Testing the 7Artisan 35mm f/2.8 LTM Lens

CS Muncy — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:46:40 -0400

To paraphrase a favorite pair of authors of mine: once is never, twice is always. Not sure where the third and fourth times something goes wrong rates.

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7Artisans Announces 35mm f/2.8 LTM Lens

CS Muncy — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:59:06 -0400

There’s something surprisingly novel about making a new lens for a system that predates the governments of many modern countries. The Leica Thread Mount (LTM, also known as the M39 mount), born in the early 20th century wasn’t designed for firmware updates, autofocus motors, or clinical perfection. It was designed for walking. For looking. For getting close enough to feel like you were part of the scene rather than observing it from a safe distance.

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Field Testing the 7Artisans 75mm f/1.25 II

CS Muncy — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 15:03:02 -0500

I've been struggling with how to describe my experience with the newly released 7Artisans 75mm f/1.25 II lens. Really, I've had two different experiences, both wildly in friction with one another.

On the one hand, the lens produced sharp images in a variety of settings and assignments with a pleasant bokeh and good color rendition. On the other hand, it took enough time to calibrate the lens that I feel the need to mention it here.

Still, if the final product is good enough, sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze. More on all that later.

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Covering ICE in Minneapolis

CS Muncy — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:57:29 -0500

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.

As I write this, Border Patrol officers have just killed Alex Jeffrey Pettri. The video of this act is horrifying to watch—in the process of trying to help one of his neighbors, he was held down, then shot multiple times.

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Three Weeks With Kodacolor 200: First Impressions From the Road

CS Muncy — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 15:04:01 -0500

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.

I had originally planned to shoot entirely on Double X, but I quickly realized that the PNW was meant to be captured in color. I had a few rolls of expired Gold on me, but ultimately decided to get something new and picked up a handful of rolls of the new stock. For the majority of my shots, I used a Hasselblad XPan and a Nikon FA.

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Hands-On Impressions of Lomography’s Lomo MC-A 35mm Film Camera

CS Muncy — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 11:04:01 -0500

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. On Friday, I got the chance to handle one of the prototypes at the Lomography office in DUMBO (“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass” for non-New Yorkers), and I have to say, I really liked what I saw.

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Testing the KEKS Leica M-Meter in the Wild

CS Muncy — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 17:06:01 -0400

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.

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Testing Out the New Thypoch Simera 21mm f/1.4 Lens

CS Muncy — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 12:03:01 -0400

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. It stands out, and if you’re looking for subtlety, there are other lenses—smaller lenses—that might fit the bill.

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Everything Old Is New Again: KEKS Announces New M-Meter for Leica

CS Muncy — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 15:03:01 -0500

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.”

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My Field Review of the KEKS KF01 Flash

CS Muncy — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 12:03:01 -0500

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.

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Our Field Review of the KEKS Rapid Winder

CS Muncy — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:03:01 -0500

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.

These metrics do not apply to Leica equipment.

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KEKS Announces New Leica Rapid Advance

CS Muncy — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 11:03:01 -0500

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.

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Lomo 92 Film Stock Review

CS Muncy — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 12:03:01 -0400

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. One day, the last roll from the last batch of the last stock is going to come off the production line, and that’ll be that.

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ProMaster Chroma TL9RGB Tube LED Light Review

CS Muncy — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 12:03:01 -0400

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.

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We Review The Thypoch Simera 35mm f/1.4 Lens

CS Muncy — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 16:03:02 -0500

For the last few weeks, I've been carrying around the new Thypoch Simera 35mm f/1.4 M mount lens. When I test new gear, I try to incorporate it into my everyday carry kit and use it on actual assignments and stories to see how it performs under real-world conditions. Sometimes, a piece of kit that looks great or has fantastic specs underperforms in the field; other times, you get something that exceeds expectations.

So, where did the Thypoch Simera 35mm f/1.4 M mount lens fall between those two? We’ll get to that shortly.

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Testing the Megadap ETZ 21 Pro Lens Adapter in the Field

CS Muncy — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:03:01 -0500

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. Sooner or later, I find preference in one system over the other, meaning a fair amount of kit ends up collecting dust.

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We Review the Reflx Lab Light Meter

CS Muncy — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 12:03:01 -0400

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.

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Funleader x Brightin Star XSLIM-M Lens Review

CS Muncy — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 12:01:01 -0400

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. Many of these lenses lean towards the more affordable side of the marketplace, with TTArtisan and 7Artisan joined by revived "classics" like Meyer-Optik Görlitz or handmade, artisanal lenses like MS-Optics.

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Hands on With LomoChrome 92 Film

CS Muncy — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 15:03:01 -0400

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.

LomoChrome 92

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New Panoramic 35mm Camera from Jeff Bridges and SilvergrainClassics in the Works

CS Muncy — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 10:00:01 -0400

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. But as the world shifted to digital, the number of functional panoramic film cameras out there in the wild has dwindled, driving the prices through the roof.

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Covering the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge

CS Muncy — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 12:02:41 -0500

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. It’s typically rather cold - though some years have been colder than others - and everyone’s working themselves up into a fevered lather. In this excitement, a drum team forms up, creating a corridor from the top of the beach to the ocean.

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We Review the Lomo Apparat: Lo-fi, Wide Angle

CS Muncy — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:50:30 -0500

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. In an age of corner-to-corner perfection, the stray light leak or vignette can provide shooters with a way to stand out from the crowd.

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Field Review of the Godox Junior Retro-Inspired Flash

CS Muncy — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 12:14:44 -0500

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.

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We Review the Megadap MTZ11 Leica to Nikon Z Autofocus Adapter

CS Muncy — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 12:01:08 -0400

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.

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Searching for the Perfect Panoramic Camera

CS Muncy — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 12:01:39 -0400

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.

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Using the TTArtisan 28mm f/5.6 Lens in the Field

CS Muncy — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 15:02:52 -0400

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.

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Light Lens Lab Hints at Prototype for Replica Leica Standard

CS Muncy — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 08:01:02 -0400

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.

There are precious few film cameras in production today, and the thought of a new and, more importantly, affordable camera fills me with an unsavory level of glee.

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Fstoppers Reviews the GIM 19” 48W Ring Light

CS Muncy — Sun, 06 Sep 2020 14:00:02 -0400

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.

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Recognizing and Managing Stress and Trauma as a Photographer

CS Muncy — Sat, 13 Jul 2019 14:00:02 -0400

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.

For some photographers, it comes from the uncertainty of the job. Will I be able to make rent this month? Do I have to choose between food or gear? Are my clients ever going to clear that invoice?

For other photographers, that fear can be more immediate: Are those people going to hurt me?

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Recent articles from CS Muncy on Fstoppers.com

Testing the 7Artisan 35mm f/2.8 LTM Lens

7Artisans Announces 35mm f/2.8 LTM Lens

Field Testing the 7Artisans 75mm f/1.25 II

Covering ICE in Minneapolis

Three Weeks With Kodacolor 200: First Impressions From the Road

Hands-On Impressions of Lomography’s Lomo MC-A 35mm Film Camera

Testing the KEKS Leica M-Meter in the Wild

Testing Out the New Thypoch Simera 21mm f/1.4 Lens

Everything Old Is New Again: KEKS Announces New M-Meter for Leica

My Field Review of the KEKS KF01 Flash

Our Field Review of the KEKS Rapid Winder

KEKS Announces New Leica Rapid Advance

Lomo 92 Film Stock Review

ProMaster Chroma TL9RGB Tube LED Light Review

We Review The Thypoch Simera 35mm f/1.4 Lens

Testing the Megadap ETZ 21 Pro Lens Adapter in the Field

We Review the Reflx Lab Light Meter

Funleader x Brightin Star XSLIM-M Lens Review

Hands on With LomoChrome 92 Film

New Panoramic 35mm Camera from Jeff Bridges and SilvergrainClassics in the Works

Covering the Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge

We Review the Lomo Apparat: Lo-fi, Wide Angle

Field Review of the Godox Junior Retro-Inspired Flash

We Review the Megadap MTZ11 Leica to Nikon Z Autofocus Adapter

Searching for the Perfect Panoramic Camera

Using the TTArtisan 28mm f/5.6 Lens in the Field

Light Lens Lab Hints at Prototype for Replica Leica Standard

Fstoppers Reviews the GIM 19” 48W Ring Light

Recognizing and Managing Stress and Trauma as a Photographer