some adds to the gallery

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:46:56 +0800

Y esterday, I went shopping for a focus screen and loupe, to adjust the Leica film bodies for focus. My preferred camera dealer did not have a loupe, but gave me an old focus screen for free, to get my rangefinder adjustments up to fast lens standards. Thanks ! ;-)
When I packed my stuff, Alex and his wife (?) - sorry, I didn’t ask in the rush of things - entered the shop, to put a Canon DSLR to it’s deserved rest, getting a nice Leica M instead. We had a short talk before shops closed and I had to return to work - hope, we find more time next time!

I have added a few shots from yesterday to one gallery here.

I think, the Noctilux is a superb portrait lens with plenty of room to play down to the lowest of lights. stopped down to f2 it gives just enough depth, to throw out the background, while faces are still well rendered.
People on the internet, trash talking this lens as mushy, soft or simply bad, likely never tried to understand, what is going on with the picture, beside their lamenting tech talk details and wonky feasibility analyses.
The focussing is wonderful, making this thing shoot grab shots as quick as any of todays DSLRs - with focus, where you want it.

“noctilux - strictly f1” gallery added

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:08:03 +0800

I had the first night of actually shooting the Noctilux in Shanghai.

It is summer season with temperatures even in the night barely going under 30ºC with high humidity. People go out late in the night, walking their dogs, shopping groceries or just having a slow walk as inside the houses the air is transferred into a stuck ballon of unbreathability. Here is the new gallery. I shot the whole night at f1, hence the gallery name.

Leica Noctilux f1:1 - seeing the night

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:50:00 +0800

I got my hands on one of these wonderful lenses - finally. That this lens is quite controversially discussed was not known to me, as I did not spend any time, thinking about it prior of getting a chance, to pick one up.

I am still in a huuge back log with editing, processing and printing hundreds of shots, I took back in Europe, so I will make this one short:

There will be coming galleries and photographs to share made with this lens.
I will work on an article about this particular lens here on the site - don’t press me for a date, it is finished, when it’s finished. I have expressed already to some, that i have a rather open minded view on the lens technically and regarding it’s usage by many users, who share their work and were the lens fits into my camera bag actually (people, who know me, will look forward, to me using it for mainly for its actual designed purpose - night shots).

I have it just for more than 48h now and had actually no time, to go out and shoot. As the day/night job has priorities even a new Noctilux doesn’t bring out of order, I have just uploaded a quick gallery with photographs, I took with the lens mainly during the longer taxi rides, I do in Shanghai, while on my ways.

Surely expect, more to come, as I just begin, to find out about the probably most versatile single lens, I ever used…

Le Mans 24h 2010

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:40:57 +0800

I t has been a great race again this year at Le Mans. As I am still on the road, I added a few shots, I pulled without processing. This year, I decided at the last minute, to skip the Nikon gear completely and just go with Leica M bodies and a few lenses. The bag was half as heavy, I enjoyed the race, Le Mans and one day in Paris the more. Here in the gallery you can find some first shots before I will process the batch and do some uploads.

After the decision, to go with the Leica I must say, that as long, as you can come close to the track, the files are quite superior to Nikon 12MP files. The Leica 135 f3.4 APO Telyt did a great job in helping towards crazy detail and sharp files across the frame.

The readers with a keen eye, will possible see the big difference between the Telyt and the 90 pre ASPH Summicron, which I also used as a medium tele from trackside in the shots.

The clarity, sharpness and behavior wide open is quite amazing. I am really looking forward, coming back to Shanghai and do the first big prints. This of course can not be illustrated in the tiny compressed JPGs. I might upload some 1:1 crops later just for the fun of it for the nay sayers, when the serious work is done.

More to come…

gallery added - “shanghai - more daily shots”

Sat, 22 May 2010 17:34:09 +0800

T he 59 year old Leica 35mm Summaron lens has completely taken over from recent modern lenses on my cameras. I continue, to use it daily whenever I can and have added more photographs in a gallery here.

gallery added - “shanghai - one day”

Sun, 16 May 2010 17:07:56 +0800

O n the gallery page I have added a whole set, shooting from morning to evening on an ordinary day in Shanghai. You can find the gallery here.

I started the day with processing some left over sets and prints for hanging. After work has been finished, I left with a 35mm lens and used it on the way to the Metro station.

I brought film to the lab and got a big package of fresh film back. I got some great help in my favorite camera repair shop, while I was lend some tools and grease, to fix my dry 50mm and 35mm lenses.
Another happy customer showed up, picking her camera.
I shot her with the just finished 35 Summicron ASPH - it is like butter again, like a Leica lens should be ;-)

I bought a few nice photo books from local photographers Zhu Hao and Lu Yuanmin - great stuff!

On my way out, I slipped into a very small shop, I always have had a interest, but always came by after closing time. Yesterday I was timely and found a wonderful top condition 1951 Leica 35mm Summaron f3.5 screw mount lens.
I mounted it with the included Voigtländer LTM to Leica M mount and shot it into the night until I headed home.
This is one sweet lens, but more on that in another blog post.

I walked back to the metro station and met an old lady with her dog - she let me have her portrait and I moved on to the station. A flag has been raised at the station and a proud grandma posed for a shot with her grand daughter.

The 35mm was splendid in the metro and I got my first experience, shooting an old thread mount in quick situations including infinity lock, different focussing and aperture positions.
The train was filled with lot’s of mobile phone users, as usual.

I changed trains, got some shots of the station and the time and moved on towards People Square in line 1.

At People Square, I ran some errands and spend some time, shooting people doing theirs.
I met a nice couple, chatted a bit after having taken their portrait (note rule no1 about portraits: always do a second shot - the subject could twinkle!). Sorry, I didn’t take a safety shot. His brother works near Hamburg, the gentlemen told me in perfect English - I was surprised.

The slow Summaron (there was a quicker f2.8 M-mount version a few years after 1951) is nice to shoot in low light as well - just stick to careful processing about the shadows.
Leica’s newest line of lenses are much more contrasty, hiding ugly shadow noise of digital imaging more sufficiently.
Somehow, I like the old Summaron a lot though - very different from my newer glass.

I took the taxi back home and liked the new trend of having to have one of these plastic plants on the dashboard - the newest Shanghai fashion indeed ;-)
The taxi driver was regularly falling asleep on the highroad, which is normal - just make sure, you can speak a bit Chinese and get him involved in small talk, to keep him awake - you don’t want to end in a Volkswagen in Shanghai, do you? By the end of the ride, I was british and my favorite football club was Manchester United, although, I was never the slightest bit interested in football - sorry folks. The driver was happy, I was safe and had a fun ride.

I will upload some more shots later and will also continue to use the Summaron. Stay around for some more Leica classic glass photographs.

gallery update - a night walk at huaihai lu

Fri, 14 May 2010 22:02:57 +0800

A small site update with some photographs from a night walk at Huihai Lu, Shanghai. You can find the gallery here.

I used pushed Kodak TX400, but have uploaded only the photos made with the M8.2 yet. I used my recent find of the 90 Summicron, as I wanted to test it on the freshly adjusted film bodies. I hope, to find some time over the weekend, to develop, scan and process the photos.

gallery update - Leica 90 Summicron-M

Wed, 12 May 2010 02:59:04 +0800

W hile using the Leica 90 Elmarit-M f2.8 during the first days of the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai and having liked it a lot, there was only one thing, I have wanted to be different: a more dramatic background. Unfortunately, this comes only with the penalty of a heavier, bigger, faster lens, which in most cases is directly connected to higher costs as well.

I was lucky enough, to find out the wonderful solution of the Leica 90mm Summicron-M f2, which is available as a second hand item for great bargain prices compared to it’s modern incarnation of the 90 APO (which sells usually for a steep 1.000,- EUR more in used condition ! ).

I had my first day of shooting the latest pre ASPH Summicron - as time schedule did not allow, taking a day off to do so, I packed it into my office bag and used the transfer by car to a supplier to get to know the new lens.

Did I like it ? - Is it easy to focus ? - Is it a practical lens ? - One comment only: I have a new favorite lens !

More comments will follow later - for now, have a look at the gallery here and watch for some wide open only shots !

If not otherwise stated, I used the lens entirely wide open, to get comfortable with the thin depth of field, focussing such a fast tele manually with a rangefinder camera.
Of course, the lens with it’s 1960’s optical design, predating Leica’s newest aspherical lens designs by a few decades is loaded with optical aberrations, leading to a soft look.
It has a much lower resolution, compared to the 90mm Elmarit-M and does render everything except the image center softly. This indeed makes the charm of this particular lens, offering a very special look, naturally well suited to portraits.

gallery update - F1 GP Shanghai

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:07:52 +0800

T he gallery is updated with a few picked shots from the race weekend. You can find the gallery here or from the top of the main pages. I picked shots from the training on Friday, the qualifying on Saturday and Sunday’s race itself.

As I can manage with the time, I will still bring shots of the Porsche Cup and more F1 shots, as I work myself through the folders. I plan also, to prepare some high res wall papers for download, so stay tuned and check the site or subscribe to the RSS feeds.

Today, I added some photographs, I took with the Leica M and 90mm lens. What you can see here are almost 1:1 crops of the full frame, as I took these at quite a few meters distance. I was surprised about how well the detailed files can be cropped and printed. Carefully processed, these photos were printed on A4 super gloss paper and dry matted.
One photo, which I might upload in the galleries later, has been printed on 13 x 19”, which I consider my physical border of printing deep crops of Leica 10MP files without speciality software. I am still experimenting with different black and white conversions in Adobe Lightroom.

F1 GP Shanghai - sunday

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:39:40 +0800

T ime again the Chinese F1 GP has been a wet race, complete with an unpredictable winner in person of the 2009 F1 Champion Jenson Button. Pretty much everyone had the Red Bull pilots on top of their list for taking the victory home, which went different with a one two win for McLaren Mercedes. Sebastian Vettel ended up with 6th place from his pole.
It has been a great race with lots of action and strategic driving regarding right decisions with tire management, as the track changed due to the the weather. …

I had prepared myself for a wet race, as weather reports predicted rain. I slimmed down stuff to carry as much, as possible and went with one body + one lens only, albeit a heavy one. Most important accessory was:

two plastic trash bags
one roll of 3M tape
my t-shirt for wiping the viewfinder regularly
a waterproof rain jacket

Have these items with you at all times going to a wet race and you’re covered. I used the D3 and 300 2.8 VR for the whole race. In between, I stuck a TC-17 in between, as the light was still good for f4.8 and I needed the reach.
As I was shuffling trough 4 different grandstands and several spots right behind the fence, I left the monopod at home and used just my hands, which proved a good idea, as the grandstands were packed with spectators despite the weather.
I met some nice people, shooting from grand stand B5 onto the main straight and turn one - greetings to you guys - hope, you got some nice shots ;-)

Galleries will be up soon - have a look at the first shots of the weekend as more will follow, as I upload the rest!