[Leica] Re: Pan F - Pyro First shot (Mark Rabiner)

[rpalmier at depaul.edu (bob palmieri)]

Mark Rabiner wrote (regarding a landscape that I posted):

> If I was going to be real hard core about it and shoot Pan F and  
> soup it in
> Pyro and risk poisoning myself I think I might use a cutting edge  
> Leica lens
> not a Voigtl?nder badged Cosina a few notches down the food chain  
> line. On a
> Leica body with a Gitzo carbon tripod. And a cable release.
>
> Nice shot though I wonder if the whites have gone too white?
>
> Why use heavy duty technique on comparatively lightweight equipment?


Mark -

A very good question; I'll do my best to provide some kindof answer.

I'm sure many would say "Why not the Hassy (or the 4x5; heck, even if  
someone used an 8x10 Jim Hemenway (I think) would say something about  
an 11x14).

I have a peculiar fondness for pointing the pea shooters at the big  
game.  One reason is that I feel like I have a better chance of  
actually having one with me, and enough of a lens assortment so I  
don't hafta hike to another location( by which time the light has  
changed, etc...) nor do I need to do any cropping.  Also, you really  
need to get a lot of things pretty close to optimum with these  
unforgiving small formats.

Ironically enough, the snap I posted is just about the worst of the 5  
I shot by technical yardsticks.  But, like a lot of your snaps that I  
really like, it's the one that really has the vibe.

Regarding the 21 CV, I don't own (nor have I used) the modern Leica  
2.8.  But the Voigt has really proven itself to me consistently (one  
of the reasons I've looked no farther in the 21 department) and I  
wouldn't be surprised if the two lenses were on pretty equal ground  
around f8.  (Henning may have done an actual comparison a while back).

And we're fixing the white whites in the silver print...

Bob Palmieri