Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]feli offered: > Many people find the 50 'boring', which is a statement that always makes > my skin crawl. > The 50 may be one of the most difficult lenses to truly master, but once > you do, you find that you need little else to shoot with.<<< Hi feli, I think it was four years ago one of my Leica Seminar lecture's was on using the 50mm. "Vancouver on 50mm a day." So Sandy and I went to Vancouver for three days shooting only with a Noctilux on an M6 and a 50 Summilux on an R8 and that was it. When you are forced to see in ... "50mm" it's amazing how well one can do and the range of situations you can creatively put on film. I mean we shot situations making the Noctilux look like a macro lens using flowers and to add to it, we did that in the rain. Quite effective. :-) Very simple really, wide open at the closest point of focus and the scene looks like it was done with a macro. :-) Depending how you compose, the frame can be made to look like a wide angle lens. Or just the plain old fashion great for shooting people in markets, parks and evenings with almost no light light. But it's true a lens is only as good as the photographer handling it and with the imagination to make use of it in any old way for everything. And before someone says.... "well you can't make a 300mm shot with it!" Well here's how you can! ;-) Use super fine grain film allowing for extra high enlargements, focus on your subject and shoot the scene. In the enlarger or on screen you crop the image as though you were using a 300.click, print! ;-) However due to the size of the cropping it helps to use very fine grain film if you're going to do large cropping like this. Well actually we shot asa 100 transparency film. ted