Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/01/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 19:45:16 -0500 > From: Tina Manley <images@InfoAve.Net> > Subject: Re: [Leica] A few thoughts about flash > Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20020113193253.044a5d60@infoave.net> > References: <MBBBJHIBKCKEAEOKKBPOKECGCDAA.bdcolen@earthlink.net> > > At 03:41 PM 1/13/02 -0800, you wrote: > >>But I always try to make a shot with the light illuminating the subject >>before I use flash and if in doubt, out comes a flash, now I have the SF20 >>that I've played with a bit, but it's still basically unused! [:-)] But some >>day. [;-)] >>ted >> >>Ted Grant Photography Limited >>www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant > > > > Ted - > > I agree 100%; however, (don't you hate "howevers"!) it depends entirely the > purpose of your photographs. Try an experiment. Load one camera with > Tri-X or TMax 400 and put the Noctilux on it. Load the other camera with > Provia 100, a slow lens, and the SF20. Take photos of the same subject - > your grandkids playing inside with very little natural light. Use an index > card or handkerchief to soften the SF20. Take a roll of photos with each. > > If these are photos that you are trying to sell to a mother or stock > agency, I'll guarantee that you'll have more "keepers" with the SF20. If > they are photos that you want to enter in a Family of Man exhibit or blow > up 10X to put in a fine-art gallery, the natural-light ones will win every > time. > > For everything there is a time and purpose (I think I read that somewhere.) > > Tina Tina, I completely agree, but the question is whether a Leica, or at least a Leica M, is really the appropriate tool to use if a serious flash assignment is the problem at hand. If you were assigned to shoot a portrait of a CEO or a sports figure, for example, and knew that the range of possible locations included both interiors and exteriors, what cameras would you have at your disposal? I doubt very much that a Leica M and an SF20 would be your only option. :-). The current Nikon and Canon top of the line SLRs and even the R8 handle this kind of thing very well. My concern is that trying to engineer this stuff into the M will diminish the very qualities that make them so wonderful for what they do best and that we will wind up with the best of neither world. - -- Rolfe Tessem rolfe@ldp.com New York City - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html