Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Before I start to describe my impression from various Leica lenses I've used over the years, I need to describe my assumptions (and favors): Germany is around the 51 deg of latitude, which means that our usual daylight is comparable to (south) Canadian light, but less blue than in Greece (about New York), North Africa (Norman, OK), the Philipines, or Califonia. To give an impression: North Italy, which is 1500 km (about 900 miles) south of my home town, has more blue in middle April's days than we have in July, August. Although we have lot of sun shine here also, we pretty often have a certain light which Helmut Newton defined as "black light" and observed nowhere else in the world (I wouldn't know it). Black light is daylight, where the white or bright parts of an outdoor scenery are more bright than the (overcast) sky and the colors are very saturated (like after rain). There are certain parameters in a lens' rendition which I value high, positively and negatively. The in-focus part has to be sharp, and the out-of-focus part has to be modeled. With "modeled" I mean: though unsharp, you need to recognize the subject, something like a "gradual, soft" unsharpness. Both aspects are equally important to me. Additionally, I look for a rich grey tone palette (?, word) in b/w pictures. It has to be in the film, even if I don't use it. "My" white has to be very white, and "my" black has to be very black. In colors, I want the same richness and modulation (?, word) in colors as in grey tones, though I prefer "earth colors" most of the times. I prefer to use the lenses up to f 4 or 4.5 most of the time, except for the 3.4/21 SA which I prefer at f 8. Further, I include some LTM lenses, since you can use them on the M with the adapter ring (about USD 70). I go from old to new lenses. continued ... Alf - -------------------------------------------------- Alfred Breull http://members.aol.com/abreull/index.htm http://members.aol.com/mfformat/c-mf.htm