Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/26

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Subject: [Leica] Leica Glass, Filters, and Mental Tricks
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 18:49:54 -0500

Leica glass is tough.  You do NOT have to baby it.  Filters are fine, and
mine are stored in odd locations with filters on, though Jim and Ted and
Eric have so terrorized me that I no longer use them unless I am shooting
chromes.  The outside of the lenses get dinged and dirty and crappy.  The
glass will NOT wilt if you clean it with your shirt-tail, though I do not
do so.  (My co-author, Charlie Barringer, the President of Zeiss Historica,
does the moral equivalent, having saved his chillun's diapers, his kids now
being in their 20's, and uses these to clean his REALLY rare lenses, on the
grounds that nothing is softer than a baby's rear end.  It works:  he makes
more in a year from selling glass than I do in the chasing of ambulances.)  

Don't panic, guys.  Use logic and reason.  Bare glass is best to shoot with
if, as I am, you wish to make images which are at the cutting edge of
technical precision.  But filters have a role -- I would love to hear from
Jim or Ted that they shoot b&w outdoors without a yellow filter!  Maybe
they do, but their foliage must look, well, skimpy -- and engaging
photographers know how to use them.

Me?  I am learning.  I will be learning when the Black Camel Kneels At My
Door which, if I keep irritating women the way I do, will be quite soon ...

Marc


msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!