Re: [Leica] The LEICA DIGILUX 2 is announced

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabinergroup.com>]

Rei Shinozuka wrote:
> 
> just out of curiosity, as a professional business owner/photographer,
> when you consider a new lens, do you do a return on investment analysis, i.
> e., what jobs you can take with the new lens you could not without it, or
> how much more you could presumably charge for the extra quality, etc.?  of is
> it just an act of pure emotion?
> 
> -rei
> 
There are bound to be some people who know what Leica is a little bit
about who might hire me not from my work but by for my strange outmoded
leanings toward quality camera gear. This is certainly offset by those
who think I won't get the shot because I don't have a laser beam
tracking all moments of my eyeball so wherever I look the EOS will pop
it instantly in focus anticipating where they're going to go to next and
leading it there.

What is it they see?
They see a stack of prints, tear sheets, maybe some pages of slides.
And the guy sitting there in the chair.
And what they've heard about him.

But part of being a photographer is an image thing. The image not being
the image on your print but the image on your person. 
Me I'm an overweight Caucasian middle aged west coast fella with a few
Chicago and New York mannerisms, no visible piercings or tatoos and no
shaven head. I wear all cotton long sleeve button down shirts in the
winter or Polo shirts in the summer - as often as I can with sport
jackets. My hair is not often combed and my shirts not always ironed but
this is not really an accident and I'm not sure how many people I'm fooling.
In part of my 20 year experience doing portraits for businessmen,
actors, male insurance brokers and you name it of the male gender I've
figured out that men are at least as image conscience as females. I'd
say more so. And more vain.

When it comes to glass I'm not trying to save money. I'm looking for
reasons to spend more.

And my own image aside when I am taking my fiber 20x24's out from under
it's flatteners or 30x40 color prints out of the Krenite processor and
put my Loup to it and check to see if I can see individual eye lashes in
full length shots I've come to appreciate my more current expensive
glass against my not so expensive glass from earlier on in my career.
And the difference in formats. And slower films.
And when it's not for me but for someone paying me it makes this not as
obsessive as it sounds. Because it's "what could I have done for them to
make what they are paying me more worth it" And I'm going to know much
more than they ever will what that was.

When a image is not of the quality I'd like it to be when I put a loup
on a very large printt or just stand there looking at it I wonder if I'd
shot it with my Leica instead of my Nikon how much better it would look. 
If I'd not used a zoom.
If I'd used slower film.
IF I'd used a tripod. 
A flash.
A Hasselblad.
Sheet film
A better or cleaner enlarger lens
If this over all obsessiveness shows in my stack of prints or "book" I
don't know but i think it does. I also like to think I'm OK in the
"spontaneity" end of things as well and I think so.
"Investment analysis"?
"what jobs you can take with the new lens you could not without it" I
assume means focal length not brand name as I doubt anyone would think
you'd NOT take on a job because you were a Nikon shooter and not a Leica shooter.

Once I was hired to shoot a row of buildings on a block and I couldn't
get them all to the ends because my lens line at the time which was for
most of my 20 year career from 24 to 200mms. And I needed a 21. 
And another time i was supposed to get a shot of a Blue Heron so this
guy could make a silk-screen T-shirt and what turned out to be needed
(on this golf course where the birds were to be found at 5AM) was a
400mm iron. Not the 200mm which was my longest driver!

So now I'm a middle aged guy and I've got this Leica 21 Asph as if asked
to do architectural slides or interiors or quality in ultra tight
situations I can mention to the people that "by the way I happen to have
this super duper lens which is not commonly in the kit's of most of the
photographers you might be looking at and this might really affect the
outcome of the job" and sure that might help get me the job if they fall
for it. 
As of the last 6 months I also have the 14 mm lens from Nikon which
becomes a 21 when put on the D100 digital camera body. And I have a
12-24 zoom which extends my outward reach even further but being a ultra
ultra wide zoom and being a "digital" lens and being Nikon instead of
Leica I don't know how viable of an "architectural" lens that might make
it.  But if I have to shoot a bunch of mice running around the inside of
a closet I've got the special tool for the job. And with film i get this
cool vignetting effect from 12 to 14mm as that zoom has an image circle
more fitted to digital.

But it's the way it makes ME feel.
I got the 100mm Zeiss lens for Hasselblad this year. Its a good step up
from the old 80mm design the medium format multitudes are using and that
I'd used all these years.
ANd I'm feeling VERY enabled. 
There is a gleam in my eye that I don't think was there before. 
And if I don't see individual eyelashes with my Loup on my 20x24 print I
know that God didnt want those eyelashes to be there. Nothing I could
have done could have gotten them there.

So I'm a middle aged guy with conservative-tech higher-end gear than a
younger shooter with whiz bang standard of the industry state of the art
higher-tech stuff and a ring through his nose. Some would be more prone
to hire him. (or her)
An art director who is 24 years old and have a ring though thier nose
might hire the younger shooter his own age who looks like more like them
and listens to the same music. 
But I've gotta think the prints and tear sheets we show them might
influence the decision because that is what we are DOING with the gear
that communicates more than the way we drape our camera off our left shoulder.

Some jobs do specify ring-nosed photog's and I'm resigned to that. I'm
also resigned to wash and wear shirts. (on other people)

I think most people hire people because they can stand to be in their
presence for more than five minutes.

But also its an image thing not directed towards potential clients but
towards ones peers. The other photographers I know; Pro, or better than...

But I hope when I see the look of envy on their eyes as they check out
my new super duper lens that I'd be putting that glass to at least as
good of use as they would.

I do have one friend who I'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion is a
better photographer than I am! :) It's good to have a T* ego with a red
dot on it or why bother going out to do a shot if you think you know a
dozen people who you think could do it better? Thank goodness she also
seems to have unlimited funds and is not going to wallow in envy but
just go right out and pick up the thing for herself if she thinks it's
worth it.
But I got to use it first for a short while. And I hurry up and try to
get results from it decent enough to put in my book for that brief
interim I've got that hard copy advantage. One print in my book with
that 12mm vignetted focal length.
You've got to get in touch with your dark side folks.

At one early point in my career i was shooting a model with a medium
sized white umbrella on a seamless white backdrop with motorized Nikon
and a 105 2.5 lens in Tri x to be souped in D76 1:1 and printed on Kodak
paper developed in Dektol with an Omega D2 Enlarger with a 50mm 2.8 El
Nikkor lens.
Other than my choice of models and poses I had to think there might be
other ways to make my shots stand out a little from the others who were
at that very moment also shooting a model with a medium sized white
umbrella on a seamless white backdrop with motorized Nikon and a 105 2.5
lens in Tri x to be souped in D76 1:1 and printed on Kodak paper
developed in Dektol with an Omega D2 Enlarger with a 50mm 2.8 El Nikkor lens.

So I went with slow Panatomic bought a scale and ran it in Beutlers
A zebra umbrella.
A barely coated 135 3.5 Nikon lens
Agfa Broviraspeed printed with a softlight and LPD developer.
A tweak here a tweak there.
That and more experience with my models and strobes made my work stand
out a little.
And now it's Leica and digital.
 
And the fact that I've been intensively fooling around with Photoshop
since it first came out a dozen years ago. I think that gives me a
little edge here and there it's those early childhood 40 year old brain
cells that count!

Mark Rabiner
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.rabinergroup.com
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html