Articles from CS Muncy

Working the ICE story in Minneapolis meant relying on others—friends, colleagues, total strangers even. It meant leaning on the community and knowing how to sift good information from bad—and by the end of my time there, there was a lot of the latter. 

Over the last few weeks I’ve been testing out the newly released Kodacolor 200, shooting over the course of a long-needed road trip along the Pacific Northwest coastline, as well as in New York and during several news events. 

Lomography recently announced its newest camera, the Lomo MC-A, and it raised a bit of a ruckus. It’s an entirely new point-and-shoot camera with some fascinating features and promising ideas.

The Leica M3 defined an era—an icon of precision engineering that still inspires photographers seven decades later. The KEKS M-Meter revives that legacy, bringing modern metering to classic M bodies without sacrificing the mechanical purity that made them legendary. 

The new Thypoch Simera 21mm f/1.4 lens isn’t a thing of subtlety. It’s heavy, unapologetically mechanical, and it demands a bit of muzzle discipline when carrying it around. Forget where you’re pointing it, and you may end up either receiving or handing out some bruises. And arguably, it’s not for everyone; it’s a big chunk of metal hanging off the end of your camera.

KEKS has announced their new M-Meter, a modernized version of the old analog Leica M-Meters, and I can’t help but think of that line from the Bob Fosse biopic All That Jazz: “Everything old is new again.” 

Photography gear is constantly evolving, redefining what it means to be “professional.” Once, carrying massive DSLRs and powerful flashes was the mark of a serious photographer—now, smaller, more efficient setups are taking over. 

Whenever I’m considering a new product, I always ask myself whether it will make me a better photographer. Will this item help me produce better images? Will it speed up my workflow? Can it help me do something I can’t do right now? And, because I’m a working photojournalist who lives only slightly above the poverty line, if the answer is “no,” I tend to avoid picking up said item. 

Several days ago, KEKS—a company you most likely know from their line of hot-shoe mounted light meters—announced their release of the new KEKS Rapid-Winder for classic Leica bodies. Designed to fit the M1, M2, M3, and classic MP, this accessory is a recreation of the original Leicavit MP and is designed around the same internal structure and materials. 

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a truly embarrassing amount of film stock. I’ll freely admit that it’s a sickness. If I’m being honest with myself, it likely stems from a fear of missing out on something creative and new and a fear that one day it’s all going to be gone.

There are rare occasions when I need a lightweight lighting setup for on-location portraits. I have several kits pre-packed for this sort of thing—Nikon flashes with radio triggers, Flashpoint portable strobes, and once in a while, LED panels. 

I’ve used more than a few camera systems over my career. In the abstract, this can be a positive thing: diversity of equipment means you’ve got a lot of different ways to capture an image or tell a story, but more practically, this means I’ve got a lot of gear that doesn’t typically communicate well with each other.

A long time ago, I picked up my first Leica, a beater of an M4 that had been collecting dust and mold at the bottom of an old leather camera bag in a retired photographer's closet. With it came a number of oddities: close-up adapters, table tripods, and the like. But perhaps most interestingly, it came with an old Leica MC light meter. 

Over the past few years, there has been a remarkable rise in M and LTM lens manufacturers, throwing in with Leica and Voigtlander in an attempt to carve out some space of their own.

Lomography recently announced the release of a new film, LomoChrome 92, a 400 ISO C-41 process color negative stock. The film is touted as a throwback to older stocks, with vibrant colors and a more noticeable grain structure.  

I'm a sucker for panoramic cameras. Over the last decade, I've shot on my share, having spent more than I should have on a collection of various bodies. They've followed me to space shuttle launches, riots, out the back of aircraft, and to the White House.

I’ve been covering the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge like clockwork for well over a decade now, and I think it’s fair to say that I’ve picked up a few useful habits along the way. For those unfamiliar with the event, imagine several hundred folks in various stages of near-nudity packed into a corner of the beach.

The popularity of toy cameras has waxed and waned over the decades. The novelty factor for plastic cameras like the Diana and the Holga is often in friction with the dependability and overall image quality, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Let me rewind the clock by a decade: it’s the tail end of 2012, and the NYPD was in the process of clearing out Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. Over the last year, Occupy Wall Street had been picking up steam, with an encampment filling the better part of the park and protests regularly spilling out into the streets.  

A few years ago, a small Hong Kong-based company called Megadap raised some eyebrows when they announced their newest product, the MTZ11, which allowed Leica M mount lenses (along with a host of other manual-focus mounts when used with adapters) to be used with the Nikon Z body with autofocus. 

A few years back, I managed to find a beater of a Hasselblad XPan for a song. I've tried to find a shooting style that would help me stand out from the crowd, and the panoramic format appealed to me. I didn't realize it at the time, but this purchase sent me down a rather obsessive path, trying to find the best panoramic cameras for news and editorial work. 

Whenever I'm on assignment, I'll typically bring a film camera along with me. For breaking news work, they're not particularly useful; no editor in their right mind is going to wait for me to return home, develop, process, edit, and upload my film frames, no matter how good the final product might be. However, this lens has made me rethink my process a bit.  

I recently noticed something interesting while looking through the Leica Classifieds page on Facebook. One of the distributors of Light Lens Lab posted an image for some upcoming products, including what appears to be an Abrahamson-style rapid winder and, more significantly, a Leica Standard-style camera.  

Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve used quite a few different types of ring lights for my portrait and product work. Each had its own particular benefits and drawbacks. Nothing was ever quite “perfect,” but most worked well enough in their given role. This is my review of the very affordable GIM 19” 48W Ring Light. 

No matter how long you’ve been shooting, there’s always been a kind of base level of stress that hangs in the background for every photographer, just out of sight. It’s one of those things that’s always there, even if you don’t notice it.