Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Oddmund wrote: >I always preferred the 50 mm in 24x36, and I have the frame etched >into me. Most of my work is done with that lens. Strange enough I don't >like the 50mm frame in the M3 so much. There are not enough space around it. >If I should choose one lens and one camera, it would be the old M2 with any >good 50mm lens. Preadjusted, and with a clear idea, nothing stops you! Hi Oddmund, While you were away this spring my associate and I did a "50mm challenge" shoot on the city of Vancouver and used only that lens. A Noctilux on the M6 and a 50 1.4 Summilux on the R8. The idea was to only use 50mm and to make the best pictures possible night and day. Well when this happens to a photographer who has had the luxury of many lens and cameras for use at any time, it truly was a challenge for the first day. Frustrating at times to say the least. But then I settled down and began to look with 50mm eyes. :) Then it was taking a little more time for compositional consideration, anticipation of situation and waiting for the "bodies to walk into the frame" . Slowly we began to shoot some very interesting images to the extent that some appeared to have been shot with wide angles (this occurred due to composition and using lines of subject to create the wide angle look. We also had images that appeared as macro lens shots, simply by screwing the lens to it's closest focus point and working with very wide apertures dropping the backgrounds into a mush of colour. A very interesting effect when some folks viewing the images thought we had used macro's. Taking ones time and being far more critical of elements within the scene, we found the 50mm lens a very valuable tool. Unfortunately it is dismissed by many photographers and relegated to the cupboard shelf in lieu of the 35mm focal length. ted