[Leica] Lincoln Center Fountain silhouettes at night

[pklein at threshinc.com (Peter Klein)]

Leaving arguments about "crop circles," UFOs and alien abductions aside, 
it's a stunning, fine, fine photo.  Congrats, Mark.

And you M9 owners, stop giving me sensor area envy!  :-)   I nearly went 
into hock to buy the M8.  Which was supposed to be the ultimate, 
perpetually upgradable digtal M, until it became an orphaned 
laughingstock two years after release. Can't afford the M9 without 
selling several lenses and a car, all of which I'd like to keep.  I 
think the stock agencies are in cahoots with the camera industry, 
requiring ever more expensive cameras just to get in the game, even 
though the results at normal publication sizes would barely show the 
differences.

Some of the arguments about M8 vs. M9 vs. full-frame Nik/Can remind of 
the arguments about Speed Graphics vs. 35mm in the 1940s and 50s. "They" 
said you couldn't take a decent picture with a tiny Leica. You needed a 
Speed Graphic. Editors enforced this, unless you fooled them by not 
showing them the negatives. These days the editors have EXIF data, so 
fooling them is harder.

Ah well.  When the M10 comes out and the M9 becomes an object of scorn 
and derision, then I'll dumpster-dive for an M9.  And take fantastic 
pictures that would have been the toast of the town last year.

It's enough to make a guy want to go back to film.  Or buy a used D700. 
Or better yet, not buy into the digital sucker's game that makes only 
the very latest, most expensive "new thing" the only acceptable 
instrument for barely adequate photography.

--Peter

> Effective and off the "beaten track"  More often we see silhouettes
> used for intimacy, this has activity with their ghosts dancing
> in the background!  
>
> However, mentioning that the photo has purple haze, a violet hue,
> would have been nice. My pupils are ultra-sensitive to purple, for
> which I must take medication...I would have skipped it.  :)
>
> Montie
>
>
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/100704_225458.jpg.html
>
>
> I don't know how I got such tack sharp results shooting at 100th of a 
> second
> with a 200mm focal length with a 1.5 crop circle factor camera at night.
> But its the ultra compact 55-200 again. And so an effective at full frame
> format 300mm @ 100th of a second!
> To me the dioramas presented by people in this At Josie Robertson Plaza
> Fountain; called The Revson Fountain every night are amazing. But I 
> usually
> have a wide on my camera. And luckily this night a week or two ago I had a
> long lens on.
>
> The people in the shot when they see me taking pictures of them off off to
> the side assume I'm getting their faces. They don't know I'm just getting
> their outlines.  So its an unusual deal. I feel real brave because I don't
> feel like I'm invading anyone's privacy. But THEY don't know that. Much of
> what goes on at the fountain is people taking pictures of each other. But
> with flash usually. Not at this moment though.
> And here I am standing off with a long zoom speaking with a student with a
> camera bag who had the same exact lens on her camera. Both the non VR
> version...who needs virtual reality when we  have the real thing?
>