Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/08/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]ed meyers goes into the closet! he started automatic flarefill nonsense with uncoated lenses,slow film, outside in the hot sun w/bruce davidson. now he's passing himself off as a low-lite fast -film photographer using inside flare for fill. in support of his weird theories he uses quotes from Erwin Puts( below) to confirm a flare prone lens just makes dark areas muddy. could anyone but an editor so succinctly disprove his own case? he called me weird. i can't decide what to call him now. I like inside-outside ed,but muddy meyers sounds so good.then there's always editor.ralph > From: Edward Meyers <aghalide@panix.com> > Reply-To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us > Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:19:09 -0400 (EDT) > To: L U G <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> > Subject: Re: [Leica] Performers and flare > > If only low-light photographers could use a 100 ISO speed film > and make meaningful images with slow speeds and a tripod... > It is not the case, however. So we do what we can with high-speed > films. Filling in deep shadows in high-contrast low-light > situations, without a flash (hopefully), if helped by flare, > then the photograph might look better. If only this were a > perfect world... Ed > > On Tue, 8 Aug 2000, Erwin Puts wrote: > >> It was noted: "Once you get past Erwin's bench tests, is there really a >> "bad" version of >> the Summicron 35?...I've owned various versions over the years - I assume, >> as I've purchased them all used at widely different period of my life - and >> they've all be terrific performers." >> >> If this really is what the poster assumes, I can only add: if your >> definition of "terrific performers" is modest enough, he is absolutely >> right. Most Leica photographers I know however see very discernable >> differences. The performance you can extract from a lens is tightly coupled >> to technical expertise and the level of your demands and your type of >> picture taking. Without this background info any statement about good >> performance is void. >> The flare issue. Flare is defined as unwanted stray light, that will be >> uniformly distributed over the whole image area. If we have a scene from >> black to white, we will have a range of figures that indicate relative >> contrast, we have a rnage of 100 to 0.25 lux, indicating light and dark >> areas, which is a contrast of 400:1. Add a uniform flare level of 0.25 lux >> and we now have 100.25 and 0.5, giving a contrast of 200:1. The effect on >> the dark areas is big and on the lighter areas to be neglected. This example >> shows two things: flare does simply give greater negative density in the >> thin parts of the negative (the black areas), and will give a dark grey >> instead of a black, suggesting detail, which is not there. >> The old story that you can use a low contrast and/or flare prone lens to >> compensate for high contrast in the scene is not correct. The highlights are >> not affected and the dark areas just become muddy. >> The best proposal: buy a high contrast lens, use a 100ISO BW film that gives >> good toe density and expose and develop to get the maximum contrast your >> print paper can handle. >> >> >> Erwin >> >> >