Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/28

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Subject: Re: [Leica] SHARPNESS
From: Patrick Giagnocavo <pgiagnoc@qi.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 21:45:28 -0500

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