New Toy!

Here it is!  One more Leica lens... 

A nice Elmar 90mm f4 lens, with caps, recently came home.  It is now part of my M3 classic system, as you can see...

Of course, pretty much immediately, I loaded film it into my M3 and proceeded to burn it.  I went without a meter here, so I recall that the exposure of all the images was about the same I use with my Summicron 50mm collapsible, but with a tad of an opening to compensate for the lens's length.  So, the one above was shot at f5.6, 1/1000 on B400CN film. 

And so was this one above!

Now... where would I be without PSE6?  See... in the end, I did overexpose most of these shots, so I had to resort to the shadow/highlight sliders. 

The lens works well; the turning of the rings, both aperture and focus, is nice and dampened.  The only concern I may have is a slight squeak close to the infinity, that I hear every time I turn the focusing ring a bit fast, from the closest to the farthest distance.  However, it's been relatively quiet for a while. 

Later I will post either more shots with this one, or more with any of my other long Leica lenses.  Who said that rangefinders are not efficient with telephotos?  We'll see soon.  Meanwhile, dust off your big guns!

Composition Heaven or Nightmare?

Welcome to a metering and composition nightmare! The parallel lines at Red Rock Auditorium near Denver, CO.

Making lines and subject work?  Hmmm... easier said than done!  Take a peek at the following shots.  First, above these lines, some runners up the seats.  Below, a graceful young lady who was lending moral support to someone in the crowd (M3, 50mm 'cron, Agfa APX ISO 400, at 1/1000 sec. and aperture between f8 and f11; the second: same shutterspeed, but at f5.6, most likely).

What's your take?  What do the lines do for the subjects? 

And finally, by the stage, an exhausted athlete (same gear and film, but aperture between f5.6 and f8; I like to use my lenses as open as possible, hence the f-stop).

When I was taking these photographs, I was in hog-heaven... or whatever the expression be to say I was in a high...  In the zone, going Zen...  Through the viewfinder, all these shots looked like a million bucks. 

Not so much later.

While I like the one on the top (it has a nice, eerie look to it, and the men look like wild animals climbing the steps), when I was getting ready to scan the negative the lighting, the metering and the grain (something I'm becoming a stranger to) posed a series of challenges.   I won't add that I had to contend with some Newton rings, so there's a few negatives that will need to be re-scanned.  However, these ones looked good only after a second examination (not pixel-peeping).  Now... I like them, but I'd like to hear about your experiences using lines in the composition. 

If the first has a nice, lyric air, what do you make of the second?  Does it need cropping?  Is the human element getting small and buried in the geometry?  How about the tired runner in the bottom photograph?  I perhaps should add that it's the one I like the best in terms of contrast, sharpness and lighting. 

Anyway, I'd like to know about your reactions.  

BTW, I did print these images... and Ansel Adams's famous dictum came to mind: "the negative is the score, the print is the performance."  My negs don't look too good, but the prints have a nice sharpness about them...  I must be a decent conductor. 

Thanks!

Travel Photography

Why does it happen...

That most of our best shots...

Happen when we travel?

Any ideas?

BTW, and before I forget, these are all Leica shots, ranging from Bogotá (Colombia), where I captured the girl talking to her dad about the dog who won't budge; to Barcelona, where my rarely used Summicron 50mm yielded a scene in Plaza del Pí; to Chicago, which I still consider a travel destination because it's not the town where I live. 

Is it perhaps because of the distances we need to cover to get these shots?

Is it maybe because we always assume that the greener pastures are beyond our horizon?

Or just because these are to us unfamiliar sights?

It annoys me... because, for one reason or another, some of my best shots are, indeed, from far away locations. 

Makes me feel glad I had a Leica back then.