Summer Evening Games - Zeiss SW, Biogon 25mm f2.8

In order to test out a new film, Agfa APX400, that my friend Dennis Gallus gave me, I wandered into this place in Leesburg, Virginia one night last week. The place is called Shoes.

 

 

Literally located in an old shoe repair store, Shoes is now a coffee shop and restaurant. In the summer months, they open their outdoor dining area, complete with a bocce ball court. These nice people put up with me photographing their game as the sun went down.

 

 

 

This last one shows the emotion of that winning moment. That's about as exciting as bocce ball gets!

 

Shooting this roll at the box-indicated speed of iso 400, I found this roll to be mostly underexposed. I had to bring all of these shots up quite a bit, which emphasizes the grain. Now I'm not against grain, mind you. In fact, I kind of like the look.

 

I've now shot a test roll, exposing the film at 100, 200, and 400. We'll see if I can find the right exposure and developing times for this particular film. After all, I have 100' of it to shoot!

 

The beautiful Zeiss Biogon 25mm lens is a perfect mate for the slightly oddball Zeiss SW camera, a 35mm body with built-in meter, but no rangefinder. The SW is designed for use with wide lenses, where focusing is not critical because of huge depth of field. (Click Here) for an article about the SW on Shutterbug's website.

 

You can either just guess the distance to your subject and set your lens focus based on the markings on the lens body, or you can use an auxiliary rangefinder. I guessed. I think the 25mm is about the longest lens I could reliably use in this way, but could do okay with a 35mm in a pinch. It gets much easier when I mount up the Voigtlander 12mm f5.6. That lens has pretty much unlimited depth of field. You can set the focus once and shoot all day.

 

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Quick Report on Leica Store Event and Regional LHSA Meetup

I have been pretty active in the LHSA (International Leica Society) over the past year or so. One of the most rewarding things I've done is to schedule local meetups for LHSA members, roughly quarterly. These get a small yet dedicated attendance, and are always interesting.

 

(Click Here) to learn about and join LHSA.

 

For the most recent meeting, I decided to coordinate with the Washington DC Leica Store's photowalk event at DC's Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown. A large group of Leica users met for the Chinese New Year parade, a mix of LHSA members and non-members.

 

(Click Here) to go to the DC Leica Store's home page. They have a beautiful store, and regularly host interesting events for Leica users.

 

We borrowed someone's camera and grabbed a nice Leica user group shot:

 

 

Since my M9 was in for service, I decided to shoot all film for this event. I brought my lovely M3 double stroke with 50mm Summicron f2 version 3 lens attached, and, stretching the Leica definition, my Zeiss SW body and Zeiss Biogon 25mm f2.8 lens.

 

I had a first-ever experience during this event. My M3's film advance mechanism jammed on me, preventing me from using it after about 15 exposures. I'd never experienced a mechanical problem with a Leica camera. Not to worry, it's already back from Youxin Ye, who quickly serviced it at no cost, since I had bought the camera from him last year.

 

Need Leica film camera service? Get in touch with Youxin. He does a great job and has my full recommendation.

 

(Click Here) to go to Youxin's home page.

 

Since we were meeting the very next week to share results at the Leica Store, I make the mistake of taking my film to one of the only local drugstores who still process film. Their processor must have needed service; the color came out just ridiculously bad, and in an unpredictable way. It seems that some frames were okay, others were almost completely devoid of red tones (you don't want to lose your reds in a Chinese New Year image), with a cyan tone. So, I had to work pretty hard in Lightroom to come up with a few images worth sharing.

 

NOTE: None of this would have been a problem if I'd used my regular processing solution, The Darkroom. I've used their mail-in service many, many times, and never had a single issue.

 

(Click Here) to look into The Darkroom's first-rate film processing service.

 

So, after overcoming a few challenges, here are the images I decided to share at the DC Leica Store:

 

 

 

 

 

We had our regional LHSA meetup at the National Portrait Gallery, just down the street from the Leica Store, before heading there to share images.

 

It was actually a lot of fun shooting the Zeiss SW and Biogon 25mm wide angle lens. It required getting very close, but I like the feel of the images.

 

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Leica in Nature - LHSA (International Leica Society) Muir Woods Photo Tour

I'm writing while I'm on the flight back from Northern California, where I attended the annual meeting of the LHSA (International Leica Society). One of our photo outings was north of San Francisco in Marin County, at Muir Woods, an amazing redwood forest in the coastal mountains. I've been here many times in the past, so I was hoping that I'd be able to bring a new perspective to the pictures I'd capture there. In addition to my familiarity of the place, which can be a blessing or a curse, we arrived at mid-day, when the lighting was strongest yet most harsh. However, the forest provides lots of opportunities to find good light.

 

By the way, I'm only sharing the digital images I made on my M9; the film is on its way to The Darkroom for processing now. And, my post-processing was all done on my iPad using Snapseed. Also, I don't have a way to view the EXIF information, so I'm only including what I can remember. You'll see that three of the five shots in this post are shot with October's Whole Lotta Leica Lens, the venerable 50mm Summicron f2 version 3.

 

Let's see how I did.

 

Sunshine Through The Canopy, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Leica Summicron 50mm f2 Lens

 

 

Now, I think this is a fairly predictable image. I was able to take advantage of the backlighting on the stump, and really like the burst of light at the branch at the top of it, along with the sun itself. I also enjoy the stripes of light in the forest behind. But, again, pretty pedestrian.

 

Redwood Detail, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Leica Summicron 50mm f2 Lens

 

Here's another from the same spot. Here I decided to open the aperture wide (f2.8, I believe) and isolate the redwood branch at left from the surrounding forest.

 

 

Dark To Light, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Carl Zeiss Biogon 25mm f2.8 Lens

 

I love the way this shot shows the transition from the deep darkness of the forest understory to the bright midday sky above. The backlighting on the branches at the bottom are also nice. I decided to crop this image significantly to focus the interest where I want it. The Zeiss Biogon is a wonderful lens, and I can even say that I like using the bright 25mm Voigtlander accessory viewfinder. It makes composition a different and enjoyable experience.

 

Then, I decided to focus my attention on one particular subject, a redwood stump that was bathed in wonderful, subtle light. I set up my tripod and got to work. Most people walked by looking for an invisible bird or other subject that I must be photographing. I mean, who would spend so much effort to photograph a stump? Well, me, that's who. One person actually came up behind me and grabbed a snapshot of my subject with his handheld DSLR. He probably got home and thought, "now what the heck is that a picture of?" Here are my favorite two shots so far:

 

Study of a Redwood Stump, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Leica Summicron 50mm f2 Lens

 

This is one of those examples that once again prove to me that we don't photograph subjects, we photograph light. I am also learning to try to photograph how a scene makes me feel, not how it looks. This shot achieves that at a certain level. I absolutely love the colors and tones. I also like the spotlight on the leaves in the stump.

 

Redwood Stump With Context, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Carl Zeiss Biogon 25mm f2.8 Lens

 

This final shot shows a little more of the context around the stump. This shot could use some more post-processing to emphasize some areas of the stump. I'll work on that. To be honest, I much prefer the more closely-composed shot above.

 

So, what do you think? Did I succeed at getting some different perspectives on this much-photographed location? I sure enjoyed my time in the forest, and hope that I'm developing some new skills in making unique images.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

 

Quick Post from the Bay Area - Tesla Motors Test Drive!

 

Tesla Model S, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Zeiss 25mm f2.8 Lens

 

I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area today, visiting friends and attending the LHSA (International Leica Society) annual meeting. I've been running myself silly this week, shuttling between the East Bay and San Francisco; I'll cross the Golden Gate four times today in addition to the cross-bay BART run.

 

Anyway, I did get some time with my friends. One example was going to test drive the awesome electric Model S automobile from Tesla Motors. What a phenomenal machine! As fast as any gasoline-powered car I've ever driven (with maybe the exception of my uncle's '65 Corvette with a 427), this is one luxury sports car.

 

The best thing? No gas station required.

 

Tesla Model S, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Zeiss 25mm f2.8 Lens

 

Our Test Car, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Zeiss 25mm f2.8 Lens

 

The price is hard to swallow. But, you really seem to get a lot for your money. At a minimum of about $70,000, Tesla guarantees they'll buy the car back at 36 months for around 50% of the initial price. A nice bottom line assurance. Not exactly a sports car, or a luxury car, the Model S seems to strike a reasonable balance. While it's pretty large overall, the performance and interior feel certainly tip more towards sports car. And, what other car has a 17" Apple-style display and operating software built like Google? No other car, that's the answer.

 

So, if you have the funds, I suggest giving the Model S a test drive. I won't be buying one soon, but I won't complain if my friend does!

 

Oh, yeah. The Zeiss 25mm Biogon was the perfect lens for shooting in the showroom with the M9. I did forget to inform the M9 that I'd changed to a wide angle lens, so there is more vignetting than I'd like. These are jpegs straight out of the camera.

 

DMC-365.blogspot.com

 

 

Rethinking My Leica M8

Well, my Leica M8 has been up for sale for a couple of weeks now, and to no avail. It's amazing that I can't sell such a nice camera, complete with one year warranty from Leica. So, I'm rethinking the idea of keeping it as a companion to my M9.
 
I am on the bus as I write this, coming home from a weekend in New York City, where I got to shoot the M9 quite a bit. Here's an example of a street shot I got with the M9 and 50mm Summicron f2:
 

Koreatown, New York City, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, Summicron 50mm f2

iso 400, f8, 1/125 sec

 
So, I'm very pleased with what the M9 has to offer, more than I was with the M8. However, the M8 has some quite nice qualities. One is that it works so well with one of my favorite lenses, the Rokkor 40mm f2 that originally came with the Leica/Minolta CL and CLE cameras. The 40mm has an equivalent field of view of about 52mm (on full-frame) on the M8. The M8 also works very nicely with the Zeiss Biogon 25mm f2.8, which gives an equivalent field of view to a 34mm lens on full-frame cameras.
 

DC Noodle Shop, by Reed A. George

Leica M8, Zeiss Biogon ZM 25mm f2.8

iso 640, f11, 1/500 sec

 
I recently read an old post on Steve Huff's blog about revisiting the M8. Steve did it out of necessity, after having to sell his M9. The comments from readers were very supportive, and showed that many people are still using the M8 quite happily, with comments as recent as August of this year.
 
(Click Here) to read the M8 Revisited post on Steve Huff's site.
 
I also read an interesting article in the August 2010 edition of the Leica Forum International (LFI) magazine, about actual benefits to using the M8's sensor for black and white photography. Basically, the article makes the point that the lack of heavy filtering (or even sufficient filtering for color photography) in the M8 allows for more flexibility in post-processing images in black and white.
 
So, maybe the M8 will remain with me. I can imagine it making a good backup to the M9, especially for black and white. And, the crop factor will allow me to use my 90mm Elmarit f2.8 lens as a 120mm telephoto. I do like a little longer telephoto for portraits, for example.
 
One other thing - since my M8 is now serviced and warrantied by Leica for another year, I am less concerned about treating it overly gently. In fact, there are places that I feel worried about carrying the M9, especially when I'm concerned about the possibility of theft. I sure wouldn't want my M8 stolen or damaged, but it would be better than breaking or losing my M9.
 
In truth, I'd like for the M8 to sell, to free up some funds. But, it's just too nice of a camera to sell for a bargain basement price. I'd much rather keep it and use it. We'll see what happens in the next week or so. If it doesn't sell, that's just what I'll do.
 
UPDATE: I have traded my M8 for a Limited Edition Zeiss ZM body and Sonnar 50mm f1.5 lens. I figure that the film body and M-mount lens will hold value as well as the M8 (which wasn't very good in that respect alone). I'll give it a try, and decide whether to keep it. The Sonnar is loved and hated by many great photographers. More on that later.
 
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