RE: [Leica] Which Ultra-Wide, Heliar 15mm or Heliar 12mm

[Henning Wulff <henningw@archiphoto.com>]

At 12:55 PM -0500 5/3/01, Rodgers, David wrote:
>Henning
>
>>>If you haven't ever used anything wider than a 19 or 17, get the 15
>first. Experientially, the jump from 20 to 15 feels the same as the
>jump from 15 to 12.<<
>
>As it is, I have trouble keeping my knuckles out of the 15 Heliar frame. I
>take off my Rapid-Grip when I use it. That seems to help.

Keeping track of your fingers is certainly part of shooting 
super-wide. At least with the 15 and 12 Cosinas the entry point for 
the light into the lens is a little bit in front of the camera 
housing; with the 15 Hologon, it's behind the front of the camera 
housing, and knuckle photos happen regularly until discipline 
prevails. I also use rotating lens panoramics, but my present brownie 
film Noblex has little handles on the sides which let me know how far 
I can go with my fingers. The old 7.5mm Canon I had many years ago 
forced me to lean forward at times to make sure the tips of my shoes 
didn't show up on each picture.

>Last week I rolled into work at dawn to find that a 6 block area around of
>downtown Portland roped off. They were filming a chase scene for the movie
>"The Hunted"; a sequel to "The Fugitive" and "U.S. Marshalls". The center of
>the action was right in front of my building (actually on the corner below
>the window of my office).
>
>All I had was my 15 Heliar. It was early. Not a lot of people downtown yet.
>I mingled around the set. I wanted one shot that captured huge volume of
>equipment; big booms, Panavision cameras, lighting equipment, sound
>equipment, etc. The 15 Heliar was perfect, but I needed something in the
>foreground. Two guys were talking next to me. I spoke to them for a moment.
>Then I fired of a couple of frames. I got my slides back last night. Lo and
>behold, one of the guys was Tommy Lee Jones.

There's lots of stuff that you can't get with a 'tele' like a 24, and 
sometimes you even need a 12. Not often, but sometimes.

>I watched the filming all day long; mainly from my office window. I found
>out how those cinematographers get everything in perfect focus. Between
>takes they measure everything -- and I mean everything -- with tape
>measures. And they do it over and over. They must not rely on the viewfinder
>to focus. It looked like one guy at each camera was responsible for manually
>focusing, according to a timeline. So much for AF <g>.

Having used AF on my video camcorder often enough, and seen the 
results on screen has made me turn off the AF there as well most of 
the time.

- -- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
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