Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/03/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The 3.4 APO was an unusually choice for one of my very first Leica M lenses about a year after it came out. At the time I got it I only had a 50 and a 90. No wides. Instead of a 35 or 24 I got the 135 and was in a sweat about it thinking perhaps I'd made the wrong move. One reason it was not such a weird move as it sounds is the fact that I've done so much studio work over the decades before I got into Leica at all. I used a Nikon 85 or 105. And a 135 for tight heads for the previous decade after I gave up zooms for some obscure religious holiday. I needed the 105 for full lengths as the 85 compressed people making them look less tall. That's a biggie. So the uses of the focal lengths did not always follow logic. Logic being the tighter the shot the longer the focal length. Sure I did plenty of heads with the 105 or even the 85 but the 135 really give it some nice flat flattering formality. Or I'd use the 70-150 and later 80-200 zoom if it was before 1985 which covered all those focal lengths as per obvious. But weighed a ton and was big and slow and had optical properties I was suspicious of. Shooting with the current 90 Elmarit in the studio became an instant dream come true and I knew for sure my Leica was not just for street shooting.. The 90 is great for full length to tight heads no funny juggling around. But I knew a longer focal length for heads is really nice. But such big bucks? Well I decided to swallow the hype I'd been exposed to on the whole issue and go for the 3.4 APO 135. I'd heard nothing but less than exciting things about he previous f4 I think non APO version. Most people felt they had a whole Leica system from 21 to 90 with no 135 at all. The new APO turned out to really make shooting at that focal length not anything I'd been exposed to before. Quality wise. And technique wise. The flash going off inside the frame etches the image into your cornea and you end up shooting less because you know when you've got yourself covered. When you've got the shot. I also used the 90 and 135 extensively shooting the entire Lewis and Clark trail in May 1999 claiming out or my truck parked precariously by the side of the road as the sun was going up or down. ...in the wide open country and all kinds of country the 135 really came in handy over the 90 and was really needed. I switched back and forth between these two lenses and the switches were necessary and worth it. I shot tri x and had a red filter on one lens and a green on the other often using two bodies. Sure I could have brought a 135 on a nikon body but just sticking to the Leica system with its current APO 135 and 90mm glass really made me excited about the results and I feel strongly I don?t get that kind of clarity at all with Nikon glass. Xtol at that time was also just new for me and making a big different. Xtol and Leica glass combined really did something to my work over Rodinal and nikon glass. The little framelines are no big negative deal. You can see the image just fine. It is alike a little rectangular curser that you play over the world. Compose for what you don?t want perhaps instead of what you do. No big surprises in the negative end. The negs and contacts look familiar as that's the scale you shot the images with. Composing for the big shapes of things. Use a good lupe later to check out the textures and patterns. We don't normally compose a shot for texture and pattern. We compose a shot for the overall shapes of things. A little rectangle is fine. More than fine it's vastly preferable for me than staring at a zoomed in tunnel vision groundglass where you don?t get the Gestalt. The big surprises come when you blow the shot up to 11x14 or larger or project them on a mat white screen with a good lens. Texture and clarity you didn?t get in the Nikon Canon world. And if I didn?t think it made that much of a differe3nt I certainly wouldn?t bother with it or be here. Leica M rangefinder shooting is not just a wide angle thing. It's a very viable longer lens thing. With Leica state of the art cutting edge glass its an experience which is really worth it. Figure ground. (And now for something completely different I also have a 99 dollar 135 f4.5 Hektor for it's endearing indelible fingerprint. Viable on the Viso.) And now I also have the 90 APO ASPH. Would love the new 2.8 for getting in those hard to reach places. Mark Rabiner Photography Portland Oregon New-improved http://rabinergroup.com/