on a strap. It just isn't that heavy. I've been really happy. And there's also a lot of different ways you can use the camera. If I'm shooting pictures of my kids, I will use the screen on the back and hold the camera out almost like you'd hold your cell phone. Yeah. And it allows me to maintain eye contact with my kids, which in turns means they will look at the camera that if you've had kids, maybe you have one of your kids that just refuses to look into the lens of a camera. That's one of mine does. Um, but if I'm shooting watches, if I'm shooting, especially in bright sunlight, where the screen might wash out the ability to bring the camera up to your eye with one hand, cause it doesn't weigh that much. So you're not shaking, you're not fighting its weight. The balance isn't there because there's no long lens. The ability to pull it up, the little, you know, it's a 3.6 megapixel image that they're showing you through this little viewfinder. So it's pretty high res, especially for a camera, again, that's now six years old. It's even better on the Q2 and again, as it should be. But when you pull that up and you can kind of snap a photo and it feels like, Jason, I would say it's roughly the size of your F4. Really? F3. There's... Sorry. Oh, okay. Yeah. F3. I would say it's probably the size of your F3, give or take. F3 with a 35 would probably... It's probably a little taller off the table. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Do you miss having a grip? I guess that... When I'm looking at the photos now, now I see how different it is from what I was envisioning. But the lack of a grip, does that bother you? Like a right hand grip? Or you don't miss that? |
| James Stacey | You can install a grip. They make one that gives you your front fingers like a little, almost like a rock climbing ledge to kind of pinch on. I've never found this camera hard to hold because it has... If you check out an image of the back, there is this little divot for your thumb. And I just keep my thumb in there, kind of the middle joint of my thumb pressed tightly in there. I don't find it hard to hold. I've seen some people put grip tape on them. And that might be if you use it so commonly that some of the texture starts to smooth out. Yeah. Cause you know, there's a few different versions. Mine is the black one. They make a silver one. They made a Leica QP, which doesn't have any of the forward facing branding. It's all blacked out. And then they made a titanium version as well of the, of the 116, which is the, the Q is the type 116. And so Leica calls it, it's sort of various models. Yeah. Um, so mine's just kind of the standard basic one. The titanium one is absolutely the way it would have gone had it been available just because that's, they look really incredible. Yeah. Um, and then they make a bunch of other, there's been white versions and, and you know, ones with different leather colors. So there's, there's quite a few out there. This is how like a, you know, kind of iterates on their product. |
| Jason Heaton | Ooh, I like the khaki one, but they're, they all, that's cool. It's like an olive or something. Oh man, that's cool. Yeah, they make some really cool ones. |
| James Stacey | So I'll put the like a page in there. And then if you click over to special editions, they make one in khaki green. Um, there's the, obviously, like I mentioned, the titanium one, uh, there's a white one, which is called the Leica Q snow, which I think is, I think when I first saw it, I thought, why would you want the white one? And then now I see it and I'm like, that's so cool. Um, so yeah, I, I'm, I'm absolutely a bit of a fan boy for the Q, especially I have an M 10, which is a higher end, rangefinder digital rangefinder from like as well that I find I adore it with the right lens. Yeah, with a 50 lux with with their 90 macro or portrait lens. Those are amazing. Currently I have a 35 lux on it and it feels like I'm I'm doing the queue thing but slower. And what I like about the queue is if I want to picture my kids or I want to take a wrist shot and I only have five minutes but I want to put something on Instagram. Yeah, I only take one or two frames. You know, I was, I was joking. Uh, I have a longstanding deficiency in keeping my cameras charged. My, my batteries charge. I have famously showed up to, and I won't say what the shoot is cause the pictures are public, but I famously showed up to shoots with no battery and shot the whole thing on my phone and then just did the best later. Uh, and I'm not giving up which ones that is because people didn't notice. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Anyways, I went to shoot that grueling on my father, you know, and they live about an hour away from me. So I went out to shoot it in the backyard and I hadn't charged either of my batteries. I just assumed one of them would have enough for 20 photos. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Well, as it turns out, I had enough for about 15 photos. I didn't realize that at the time I shot, I shot a couple of lay flats on their, on a table in their backyard. And then I was like, Hey dad, let's, let's shoot this. And I got them to do a pocket shot. I take one frame and it died. And that's the one frame that's, that's in the, in the story. Uh, that was my, that was my one chance. I got it. And that's what I like about the Leica is they, this camera is so easy to use, especially once you start thinking with it. And this is the same with, with what you, what we were saying about shooting film. Once you think you're thinking with the film and with the camera, you get into this kind of groove where you're working together and making, and you're getting the results that your brain was already thinking about. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And I think that that has never been easier for me than with the Leica. I really loved the 6500, aside from the kind of noisiness of the images. I think if I hadn't done the Q, I would have ended up on an A7 and we would have been doing Perfect Product 4 and I would just be raving about an A7R. I think that what you get from these cameras is very similar. Excellent resolution, the availability of awesome lenses, and really it is a professional platform. If you're sitting at home and you're going like, James, I love the idea of a Leica Cube, but I am not spending three grand on a camera. I came with a backup. Yeah. Yeah. I owned an X100, a Fuji X100, a couple of years before I got to Leica. It is absolutely the value option for this sort of a camera. Fixed lens, a decent focal length all around, and nice image quality, good handling in that sort of vintage-y camera feel. Yeah. So I had an X100T. And then I believe they went to the F and then to the V, the five, the fifth gen. I can recommend all of those. And when I had my T, I think I bought and sold it within maybe six months for the same price. Oh, sure. I bought it used and, uh, and I sold it used and it was under a thousand dollars. Uh, from there, I went on to an RX 100 from the RX 100 into the A6500 and so forth. The full frame image sensor for me is easily worth the delta in cost. Yeah. Like 2000 bucks more for a full frame when I do this for a living. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't think I'll go back to a cropped, you know, especially not with how good iPhones and cell phones have gotten. Yeah. And if you have the money or you take this, the sort of photography thing is, is, is your, your big hobby, the Q man is, uh, the two is wild. If you've got the memory card for it and the hard drives at home to back up your photos. Well, good. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, it's, I think I enjoyed this discussion. I think, I think having two very different cameras, but Both state-of-the-art for their era, and both immensely pleasurable to use, was a good choice. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, and I think it also gives it the two sides. I don't think you would buy a Leica Q if what you wanted was to really explore the grassroots of photography, you would go with a film camera and take your time and be patient and develop it as sort of an art or an expression of the way that you see things. Whereas on the other side, if you wanted something that you had to be able to, you know, walk into a meeting at Basel or get a great photo at a race in Monaco or shoot a wrist shot at home, all with one camera, all for work, You go with the Q, I think. |
| Jason Heaton | That would be quite the bold move to bring the F3 to Basel and shoot it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. |
| James Stacey | Or Monaco. Yeah. But I've rambled enough. Two good cameras and, uh, and that's perfect product for. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. This was a good one. I enjoyed it. I'm glad we're back to that. That was good. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And yeah, if you have any questions, anything you'd like, uh, either Jason or I to clarify, of course you can send us an email, thegreatnadoatgmail.com. If you think it's more of a general question about photography or otherwise, you can record it into the voice memo app on your phone, send it to the great NATO at gmail.com. And we will include it in an upcoming, uh, Q and a we'll do one probably in the next two weeks. We've, we've been getting some recent questions that I'm pretty excited about. And finally, if you just want to chit chat, you want to tell me what I got wrong about Leica or why there's a different camera. That's not a Fuji. That's also a great option. By all means, get on the substack, make an account, get in there and comment. I'm reading every comment. I'll continue to do so. And Jason's doing the same. We're seeing what's coming through the account. So that is notes.thegrenado.com. Jason, what do you say we jump into some final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'll jump into that one. I've got a miniseries, actually. This is a recent edition on HBO. Ghoshani and I kind of just binged this over two days recently. It's called The Investigation and it's a Danish series. And we started watching it because we're kind of fans of sort of Nordic noir, Scandinavian and British sort of Isles murder mystery stuff. And as soon as we got into the first episode, the story sounded really familiar and it turns out not knowing anything about this particular series, it was, it was based on a very well-known case from I think 2017. Um, and I don't want to give too much away here. Uh, but for those of you that are curious, there was this case of, of, um, I think she was Swedish, a journalist named Kim Wall, who went to interview a wealthy and eccentric engineer and inventor who had his own submarine. And he took her for a submarine ride, uh, in kind of the, the waters between Sweden and Denmark. And she never came back. So she disappeared and. He was under the suspicion of murder. And long story short, the show is about the months long, almost year long investigation to, you know, prove what happened and gather evidence as well as to find evidence in, you know, at the bottom of the ocean to support this case. And, you know, to be clear, this is not a series. This is not an uplifting story. This is not a, Um, you know, show you watch with your kids or, or, you know, if you're not in a great mood, you might want to skip it, but I believe it was six or seven episodes and. Really kind of the main protagonist is, is this Danish, uh, detective, um, and his small team and, and just the lengths they had to go to, to work at a crime scene that was scattered around on the sea floor, uh, as well as raising of a submarine, a small submarine. Was fascinating. What was really interesting about the show is the, the, the, the accused, the, uh, would be, or, or sorry, the, uh, uh, alleged murderer in this case was never named in the series, never shown. They never showed the guy. They never showed him in police interviews. They never gave him a name. They didn't describe or, or, or show the crime. Like a lot of these shows do. It was, it was just about the investigation and it was absolutely fascinating to look at all the different elements and different people and areas of expertise that had to converge to, to find what they were looking for at the bottom of the sea, including these highly trained, very specifically talented, uh, what are called cadaver dogs that are trained to detect, uh, uh, you know, dead bodies basically underwater, which is just blew my mind as well as there was a, The one piece that I thought would be interesting, uh, particularly to TGN listeners. And, you know, we talk a lot about diving of course, was there was a lot of, um, diving on the show and, and some interesting watch choices. There was one guy that was wearing my, my favorite old eighties Aqualand citizen analog digital, one of the Danish divers that was, that was working the case. And then the, the main, uh, detective wears a, what looks like a Seiko SKX on a bracelet. Um, that's all very secondary to the, to the case, but I just, we both just found this show. Um, really gripping and really fascinating. It was, it was a, what do you call it? It's not a documentary. It's a dramatization of, of this case. But, uh, um, I found it just interesting in terms of the, the police techniques, the investigation techniques that were used to, to track this, uh, this relatively horrific case. Um, and it was, it was a very sad story, but, but utterly fascinating and it does have a satisfactory ending. Uh, it sounds great. you know, there is justice at the end. So it's, it's really good. I highly recommend it. Um, you know, we, we watch a lot of this kind of stuff. Um, and I, I don't always bring it up on, on TGN because I would be doing it every week because we're always looking for these kinds of shows. But, uh, certainly if anyone has any similar shows that are, um, of parallel interest or, or similar threads, uh, post those on, on sub stack or send us an email or something. Um, cause I'm always looking for, for good stuff like this. So, uh, check it out. Yeah, if you have an HBO subscription, I think we signed up for a trial through Amazon Prime or something in order to watch this and a couple of other shows that have popped up on HBO. So check it out. |
| James Stacey | Nice. Yeah, that's definitely one I will add to the list. I recently finished Mayor of Easttown. Another good one. |
| Unknown | Another good murder mystery. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, that was an excellent watch for sure. Beautifully written. Yeah. Uh, mine's a really fun one. And it's one that one of these ones that I'll try and be brief on because I would like people to, to actually read it, but it's called how to prepare and maintain a car for a 50,000 mile road trip around the world. Wow. This was just published yesterday to Jalopnik by a guy named Dan Grek, who may be one of my new favorite writers. Uh, and I'll, I'll just, I'll, I'll, I'll quote a line. He says, before we dive in, let's back up a bit. I'm Dan Grek in 2009. I realized sitting at a desk wasn't make me making me happy. So I quit my job and drove 40,000 miles from the top of Alaska to the bottom of Argentina through 17 countries in a $5,000 Jeep Wrangler. Wow. Uh, I want to do it. The post is the post is really long and very, uh, technical, but also has a nice travel angle. The photos are really good. Um, he, that GP moves on to another Jeep, which is of, you know, of a similar vintage to my own. Uh, and just, uh, I, I really love these sorts of stories. Uh, and, and I like seeing these vehicles just really on the, not on the, not only on the edge of, uh, on the edge of, you know, civilization in some, in some ways, but just on, on the edge of how people use cars anymore in general. Um, and this idea of, you know, yeah, Alaska to Argentina, man, sign me up. |
| Jason Heaton | But yeah, that's great. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. The photos are great. And he eventually moves on to one that, you know, has a camper top, uh, a JK series with a camper top and, really, really fun stuff. And he a lot of it is it looks like he's got a decent YouTube channel, which I'm gonna have to add to my list. But a lot of it is about, you know, things that you can kind of predict that will fail that you should have with you, and how to behave when your car does fail, maybe in a busy road, maybe on in an area where you shouldn't have a car breakdown, that sort of thing. Yeah. So I only had a chance that you know, I caught this this morning in my feed And I'm partway through it and I was just blown away. I thought the, between the photos and, and his kind of general treatment and this aesthetic of the, you know, the, yeah, 50,000 mile road trip, uh, you know, in, in, be it a Jeep or who cares, a Jeep, a Land Rover, a Land Cruiser, like there's, there's a handful of vehicles that are in the methodology of being able to do this. Uh, and it's fun to see people actually doing it. So, uh, that's one I absolutely recommend, especially if, if like me, you're waiting for venture forward stuff kind of on a weekly basis, this is a, a nice fill in and it looks like yet another YouTube channel to check out. So, uh, yeah, well done on that, Dan. And, uh, Dan, if by chance you're listening to this, please drop me a line. I would love to have you on to talk about this experience. I think it would be super fun. I will, uh, otherwise I will, I will probably find you on Instagram and leave a comment. Uh, this is a super, super cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, I love this. I'm just scrolling through it and it's like, you know, I think it's the timing of it as well. I think we're all waiting to, bust out and go do something. And we, we had this bit of an aborted road trip that I was prepping for. And it's like, I see he's got a photo here. He's like a new starter motor is always a good idea. And, uh, I have a new starter motor that I thought, no, I should probably take that along just in case, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's, this is, this is, I'm going to read this right after we're done here. This looks great. |
| James Stacey | Cool. Good one. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm pumped to dig more into it and, uh, and, and hopefully, uh, to see more stuff like this from, uh, from Dan on Jalopnik and otherwise. Cool. Cool. And yeah, so that's, that's the show. As always, thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the show notes via notes.thegraynado.com or check the feed for more details and of course links. You can follow us on Instagram at Jason Heaton and at J.E. Stacey and you can follow the show at The Gray Nado. If you have any questions for us, please write thegraynado at gmail.com or leave a comment or keep sending in those voice memos. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts and music throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this fitting quote from Ansel Adams. There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. |