Re: [Leica] The Leica Look: Another thought on a debate we had ages ago

["Gareth Jolly" <garethjolly@bigpond.com>]

Mark Rabiner wrote:

>Gareth the way I read your post you are specifically addressing the
Leica(M)
>look in telephoto or long lenses and that is a tricky issue which I am into
as I
>am more of a fan of the longer lenses than most and use the new 135 3.4 APO
>often as well as the 90 Elmarit often. I don't have a 75 yet.
>The Zen of the whole thing to me is that with those little framelines we
might
>actually be composing more for what we are not getting than what we ARE
getting.
>We are eliminating elements of the picture as we move the camera around. We
are
>composing for what we don't want instead of what we do want.

...

>One big influence of the looks one gets from the longer lenses on our M's
is
>there is not a lot of it.

I think you've nailed something in this post, Mark.

My preferred lens is my 90mm Elmarit M.  After that, my 50mm Summicron.

With both, I enjoy the ability to compose, seeing both what is within and
without the frame in the one.

One qualitative difference, though, is that with the 50mm I know the detail
of the subject - with the 90mm (the frame lines being much smaller) I am
less certain, perhaps making the shot more abstract.  With the 50mm, it is
only a wide border of the viewfinder that is outside the viewfinder.  With
the 90mm it is a small rectangle that it is within the viewfinder.

Which is perhaps another way of saying, composing a 90mm shot on an M is
fundamentally and qualitatively different to composition with a 50mm.

Interestingly, I am starting to see that with the shots I'm developing from
my China trip.

Cheers
Gareth Jolly