What's the "leica look"?

Mxsmanic wrote:
Alan Browne writes:


Thanks. I should have added "How many 'useless' enquiries?"


Essentially all the inquiries I receive are useful inquiries.



You getting this TP?




--
--e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.--

"Roger" wrote
On 14 Jun 2004 20:05:33 GMT, ospam (Lewis Lang)
wrote:

SNIP
Thanks for the detailed reply. I've been thinking about a Contax kit,
besides it'll give me something to think about. I've been considering
also the 45mm f2.8P Nikkor for my F3/F100. I'm at the point now where
my latest glasses correction really means a HP type finder and the
Leica viewfinders, even the .58 are just not working for me any more.
I really regret that, but that's the reality of the situation. I
haven't picked up my M6 body in months. The HP SLR VFs are just too
much more convenient.

I appreciate the help and I guess when I'm not taking pictures, the
search is half the fun.

The 45mm 2.8P is a very fine lens - I own one which is mostly on my FM2n,
but occasionally I put it on the F100 and it looks really silly there ;-)
but takes
fine pictures.

Cheers,
ink

TP said:

I have no need, or intention, ever to show or prove anything to you.

You are a nothing, a nobody who thinks he is somebody, someone who
cannot take a single decent photo or (as the SI has so conclusively
proved) follow a simple brief ... and who offers the same old duff
advice to anyone who is naive enough to listen.

So why would I be in the slightest bit interested in what you think?

As for personal attacks, I am surprised that you claim I am attacking
you, when the reverse is the case. You waste *so* much effort on
pointless personal attacks on me. One tenth of the time you waste on
here would pay great dividends if you spent it wisely, learning the
basic photographic techniques that so signally elude you.

Polson.

I know what you are. You are sad and lonely, dejected, rejected and
generally just have nothing better to do with your time. For reasons only
you can explain, you have alienated yourself to a level beyond what most
humans could tolerate.

How can you stand the constant ridicule? Don't you want to just be Tony
Polson again? When I first came to the group I found your input most
useful - you even took the time to write me a very insightful personal
email when I was uncertain about selling my medium format gear. I
appreciated that, but a few weeks later you let rip with a scathing attack
on me because of something to do with the KEH shipping options that I
didn't understand. Weird...very weird.

Since then you have morphed, trolled, terrorised and dumbfounded us. What
gives?

You know, I am a generally very amiable person. I don't like to bear
grudges. I don't like to remain ****ed off for longer than 5 minutes. It
makes me feel ill.

We can end all this needless feuding. We have it in our power to do so. I
forgive you for your unpleasantness and I only ask that you find it in
yourself to apologise to the group for all the rot that has set in over
the past few years.

I don't want to waste any more energy on this feud. Let's move on.

--
R.I.P. Ray Charles
I've got Georgia on my mind

From: Roger
...
Thanks for the detailed reply. I've been thinking about a Contax kit,
besides it'll give me something to think about. I've been considering
also the 45mm f2.8P Nikkor for my F3/F100. I'm at the point now where
my latest glasses correction really means a HP type finder and the
Leica viewfinders, even the .58 are just not working for me any more.
I really regret that, but that's the reality of the situation. I
haven't picked up my M6 body in months. The HP SLR VFs are just too
much more convenient.

I strongly support the recommendation of LL regarding the Contax 28/2.8
and 50/1.4. Add an Aria body, and you have an SLR version of the Leica
M - with a few modern touches! This is my travel kit. Both lenses
are significantly sharper than the Summicron-M 35 pre-ASPH, even on a
4"x6" print.

I have glasses, but don't need to shoot with them. Wearing them,
however, does make a compelling case for high eye-point. The Aria view
is comfortable (even including side-bar indicators), ditto the M4's 50
frame line. The Contax T3 is slightly tighter but works, while the M4's
35 frame line is right out. I don't really like the M4 35 frame line
even sans glasses, to be frank.

--------

(Rico Tudor) wrote:

Both lenses
are significantly sharper than the Summicron-M 35 pre-ASPH, even on a
4"x6" print.


That is total nonsense. The final pre-ASPH 35mm Summicron-M lacks
nothing in the way of sharpness. I have both that version and the
latest ASPH and would describe the ASPH as over-sharpened; it gains
some theoretical sharpness at the practical expense of a loss of the
"Leica look". The pre-ASPH is plenty sharp.

Of course it would make your comparisons more logical if they were
between lenses of similar focal lengths and maximum apertures.

Subject: What's the "leica look"?
From: Roger
Date: Tue, Jun 15, 2004 10:14 AM
Message-id:

On 14 Jun 2004 20:05:33 GMT, ospam (Lewis Lang)
wrote:


Hi Rodger/thanks :-):

I think you'd be better off with Contax manual focus gear (unless you need
AF)
or Pentax manual focus and AF gear for that pre-asph look.

My 28/2.8 Distagon does an excellent pre-asph look but it is 28mm and not
f/1.4
or f/2 (although there is an f/2 version of this lens I have not tried
out). My
28/2.8 DIstagon has pillowy bokeh both fore and aft of the plane of focus
and
great sharpness, contrast, _color satuaration and rendition_ and
microcontrast
to boot. Have you tried out the (manual focus) Zeiss 50/1.4 Zeiss Planar?


After a big snip...

Lewis,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

My pleasure :-).

I've been thinking about a Contax kit,
besides it'll give me something to think about. I've been considering
also the 45mm f2.8P Nikkor for my F3/F100. I'm at the point now where
my latest glasses correction really means a HP type finder and the
Leica viewfinders, even the .58 are just not working for me any more.
I really regret that, but that's the reality of the situation. I
haven't picked up my M6 body in months. The HP SLR VFs are just too
much more convenient.


Why/how are the HP SLR VFs more convenient? Is your problem with not being able
to see the edges/corners of the VF due to thick? lenses that keep your eyes
further away than normal from the viewfinder, inability to focus properly (for
what reason(s)?) using the Leica (though Leica RFs are supposed to be easier to
precisely focus at focal lengths from normal to wide angle (though I do realise
that the .58x mag might affect the ability to focus more than the .72x mag VF),
a combination of both, something else, I really do not feel I am understanding
your problem/reasoning here. Please fill me in deeper on your
motivations/preferences for the HP SLR. To me, the .58x VF on the Leica M is
like a RFHP equivalent to the HP SLR since it shows (or at least should show)
all of the framelines/corners for a particular focal length at once with out
having to do "poolballing" of your eye from corner to corner/edge to get an
idea/see the whole image within the framelines at once.

I appreciate the help and I guess when I'm not taking pictures, the
search is half the fun.


:-)

Regards,
Roger








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Subject: What's the "leica look"?
From: TP
Date: Tue, Jun 15, 2004 6:17 PM
Message-id:

(Rico Tudor) wrote:

Both lenses
are significantly sharper than the Summicron-M 35 pre-ASPH, even on a
4"x6" print.


That is total nonsense. The final pre-ASPH 35mm Summicron-M lacks
nothing in the way of sharpness. I have both that version and the
latest ASPH and would describe the ASPH as over-sharpened; it gains
some theoretical sharpness at the practical expense of a loss of the
"Leica look". The pre-ASPH is plenty sharp.

Of course it would make your comparisons more logical if they were
between lenses of similar focal lengths and maximum apertures.



Actually I find myself here agreeing/disagreeing with both of you here to
certain degrees. I have owned/used both the pre-asph 35mm f/2 and still own and
use the 28mm f/2.8 Distagon. Both are incredibly sharp. Their main differences,
to me, are their signatures. The Leica M has better micro-contrast/subtle
tonalities separation and a "natural" (for want of a better word) color
rendition, while the Zeiss seems to have the typical Zeiss lens signature,
pumped up color, sizzling contrast, lively tonal separation (though the Leica M
excels/may be a bit better at this) and high acutence that tends to pop the
subjects from their surroundings. The Leica is more "intimate" (again, for alck
of a better word) as it allows you to get more involved in the
prescence/tonality within/of a subject whilst the Zeiss has that almost surreal
sock you in the face look (color saturation/liveliness and the sizzling
contrast/acutence). Both are staggeringly sharp and both have superb bokeh.

Check out my photos at "LEWISVISION":

http://members.aol.com/Lewisvisn/home.htm

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Subject: What's the "leica look"?
From: Roger
Date: Tue, Jun 15, 2004 11:04 AM
Message-id:

On 14 Jun 2004 20:05:33 GMT, ospam (Lewis Lang)
wrote:

Have you tried out the (manual focus) Zeiss 50/1.4 Zeiss Planar?

Lewis,

Are you recommending this lens? What body do you use for your Zeiss
equipment?

Thanks,
Roger


I owned/used this lens in the 1980's and at the time used it with the 159MM (MF
and manual wind with program and aperture and manual expsoure). I would
probably use it on an Aria or RX/II or ST today... WOnderfully sharp, though I
find the helicoid/barrel of my Nikon Series E 50/1.8 much quicker to
rotate/focus than my much slower moving but more beautifully built 28/2.8 Zeiss
Distagon (don't remeber how fast or slow the barrel of the 50/1.4 focused). I
only mention this becuase my style has "evolved" (hate that word since I don't
believe in evolution, only natural selection) to include quick but thoughtful
candids/portraits at full aperture with the 50mm lens and I find the 28mm/2.8
Zeiss much slower to both focus/turn the barrel (regardless of any presetting)
than the 50/1.8 Series E Nikkor and my EM. Yes, the 1.8 aperture and bright MF
screen is a boon here which allows quick precise focusing, but, part of that
Series' E lenses "grace" (love to use that word since I am a Christian, even
though I don't figure skate :-)) is its quick ability to turn the barrel/focus.
I am very precise with my focusing and prefer to shoot even candids at or near
full aperture so I need to focus precisely and can't/won't do the "hyperfocal
distance setting"/zone focusing as I intend to blow up my best images large
where I _want_, regardless of other areas which may be less in focus or even
out of focus, to have precise control/placement over the _exact_ focusing
point, not just some generalized zone focused and/or focus slop saved by zone
focusing/stopped down aperture, or worse, even hyperfocal distance shenanigans.
Your style may be different. And my style used to be the f/16 with a wide angle
lens type. Now that the 50mm is becoming more and more my "main lens" I am
compounding the focusing difficulty by both the longer focal length and the
wider apertures I am shooting at so a great VF and easy to turn helicoid are
essential for me. For you, my best advice would be to buy a new (with the
possibilty of a return authorization number to get back most of your
investment) or used Aria (or RX/etc.) and try it out both on the street where
people seldom remain still/in the same plane of focus both outdoors and indoors
to see how fast/easy the focusing combination is for you. I believe Rico
(thanks Rico) offered to get together with you with his gear so you don't have
to buy before you try. Bring some film and try shooting some different fast and
slow moving subjects and see how you like both the focusing ease of the VF and
the quickness of the helicoid for focusing on people in motion (if this is the
kind of street/etc. type of candid shooting you want to do). If you can try
shooting at maximum aperture (wide open) with 100 speed film or slower (to get
both an idea of the sharpness at maximum aperture and your ability to nail the
focus on slow to fast moving subjects. Try doing this with a number of differnt
focal lengths/bodies (you may want to take notes as to which camera/lens
combination you used for which shots (write them down immediately afterwards)
as well as which apertures you used for if not each shot then a series of shots
on a particular roll/subject/subject type.

Since I haven't used the 50/1.4 Zeiss in many years I can't give you more
recent/intimate experience with it but only my impressions from what I did
shoot a long time ago (I believe it was with the MM lens but I'm not sure,
still, I don't think the optical formaula has changed, just the mechanics of
the lens to allow better multi-mode exposure functionality on the
167MT/159MM/ST/RX/RX II/ RTS III/etc. I have only seen definite examples form
the new 45 Nikkor P lens in the Nikon catalog (and on the web/at some kind of
Nikon seminar too?) so I can only tell you an impression from that far removed
vantage point of quality that it is a superb lens. Maybe somebody (Helix in
Chicago?) would have or know someone who has the new 45 P lens and let your
sweet talk them into renting it (if they don't already have it available as a
rental). Also try going to photo.net's Nikon forum and Yahoo's Nikon egroups
and you can get a lot of (very often biased but sometimes useful) opinions from
people who've had actual focusing/quality/etc. experience with this lens. Its
focusing rim is narrow, I believe so that may or may not be a factor in your
ability to focus it quickly and its f/2.8 aperture may or may not be an
influence as to how accurately you can focus this lens verses the fast 1.8 and
1.4 "regular" (they eat their fiber ;-) or should I say more "normal", normal
lenses. The VF of the F100 and FM2/FM3a are superb/excellent to focus with.
Most other middle to high end Nikons have probably similar bright, contrasty,
easy to focus quickly and accurate VFs - though I've also heard good things
about the Aria's VF (tried one out in a store years ago but not with the
intention of both fast and precise focusing). As Jimmy Hendrix said "get
experienced" and try out both these lenses/cameras. Both (Zeiss and Nikkor)
would do you well.

I use a 167MT. My 167MT viewfinder is big (not as big as my EM with its .86?
magnification but much easier to see the dges when the camera is held in
horizontal position, the EM is only "highish eyepointish" looking when held in
a vertical orientation, its difficult to see the edge details at the
corners/edges of the frame at once with the EM in horizontal position, but the
Nikon EM, in typical Nikon MF VF manner is superbly easy/fast /precise to
focus) if not bright and easy to see the whole image (it has what Contax calls
a "longeyepoint" and so do most modern Contax MF 35mm film SLR, I believe) even
with (gasp!, Canon) eyecup in place but I find it hard and slow (as I tend to
focus numerous times through the exact subject planes to hit it precisely and
my vision (with glasses) is still quite good so its the camera's VF not me) to
focus precisely very quickly with my 28mm f/2.8 Distagon which ironically?
makes my Nikon EM with 50/1.8 Series E a better combo for fast precisely
focused candids at wide apertures. Don't know how I'd get along with an Aria
and the Zeiss 50/1.4 for similar quick/precisely focused wide apertured
candids, but the idea has/does intrigued me. So does the 31mm/1.8 Ltd.
(Pentax's version of a Leica M in both build and amazingly superb optical
quality and nearly a 50mm focal length on their DSLR plus superbly sharp wide
open with excellent "Leica Mis/typical Pentax" lovely bokeh) on an *ist Digital
(though I am loath to go digital as I don't find it has either the richness nor
the longevity of the film medium) on an MZ-S.

Hope this answers at least some of your questions.

Check out my photos at "LEWISVISION":

http://members.aol.com/Lewisvisn/home.htm

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Lewis Lang writes:

... while the Zeiss seems to have the typical Zeiss lens signature,
pumped up color, sizzling contrast, lively tonal separation (though the Leica M
excels/may be a bit better at this) and high acutence that tends to pop the
subjects from their surroundings.

Lenses cannot "pump up" color or provide any accutance.

"Sizzling" contrast and tonal separation are one and the same.

The Leica is more "intimate" (again, for alck
of a better word) as it allows you to get more involved in the
prescence/tonality within/of a subject whilst the Zeiss has that almost surreal
sock you in the face look (color saturation/liveliness and the sizzling
contrast/acutence).

See above. Lenses cannot perform any active modification of image data,
so they cannot increase saturation or produce any accutance at all.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Lewis Lang wrote:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . though I
find the helicoid/barrel of my Nikon Series E 50/1.8 much quicker to
rotate/focus than my much slower moving but more beautifully built 28/2.8 Zeiss
Distagon (don't remeber how fast or slow the barrel of the 50/1.4 focused). I
only mention this becuase my style has "evolved" (hate that word since I don't
believe in evolution, only natural selection) to include quick but thoughtful
candids/portraits at full aperture with the 50mm lens and I find the 28mm/2.8
Zeiss much slower to both focus/turn the barrel (regardless of any presetting)
than the 50/1.8 Series E Nikkor and my EM. Yes, the 1.8 aperture and bright MF
screen is a boon here which allows quick precise focusing, but, part of that
Series' E lenses "grace" (love to use that word since I am a Christian, even
though I don't figure skate :-)) is its quick ability to turn the barrel/focus.

It occurs to me from your comments that you might not like some of the Nikon AI
series of lenses, since many of them have a fairly long focus throw. The 50 mm
f2.0 AI that I have spoken so well of in several postings has a very long throw
(somewhere near 220º rotation). The change to AIS in many of the Nikon choices
also brought on a shorter focus throw in many of the designs.


I am very precise with my focusing and prefer to shoot even candids at or near
full aperture so I need to focus precisely and can't/won't do the "hyperfocal
distance setting"/zone focusing as I intend to blow up my best images large
where I _want_, regardless of other areas which may be less in focus or even
out of focus, to have precise control/placement over the _exact_ focusing
point, not just some generalized zone focused and/or focus slop saved by zone
focusing/stopped down aperture, or worse, even hyperfocal distance shenanigans.
Your style may be different. And my style used to be the f/16 with a wide angle
lens type. Now that the 50mm is becoming more and more my "main lens" I am
compounding the focusing difficulty by both the longer focal length and the
wider apertures I am shooting at so a great VF and easy to turn helicoid are
essential for me.

I find the longer throw can be good for accuracy, though I sometimes prefer the
shorter throw for quickness to a focus distance.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I have only seen definite examples form
the new 45 Nikkor P lens in the Nikon catalog (and on the web/at some kind of
Nikon seminar too?) so I can only tell you an impression from that far removed
vantage point of quality that it is a superb lens. Maybe somebody (Helix in
Chicago?) would have or know someone who has the new 45 P lens and let your
sweet talk them into renting it (if they don't already have it available as a
rental). Also try going to photo.net's Nikon forum and Yahoo's Nikon egroups
and you can get a lot of (very often biased but sometimes useful) opinions from
people who've had actual focusing/quality/etc. experience with this lens. Its
focusing rim is narrow, I believe so that may or may not be a factor in your
ability to focus it quickly and its f/2.8 aperture may or may not be an
influence as to how accurately you can focus this lens verses the fast 1.8 and
1.4 "regular" (they eat their fiber ;-) or should I say more "normal", normal
lenses.

I think another aspect to consider with the 45 mm f2.8 is that the focus ring grip
area is very narrow. I have large hands, and did not like it that much, though
this is something that each individual needs to test and determine.

The VF of the F100 and FM2/FM3a are superb/excellent to focus with.
Most other middle to high end Nikons have probably similar bright, contrasty,
easy to focus quickly and accurate VFs - though I've also heard good things
about the Aria's VF (tried one out in a store years ago but not with the
intention of both fast and precise focusing). As Jimmy Hendrix said "get
experienced" and try out both these lenses/cameras. Both (Zeiss and Nikkor)
would do you well.

Nice review.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com
http://www.agstudiopro.com Coming Soon!