Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ted Grant wrote: > Please, I'm not putting this down, as I'm sure there are folks who have > kinky ideas about things techie as you point out. However, when someone > like myself buys Leica glass I don't even look at this kind of information, > as I just want to know how fast it is? That is different today due to This is exactly the case! The reason for using good glass is to USE it. This past Christmas holiday I got out my Contax SLR and popped the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 on it (I am still saving for either an R or M with 75 or 80 f1.4 or Noctilux), loaded it up with 400 speed print film and used no filtration (since prints are easily corrected to the proper color balance). The Contax is not a quiet SLR like some others, but used without flash it was very unobtrusive. The 85mm focal length turned out so wonderful for this case that I never even switched to the 50mm Planar I had in the camera case. Everyone got their prints back on the 26th and everyone oohed and aahed over the quality of my available light shots. The others' cameras all used flash for each shot, and they all looked dull, flat, and lifeless by comparison. I was told several times that they weren't even aware I was shooting. Since I was shooting at f1.4 or f2.0 in all cases the backgrounds were pleasingly blurred, but as long as the eyes were in focus the shots were OK. > So I'm going to go back to what I always say, " Grab your camera, get > your butt out the door and have fun taking pictures! Isn't that why you > have a camera and film?" :) Or do you have them to make truly sharp > ultimate sharp images? Locking up the body on a tripod, using ISO 100 or K25 or Technical Pan, at f5.6 or f8 would have given me much sharper shots. But not better ones. ./patrick