Thursday, February 8, 2018

Paris and the 35mm Zeiss lens

During the summer of 2017 I had foot surgery, but before going in the hospital I spent some two weeks in Paris, and a few days in Germany afterwards. All that time I had with me two cameras: my Nikon D700 (with my AF 24-120 f4 zoom), and my Leica M4, with a Zeiss 35mm f2 and a 90mm f2.8 lens made by Konica.  For metering, I took a recently (back then) acquired Sekonic L-208 that can be small, discrete and accurate.  Film?  A mixed bag, but mostly Kenmore ISO 100 and Ilford FP4 (exposed at ISO 125).

Here, the photographs...

 Place St Julien Le Pauvre.  Artist setting up his work for sale.

 Place des Vosges.  Girl reading.  For this one, I used a Konica Hexanon 90mm f2.8 lens.

Place des Vosges.  Corridor and man.

The light was at all times intense and bright, but there were exceptions and places in which I was able to get (interesting) exposures with a bit more contrast, and an air definitely French, or at least continental.  Like these ones...

Men conversing in café by Place des Vosges.

Waiter, Ile de St. Louis.

 Photo shoot and model.  Palais Royal. 

Ladies and the cost of living these days.  Passage Jouffroy.

Girls at Café Dome, Rue Lévi. 
 
Not all the photographs I have show this "slice of life" quality.  Some are deliberately more architectural (or perhaps environmental), because... Paris offers everything everyone may want.  I wanted to do this trip and take a Leica I used to own (an M3), with a collapsible Summicron 50mm, but I sold it before anything happened.  I am now glad that I was able to take this M4 instead, as I have always found the 50mm focal length a bit too narrow for my taste.  Needless to say, I want to return, and I want to do some night photography like I did in Madrid.  But enough of that.  I'll return with some street shots (literally, photos of streets) that I liked because... I think they're a good representation of the charms of Paris.

A bientôt!

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Second and last: The Leica Typology

Let's continue with my, shall we say, profiling of Leica M film bodies.  Since I packaged the M4 along with all its variations together, and finished my last installment with the M5, let's continue from there.


Given that the M5 is the best known secret operative, how could Leica improve on it?  Easily: they just dropped it like the proverbial hot potato, and went back to the drawing board to produce the M6.  This is a jolly camera, a jovial, quick to laughter guy, who enjoys work, rolls up the sleeves and gets down and dirty whenever needed, but then, at the end of the day, will go to a pub, a bar, a tavern, a restaurant or a café, or any place of human companionship, and sing a good set of tunes.  Yes, the M6 is one of those who works hard and plays hard.  Nothing in the world is better for this camera than a good work day, then a shower, and then a nice, long evening nursing a drink (or series thereof), belting out a few drinking songs.  Maybe that's why there are so many different editions of the M6: they knew these cameras wouldn't stay in their boxes.  That's probably the explanation for so very few "mint" or "collector-condition" M6 bodies in the market.  They're all out there, having a good time. 

(©Anthony Owen-James, flickr)

One would imagine that if the M6 is a nice party companion, the M7 would have enhanced party features.


No.


(© Yu Xiong, flickr)

The M7 has no nameplate like the previous Leica bodies.  It says only M7, like a secrent agent code, as if that were enough.  Based on this, the M7 is just… an M7, a letter and a number.  It's a bit joyless, bland, robotic body.  Sure, it works and, of course, produces always perfect exposures.  But then, what does it do afterwards?  What does this camera like?  Which songs are its favorites?  Does it have a preferred place to hang out?


No.


This camera is the typical metro-boulot-dodo.  Up with the sun, out to work, clicketty-click and clicketty-clack… job's done, collect paycheck, let's go, see you tomorrow, head back home, make some quick supper, watch the news and hit the sack… And repeat again the following day.  Why does it convey this image to me?  Is it because of its electronic guts?  Is that because of its apparent perfection in terms of metering, gauging film ISO, opening and closing the shutter at perfectly timed intervals?  Frankly, I don't know, but that's the reason I've stayed away from it.  In fact, I barely touched one.  I know… that's extreme.


Given that the MP resembles the M4 so much, and that I only once had a chance to hold one in my hands, I find it unfair to even try to characterize, but I'll try. 


(© Alessandro Bastianello, flickr)

First of all, I must admit that I fell in love with it.  Oh, what a softness to the tact, what a delight to the senses, what a flawless, precise engineering…  It was like an M6 on steroids (and I had already my M6TTL bodies by then).  Then, at the same time, holding the camera feels as if one had an M4 in hand: a reliable, solid instrument that can also understand the whims of the creative mind.


Here I will end.  I have nothing to add about the digital bodies (and there are too many) mostly because I lost interest on them after the M9 storm with the sensor problems.  Hence, I'll return to posting photographs.  In fact, soon enough I will come back with more results of my stay in Spain with my M2, and from my other sojourn in Paris, during the summer of 2017, with my silver M4. 

Take care and leave a comment with your opinion or information about the Leica digital bodies. Who knows... may be one day they'll deserve a typology too!

One very last note: the photographs used in this post came from flickr, and I have acknowledged their authors.  I should add that I am very grateful that they did not block their work from any third-party use, and that is why they appear in this entry, just as illustration.  Thanks, gentlemen!