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Jared Polin, froknowsphota.com and welcome to Raw Talk, episode 184. The time now is 10:53 on Thursday, January 29, 2026. And I forgot to put my watch on low power mode and it's already used 3%. The reason I forgot, the reason I put it on low power mode is I want it to last for like three days, my Apple watch. And I'm going away to Paris and I don't care to charge it. In three days I can get through with my Apple watch, but that's not where I wanted to start. I am leaving for Paris this evening. So I got a flight tonight, 6:45 or 6:55, no, 6:45, heading out to Charles de Gaulle. It will be me and our new employee, Austin, who is going on his first trip with me. And why are we going to Paris? Because I was like going to support a friend, which I talked about in the past. And we're going to make some content while we're there, which is a good thing. As you know, Steven is out on maternity leave. We'll talk more about that when I've got more time to talk about it. And when he's back, he'll be back with more updates, which is always a good thing. But there is still a lot to discuss today. And I know when, when the co hosts of podcast aren't on, it tends to maybe turn some people off. It definitely turns me off when there's co hosts on. I listen to Pivot and with Scott Galloway and if Scott Galloway isn't on, I tend to not want to listen because he's playing of the reason. So I hope that if you are here for Steven, I appreciate that. Please consider sticking around. I have a lot to talk about today. That's still very similar to how I do Raw talk all the time. But anyway, I appreciate you guys being here and thank you for all the new listeners. If you're new to this, thank you for coming in. You could always use our text line, which I don't push out there too often. I can't find the piece of paper this very freaking second, which is right not in front of me. Anyway, the link is down below or sorry, the phone number is down below where you could add your number to the text line. There it is. It's on the floor. Hold on, I moved it. Cause I had to film. 313-710-9729. That's 313-710-9729. That is the text line. It is the best place where Stephen and I will reply to you if we can. There's roughly 3,000 people on the text line, and that is our smallest place, but also the easiest place for people to get in touch with us and to actually get replies. Please don't keep them. Don't. Don't make them long, and don't make them crappy. Just ask a question. If you have a question, ask it. Give us enough information to reply, but not too much. Where we're just like, that's TMI or too much to read, or TLDR or whatever the term is used. Okay, so I have a decision to make. I officially have two like is in hand. I. I've got an M11 monochrome, and I've got an MEV1 Leica. Right? This is the new rangefinder, which isn't exactly a rangefinder because it doesn't have a rangefinder. It has an EVF built in. The M11 monochrome, on the other hand, has a rangefinder. It's more of a traditional M setup, and I have an EVF attached to it because Leica actually has an EVF that goes into the hot shoe to help you with focus and seeing the world slightly different, which is what it's all about, in my opinion. I don't like rangefinders. I have trouble focusing with rangefinders. I have trouble visualizing all the different. If you've ever looked through a rangefinder, there's multiple lines in there. They're like, this is the 35 box, this is the 50 box. If you need to shoot at 28 or longer, we have this other thing to put on top of the camera. So it's kind of a lot of guesswork. Well, I don't want the guesswork, personally, but I want to use the Leica in Paris. And as I said in the prior weeks, I have a 35 millimeter 1.4 summilux, and unbeknownst to me, Leica dropped this morning a 3512 summilux, which some reviewers have. I obviously don't rank on the charts of Leica at all. So it is what it is. I don't rank, and that's fine. But I really love 35 1.2s. I still think 35 is one of my most favorite focal lengths. I don't understand someone who would say that 85 is their favorite focal length, because 85 is a very limiting lens, whereas a 35, you can not only do portraits, but documentation work. And 85 is just long. Can't use it indoors for most part. So I feel that 35 is one of the most versatile photojournalistic style lenses that can run around 85s and do portraits. Slightly different, of course, but be more versatile. So I have the 3514. The 3512 they just announced is 9600. Yes, Leicas are expensive. I'm curious how heavy that lens is compared to this 35.1.4. I don't know that you will see much of a difference. You probably will see a subtle difference, but I don't know that I'll ever get my hands on it. But now that I have both of these Leicas in hand, it's a tough choice that I have to make. Do I take one? Do I take the other? Do I take both? What are the pros? What are the cons? What are the reasons? Now, originally, when I set out to go to PAC Paris and take a Leica, my goal and idea was I wanted an M11 monochrome. Well, B and H, who were kind enough to lend me a camera, the MEV1 and the lens did not have an M11 monochrome in stock. They are very hard to keep in stock because people want them and they sell. And they're over 10 grand for that monochrome camera. Now, I mentioned on a Insta story the other day or in a reel that I should have asked Brandon at Alan's Camera, which is the store that I continue to support. I support. Look, I go to B and H if I need certain things that Brandon doesn't carry at Alan's Camera. I support Brandon wholeheartedly for what his dad did, not just what his dad did for me, to help me get my start after I worked at Alan's Camera and then started making, excuse me, YouTube videos. But because it's a mom and pop store and I want to continue to support a small business like that, but that has the same pricing as everybody else, but wins on service. And if you need something, you call them and they will help you out. So I support Allen's Camera wholeheartedly. I should have asked Brandon if he had, if I could borrow a Leica. I didn't do that. Which I should always ask. I should always ask first and not assume. And because I assumed, I didn't ask him. And it turns out that he actually had a demo unit of an MEV1 and he had a 351 4. And I could have got it from him and given him the extra publicity, but it is what it is. But I will continue to do that and push that further because I really think you should support Brandon at Alan's camera. And, and this is not a paid plug or anything, this is just. I support them. So ask for Brandon, ask for anybody there. Tell them the fro sent you and that's about it. No affiliate links or anything like that. Just the fro sent you is good enough. So I have these two in front of me because I ended up calling Leica last week. The store, it was a Friday and B and H was already closed and I had a question about something going on with the settings in the MV1, so I couldn't ask them because they're closed. And I got the Leica people on the phone and they were kind enough to talk to me and answer my questions. And I mentioned I don't get anything from Leica headquarters. They don't like me. They don't like me. And I mean, maybe it's for good reasons, maybe it's not. But ideally I wanted an M11. And the person said, look, if there's an issue with that MVE one, we have another one here, we could send you one of those and you could, you know, do that. I figured out what the issue was. It was not the camera, it was something else. And it was all solved. It was human error. And then he was like, you know, I can send you an M11. And the guy knew the stuff that I do, which is great. So that's a shout out to the Leica store in New York City. Super shout out to them. Because he just offered it up. I didn't ask. He's like, I can send you. He sent me a new M11. And that's what came in the mail yesterday with a used, which I don't care if it's used or not. That's a thousand dollar evf, by the way. And he didn't ask for anything. He's like, you don't have to plug, you don't have to do anything. I just want to do this. I'm going to send it to you and of course I'm going to do something because of that. That's how you do it. You don't have to ask. And that's the best way. Humble. And so I was super appreciative that he did that. And so now I have the M11 monochrome, which is ideally what I wanted to take in the first place, and the MEV1, which I would do the conversion, which I photographed in the snow over the weekend. And you saw the pictures I posted On Instagram, I think they're very good. It took me five or six pictures to start to feel the focusing better. And then I started. And also my hands, I couldn't. They started to get cold because it was about 12 degrees out. But I started to get a good feel for it, and I was happy with the pictures that I got. And they're all DNGs, right? So they have the color, but I convert it to black and white just by hitting, you know, black and white or grayscale, and then edit it the way that I would personally edit it. And the pictures look fine, like, good. Right. Do I think that they stand out more than if it was taken with a Canon, a Sony, a Nikon, or anything else? No. The answer to that is it's gonna be hard to tell, and it always is. But what I will say is in the edges of the frame, the lines were beyond straight up and down. That is where you notice imperfections with certain lenses, is that crappier lenses and sometimes not even crapp. The higher end lenses from Canon, Sony, Nikon can't render the lines straight in buildings, so they're not corrected for, like, parallax and stuff. And they can't get the street poles upright. But in the pictures that I did, the edges of the frame aren't bowing in. They are corrected optically. Like, there's. It's not. But there is some digital correction, by the way. Not a lot. It's subtle. It is a subtle pin cushioning or whatever they call it, correction that goes on in Lightroom. But the optics are so superb on this 3514 that it gets those lines straight in the edges. So that's great. One of the other things I ran into was I had to shoot at a higher aperture in order to make sure that I got some action that was happening with the dad pulling a sled with two kids in it. And so I went to, like. I don't know, I think I went to 5, 6, or maybe I went to F8. And my buddy Adam Lerner, if you remember him from way back in the day, told me that the information is not passed through the camera. So if I go to f8 on the lens, it doesn't write that into the metadata. At least he said that he could be wrong, now that I think about it, because it knows for the exposure to do that, but it doesn't. I don't know. I'm pretty sure it passed along. He might be wrong about that. The MEV one may have passed that along. So I'm not sure I'll have to verify that with them. But, you know, I went to a higher aperture and I was able to make it work. So here's my thinking. I'm going to use an M11 monochrome primarily in Paris, because I. That's what I want to do. What I don't want to have happen is I don't want to have my focus split between two cameras, right? Because if you try to do too many things, you end up doing none of it. Right? So. But I also don't want to leave this Leica in my Airbnb because it's B and H's Leica, and it's very expensive, and I don't want to have to foot the bill for a camera that gets stolen. So it will have to be on my person at all times so that I have to carry it around. Now, this Leica is not heavy by any stretch of the imagination. If this is £2, it's, you know, it's heavy. You know, not heavy. But what I'm saying is, if it's £2 at all, you know, I'm trying to say it's light, basically, without a lens on it. So I have to wrap it up. I plan on bringing it, but my problem is I don't want to be a tester. I'm not someone who tests stuff because I don't care about the technical stuff as much. Now, yes, we make reviews and we do comparisons. That's for the people that care about that. I don't. I don't care about the subtleties of certain things that only showed up. Only show up when you pixel peep. That's not my jam, and I don't like doing that. But on the flip side, I know that most people will never buy a Leica, and they'll still probably watch a video about the differences between monochrome or the other sensor, which is color, and then converting it to monochrome. And I guess I'm kind of curious to see it for myself because I know when I posted the images, people were like, oh, Leicas, have a look. If I took black and white pictures with a Canon R8 and posted them with a 3514 and said it was a Leica, no one would question that it was a Leica because they wouldn't know, because good pictures are good pictures are good pictures. There is an inherent bias for everybody. But also, Leica shooters have this thing where it's like, and this is every shooter, right? Oh, my Sony looks better. My Canon looks better. No, Nikon looks better. At the end of the day, guys, a great picture is a great picture is a great picture. It doesn't matter how it was shot. So we have these biases built into us. And like the Leica shooters look at this and say, oh, that Leica just has a look. Just look at the fall off and you're like, fuck off. Like seriously, like, fuck off. You can't tell. Maybe they can, maybe they can, but pixel peep. But I think people really want to know, is there a difference between the monochrome sensor and the color sensor converted? I know people are going to say, well, the M11 monochrome is much better in low light situations. So maybe I just take a second and run a couple of basic tests, but not get lost. I do not want to get lost in the world of testing when there's possibilities for getting great images. So we're not going to go into the catacombs. I refuse to, because I just thought of the low light situation and I think the catacombs are one of the dumbest things ever. But that would be a good low light situation to be in. Maybe the subway is a low light situation to be in. I know that we can shoot outside at the Louvre. I know we can shoot inside at the Louvre. You've got the Eiffel Tower. All of these things are during the day. But I want to go to a jazz club at night. I don't think they'll have smoking in it like they did in Japan. But a jazz club would be a low light jazz club. If I'm sitting. Well, I don't want to sit. I want to move around to take photos. But maybe, just maybe, I will do for you guys making a video where I'll get a couple of different scenarios with the black and white and a couple of different. A couple different scenarios with both so that you can compare and we can do it because I think like we know people aren't buying Lamborghinis, but they still watch the Lamborghini video. So who knows? But this is my Choice is the M11 monochrome for the majority of my shooting that I will do in Paris, because that is what I was interested in using in the first place. I want to be locked into the box of shooting monochrome. So therefore that is the right choice. And people say that it is the best sensor. Like, it's a great sensor. It gets rid of the color filtering and it's much sharper and it's better in low light and it's just better. We'll try to find that out. Is monochrome better than converting a raw file from a non monochrome camera? If you need to zoom in to 200% or 100% to possibly see the differences, then there is no difference. And it's not worth it because even if you printed this stuff out the size of walls, you probably won't be able to tell the difference. And if people are just posting pictures on Instagram, you'll never know the difference. So there is that. I don't want to be a tester. What do you guys think? Again? You could always text me 313-710-9729. That is the text line. So my goal, Paris in black and white. Okay, moving on. Some Canon rumors just popped up before I started doing this episode and they're about patent filings from canon for more 1.2 lenses. There's a 35 1.2 which has been a lens that I've sought after I really wanted for a long time. And there's a 2412 patent as well. There are. There are situations where these lenses come in handy. I shot Sony for like two years when I went on the road with Bernie. I took a 3512 because Canon, Sony's 24 to 72.8 original was really bad. And then I also took Sigma's 24 to 72.8 and their 1214 to 24 at the time 2.8. But I did live on the 3512 a lot. I felt that that was an awesome lens on that camera. But later on with like the A1, I didn't like the 3512 on the camera and I've talked about that in the past, that it just didn't seem to have the same sharpness. There was something wrong. Like I don't know if it was a firmware thing or they just didn't talk to each other very well. But it was not the best Choice on that A1. Now Sigma has a new 3512. It's great. But now that these systems have 28 to 70 F2s, it makes you question, is a prime lens even necessary? Or are you better off with a fast, what I call prime zoom? If you have the time to shoot a 35 fixed one two is incredible. The Canon VCM line of lenses is an incredible line of lenses. If you want a 20, a 20, you know, a 20, a 35, a 50, an 85, 1.4 and that's your kit. Like you're going to have Plenty of room in your bag because those things are super light and they're versatile. Well, sorry, they're not versatile. They're very good in low light. The problem is they're not as versatile as a zoom, because you have to ask yourself if you're running and gunning, is a 28 to 70 a good trade off? It's still an F2, and you're losing out on some of that light capability gathering. But in today's world, it's not so much about gathering extra light. Where when I had a D2H or back in the film days, when you knew you had 800 speed film and you were shooting an 85, 1.4 versus a 85, let's say a 70 to 202.8, you needed the light gathering capability because of the speed of your film. Nowadays, we just bump the ISO a stop, and it doesn't matter, you know, from 2,500 to 5,000, not that big of a deal anymore. It just isn't. It's more about the background, and it's also more so, I think, about the quality of what the image looks like. There is just a zhush. And a zhush is like a term I heard in a restaurant with Michael Solomonoff from Zahav. Look up Zahav, the restaurant in Philly. But it's a zhush, like a zhush, like a thing. It feels good. It's a thing. There's a look to the 35 one twos from everybody. The 51.2 from. From Ken. I meant just one twos. The 51.2 from Sony is an incredible freaking lens. But then you have a 50 to 150 F2 and you're like, ooh, like, do I want the versatility? That's kind of where I want to live. But there's a look to these 12 lenses. There's just a 3D nature to it. There's a specific sharpening to the edges and the colors and the tones that just resonate. For me now, whether people notice the difference or not is questionable. As I always say, a good picture is a good picture is a good picture. So you could shoot it at F29. I don't give a shit if it's the greatest picture since sliced bread. It's the greatest picture since sliced bread, even if it doesn't meet the technical standards, because it's not about that. Sure, technical stuff is a thing, but you could have the most technical image in the world. That's perfect from the technical standpoint, but you didn't capture a right moment versus someone captured the right moment without the most perfect settings in the world. But that shot is better because they captured the moment. And I know some people just want technical perfect and that's fine. It's personal choice until I yell at you for shooting like an asshole. And so yeah, so the two patents are 35 1.2 and a 24 1.2. After using the VCM line of lenses in LA last week, if you have the time to move around, it is well worth it. And you have the time to use these fixed lenses. They are just fantastic. I would use the 3512 that way. That is just. I would totally use that all day, every day. Except for the fact if I need to run and gun, if I need to run and gun, then I feel like I'm going to miss opportunities if I don't have that 28 to 70 F2 from Canon or Sony because it is so versatile. But it's also better than 2.8. It's an F2 and yeah, it's a stop and a half or so. Less. It's a stop less, I believe, because it's a half a stop. No, it's a whole stop from 12 to 14 and it's a half a stop from 14 to F2. So yeah, it's a stop and a half difference. But versatility means I'm going to get the shot. So I would absolutely take a 3512 and use it in situations like if I'm on stage with a band during rehearsals. I could use that. Maybe I'll throw two bodies on which I don't like shooting with two bodies, one on the left, one on the right to have two lenses to switch between. Because I don't like having two of them hanging by my side or one of them hanging by my side when I get low. Because now I'm starting to worry about dinging it off the ground and I don't like to do that. So I don't know about a 24 1.2 how useful that is. I mean, obviously they'll be used in, in all types of work, whether it's landscape or video work or astro. They're gorgeous. They would be gorgeous lenses. If Canon is working on this, this is great. My advice to Canon is please work on a refresh to the 28-70 F2 and shrink it and make it not as heavy. Because Sony, seven years after you put out your amazing first lens that I called it a fuck you lens. A lens that you did because you could. And it worked because it took Sony seven years to develop theirs or however long it took them to develop it. Actually, I don't know the answer to that. But theirs is 33% lighter and so that would come in handy to have it slightly lighter. I'm not sure where I was going with all of that. It's not in my notes. Yeah. So anyway, I would absolutely take the 35 12. I don't know about the 2412 personally. It's all situational dependent. I'm curious to hear what you guys say. As always, you could text me 313-710-9729 to give me and Steven your thoughts. We will take a look and try to get back to as many people as possible. Yeah, it's always a coin flip. It really is a coin flip at that point. All right, moving on. We were going to talk about this last week, but now it's, you know, we have time to talk about it this week. The rumored Sony 180 megapixel medium format sensor. When I first heard this on Sony Alpha rumors, my brain went to is Sony going to come out with a medium format camera? And then a week later they're like, well, this could be the Sensor in the GFX1 hundreds. And yeah, and let's put a caveat here. When I say medium format sensor. I put that in air quotes. Why do I put it in air quotes? Because it's not truly medium format. We could call it full frame extra large or XL full frame since true medium format is much larger. Or you could call it mini medium format or medium format dx. You know, for smaller than but still larger than full frame. If you go and look up what a real medium format sensor looks like, it's like three or four times the surface volume and sorry, surface area, not volume, surface. I don't want people to correct me there. The surface area of what a supposed medium format sensor looks like. Now don't get me wrong, a medium format sensor that is smaller than a regular medium format sensor is still larger than a full frame sensor. And I like the quality that I was getting out of that GFX1 hundreds. It's a fun camera. The fact that it can shoot fast. Now it can't shoot fast with the 16 bit raw files. It only can take one of those because it's so much data and so much color. But is Sony's new sensor potentially partially stacked? If it is partially stacked, are you going to lose out on some dynamic range? Are you going to lose out on any bit depth? Will you be able to shoot faster with 16 bit raw files? Those are the questions. But the biggest question of all in my mind is is Sony contemplating coming out with their own medium format camera? We heard this in the past. It was like Nikon was rumored to be coming out with an mx, like an MX format. I guess I could off the record call Nikon somebody and ask them if it really, if it moved through development stages at all and then was killed before it was released. It wouldn't be the first Nikon product to do that. Nikon announced like full frame point and shoots many, many years ago and they ended up killing it before they released it. The same thing happened with their actual action cameras, the go missions, those cameras. They ended up coming up with a whole lineup and they ended up killing it before they released it. But they had press materials. I have a store showcase with those in. It just didn't work and they absolutely killed it. So do I think Sony would do this? And that's a good question because if they. Because we have to look at what they would need to do to release a medium format camera and what would it mean to their 35 millimeter cameras. Releasing an entirely new format means they need a new lens mount. They would need lenses to support the system from day one. So that's three, five, six, seven, eight lenses right off the rip. Or maybe it's five, you know, what would it look like? How large of an open. Are they going to do a larger than medium format sensor? Well, if they're developing this 180 megapixel, it would be that sensor which I think would still be the same size as the GFX100 because they use Sony sensors. But you absolutely need the new mount, you absolutely need the new optical formulas for the lenses and that's a big road to hoe. Right? That's a lot of stuff. I wrote down bevy of lenses. There's a lot of stuff. You need to contemplate a huge outlay investment to determine if this is a large enough market for them to make money. Is it something they're interested in doing? I don't think they're going to come out with a system like that. I think they will be happy to just sell those sensors to these other companies like Fuji and maybe Hasselblad. I don't know who's making their sensors and be happy just selling that because if Sony decides to come out with their own medium format system, that would mean that they could be killing off their A7R line of lenses, sorry, line of bodies, right? 61 megapixels instead of 180. I mean that's double the amount of more than double the amount of megapixels. But the Sony Alpha Rumors guy who I ripped on in my photo news fix made a point to be like, oh, 180 megapixels is amazing because then you can just take one lens and leave your zoom lens at home and then just crop two, three, four or five times. And that right there, my friends, is the absolute wrong mentality to have as a creator. Leaving all your lenses at home and being like I'll just do the work later is the wrong mentality. If you ever find yourself saying I'll fix it in post instead of correcting it right off the rip, there's a problem. You should not do the I will fix it in post if it is capable of being fixed now. And so to have the mentality of I could take one wide lens and crop to my heart's content defeats the whole purpose. That is a lazy bitch way of shooting photos. A really piss poor way mentality to think about how to capture images. Because it's not just about composing after the fact and recomposing and making something out of something after. Which is different than the 360 cameras where you shoot and compose later. Because that's the intent of those 360 cameras is to you have that, but in your mind you have an idea of what you're going to do. That's shoot first and compose later. That's a different scenario. But there's depth differences, there's compression differences with the lenses that you use, there's background bokeh differences with the lenses that you use. There's reasons we use all of the lenses that we use. And your images are not going to look the same if you start taking horizontal equivalent to say a 35 millimeter or a 24 millimeter and crop 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times. That's just stupid. Please do not fall into that trap of thinking that just because you have more megapixels means that you can crop more and maintain quality because you can't. The more you crop, the more you enlarge the imperfections of the pixels. And yes, you have 180 of them, 180 million pixels. That's fine and it's going to be better. But that is no way to shoot. I want the best of the best with honors quality, sir, Time and time again. Which is why I personally don't choose to crop. Personal choice. I don't want to second guess every single photo that I take. And I encourage you guys to try that, to have the mentality of, I don't want to second guess every photo. If you need to straighten a line, if you need to punch in a little bit, if that's your thing, learn from it, but then challenge yourself to get it in the camera composed properly so you don't have to second guess your images after the fact. To me, that is an amazing feeling when you do it. It also saves me a lot of stress because I again, do not want to question every image. If you start questioning every image now, you start cropping every image and you're taking away from the intent of what you did, but it's also creating you a lot of extra work in post. And especially you landscape shooters. If you say, I'll fix it in post, you're shooting a fucking landscape. It's not going anywhere. Yes, the light is changing, but you don't need to rush it. If you have the ability to compose it, get it right. And here's a caveat for cropping. I say this to anybody that shoots with landscapes and has the vision and the idea to capture an image, but then they want to make it a panoramic, that is shooting with intent. I have no problem with you going out into the world and being like, I don't need the top and I don't need the bottom of this horizontal image because I am doing this for a panoramic image. You are going out there with a purpose. That's fine. Then I'm okay with you cropping that because you went out there with intent with the idea and thought to capture it this specific way. And that means you thought it out and that's good. And I'm all for that. So I don't think Sony is going to go ahead and release their own medium format line of cameras and lenses. I wouldn't put it past them, but I also wouldn't bet the house on it. Well, which house would I bet? I got five. That's a comment for Steven. He would love to hear that. He'd make fun of me. He would probably think the same thing. If I said I wouldn't bet the house on that. He might have said, which one? And if he listens to this, I'm curious to see if he comments back to me and says, you're right, I would have thought the same thing. But no, I wouldn't bet any of my houses or any of my properties on Whether they'll do it or not. But I'm going to go with I don't think they will. I don't think Canon will, I don't think Nikon will. I think Fuji is in a great place with what they've done with that system. And I think that this sensor is built for that. If it's profitable enough for Sony to do that, then they'll keep doing it. But is it profit? Is it. Could it be more profitable to sell their own camera system? Is it worth the investment? Is the big question, do they lose out on. See, they'll run the numbers. Do we make more money on medium format, which you're not selling at as high of a rate, right? You're not selling as many of them as you would for every A7R line of camera or A9 or A7V. So is there a volume difference where you have less and you're not making as much? Where you sell more and you are making more, is that the better way to go? Or can you charge a premium for the Sony over the Fuji or a very similar price? But because you manufacture the sensors and run the entire ecosystem, maybe it is economical. So I'm not sure what direction they're going to go. We'll just have to wait and see what ends up happening. So that's what I got, right? That's really what I have for this episode. I know it's not as long. I gotta get lunch, I then gotta get ready, I gotta pack, and then in four hours, I'm heading to the airport. The key is I want to eat lunch because before we fly overnight, I want to make sure I get a good amount of food in my system for the overnight flight. So I'm not famished. And so I'll be able to go to the lounge, get some food and just be satisfied that way. The goal of Paris is to explore Paris in black and white, to bring this back to the beginning. And that is what I intend to do. So, yeah, I'm gonna take both of them, but I don't want to confuse my brain because it happened in Paris before. The first time I went to Paris, I was trying to make a vlog and I was trying to take photos. And what happened is I was really upsetting myself and I needed to focus on just one. And I did. I took the what D850 out there with a 3514 at the time, Nikon, and just went and explored Paris. And that is what needs to happen. And I'll have Austin with Me to film me and hopefully not get in the way. I don't want to yell at him. We're going to go around, he's going to film me and I'm going to capture and talk to the camera. And the goal is for him to make a vlog of us in Paris. And using the Leicas like that is the key. I mean, if I can get multiple pieces of content with him out of this, like if I do a separate video that's a comparison between those, you know, I don't expect it to do well, the comparison between the two files. But hell, if I just do it and I put the files out into the world and people can download them. Fine, do your own thing. Here are these pictures. You decide which is better. Like, that's the ultimate to me. And so if we can make the vlog and we can do a review of the M11 monochrome or the MEV1 or a joint, this camera, a joint review between both of them, maybe I do that. That's not my forte. I'm not a Leica guy. But as a non Leica shooter, maybe it would be interesting to hear my opinion and my thoughts. And I know that most, a lot of the Leica shooters I know spend more time taking pictures of their Leicas with their iPhones than actually pictures with their Leicas and sharing that with the world. They kind of do it backwards because for them it's a look at me, look at me type of thing. And for me it's like, is this a superior product to others? Because they talk about how great like a glass is and we'll have to see, but it's a slower system. I am setting it to one shot. I will not be motor driving. My goal is not to take a ton of pictures. It's to take pictures with intent. Very similar to when I shoot with the 4x5. This is not as hard as that, but this is all manual focus too. And yeah, I've got the EVF right in front of my eye, so my exposure will be right there. And Leica has done a very good job with putting the meter nice front and center and big and accurate. The EVF is very accurate to the exposure, which is very important. So I hope to get some keeper images, some quality images going around Paris, go into the nightclubs, go to the landmarks, go around the different appizer malls and get different types of shots. You know, street stuff. But I don't want to shove a camera in someone's face. I'm looking for light. I'm looking for shadow. I'm looking for angles. I'm looking for moments when they present themselves. I hope I'm able to capture them and I hope stuff's in focus. I might not just shoot at 1.4 because as I learned with this camera, you know, 1.4 is very shallow and if you're not locked onto an eye, it makes it much more difficult, especially if a subject is moving. So if I do get to do some portraits, which I hope to do with my buddy DeMarcus, then I can shoot some at 1.4 and then I can bump it up to f2 or 2.8 or 2.5 or around there. Does it go to f 2.5 or does it show 2.4 on this lens? No, it's 2. It's 142284. So it's one full stop, but there are clicks in between. So that's where I'm going to leave it. Guys, I know it's not an hour long. I like to do the hour long podcast, but you can follow along my journey on my Instagram. It's Jared Polin. Yeah, because this will be out, but I'll also be back Monday. We fly on a Thursday. We land on a Friday. We have all day Friday. After we land, we've got Saturday, we got Sunday, we come home Monday in the late morning. So thank you guys very much for listening. This is episode 184. The time now is 11:30 in the AM on Thursday, January 29th, 2026. There's now 96% on my battery. Not that you cared. On my. On my Apple watch. All right, guys, thank you very much for listening. Jared Paulinfrontosphoto.com See ya.