Typical Leica photos, typical Leica look

Jim Laurel at the even more flame-prone Leica Users Group has posted a

portfolio of Chinese pictures worth a look. He describes the trip and

the equipment <a

href="http://leica-users.org/leica-users/v30/msg01332.html"

target="_blank">here.</a>

<p>

(Volker Hett's link generation tool is very useful.)

<p>

 

<a href="http://www.spectare.com/gallery/china05/index.htm"

target="_blank"><center><img

src="http://www.spectare.com/gallery/china05/image/china05-0102.jpg"></center><br></a>

OOOOOH! I want a toke!

 

Nice photo, cool pipe.

Click on the toke!

Thanks Jeremy - nice link & photographs & yes - like Al - I want a toke as well.

 

Al - maybe the guy is wearing an Al Kaplan t-shirt under the ... ?

Nah...his shirt probably says

<p>

<b>Marlboro</b><br>

<i>Come to where the flavour is</i>

<p>

Say, what lens did you think made that pic? I think I can recognize that lens' fingerprint from a mile away...

Great! thanks for the link. The photo was propably taken with the Noctilux.

I don't know what "typical leica photos, typical leica look" means. <P>

 

Technically they are a whole bunch than what usually gets posted here. But it's good

<I>digital</I> post processing that drives that more than anything. They could just have

easily returned a similar look shot from a nikon. <P>

 

In the end, they're nice travel pix of what most westerners would consider to be exotic

looking people. I suspect Al sucking on one of his cigs would look similarly "exotic" to a

Hmong villager on vacation shooting in Florida.<P>

Looks like a Noctilux photo to me as well. Lenses aside I think the photos themselves are pretty darn good. But outside of the swirly OOF area in the photo here I can't say I see anything particularly "Leica" about them. Now "rangefinder"...perhaps yes.

 

-Dave-

Great. Thanks for the link.

>Brad - , jun 19, 2005; 09:51 p.m.

 

>I don't know what "typical leica photos, typical leica look" means.

 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Eat your heart out Brad! We're shipping another 5 gross of the T-shirts to the Hmong villagers this week. And I don't "suck" on my home-rolls, I toke on them. They refuse to purchase T-shirts from suckers.

Very interesting to compare and contrast his color and B&W portraits. The effects are quite different and each has its own allure. Color feels like here and now or rather there and now, kind of an I-am-there-actually-viewing-this. B&W feels somehow timeless and placeless, actual but in a parallel reality way.

 

Has anyone read or written about the psycological differences between color and B&W perceptions in the brain? If so, it'd make an interesting

posting. (No, I wasn't toking before writing this.)

Please pass the maple syrup.

<I don't know what "typical leica photos, typical leica look" means.>

 

I think "the look" is a sharp, precisely focused image taken in difficult lighting with a lens that is neither extremely wide nor extremely long. Many of us don't find that look hard to recognize. Sure, some Leica pictures could be taken with other equipment, but focusing a wide-to-normal lens in difficult lighting is the special province of the Leica rangefinders. But, c'mon Brad, you knew that.

 

<Technically they are a whole bunch than what usually gets posted here. But it's good digital post processing that drives that more than anything.>

 

Perhaps...but how could you make that assertion with such certainty unless you've seen the non-digital original?

looks like a Noctilux to me. some hate it some love it...

<I>but focusing a wide-to-normal lens in difficult lighting is the special province of the

Leica rangefinders. But, c'mon Brad, you knew that.</I><P>

 

My sony digicam can auto-focus in the dark if need be - no special province attributions

required. <P><P>

 

 

<I>Perhaps...but how could you make that assertion with such certainty unless you've

seen the non-digital original?</I><P>

 

Because I know, through experience, that sweating the details in post will drive the overall

look, probably more than any other factor, with the exception of the quality of light during

exposure. This is confirmed by those posting photos here with little or no photoshop skill

showing pix with color casts, poor contrast, no real blacks or whites, etc. It is similarly

confirmed by seeing work of photogs that I know who sweat the details in postprocessing

consistently deliver good pix. There is a positive correlation.<P>

 

Also, the guy briefly mentions his digital processing - ending up with a quadtone image in

the end.

<Please pass the maple syrup.>

 

 

Ah yup, but only in Vermont.

<Because I know, through experience, that sweating the details in post will drive the overall look, probably more than any other factor, with the exception of the quality of light during exposure.>

 

Your experience is different from mine.

 

In years of darkroom printing, I found that the biggest factors were the technical and compositional quality of the negative in the first place. With a great deal of work, it is possible to rescue a defective negative of an important subject, but life is too short to do this on a regular basis.

 

My experience at digital printing is very limited, but I have found that, as in the wet darkroom, scans of great negatives seem to fall effortlessly on the paper, while scans of problem negatives yield inferior prints. Someday I hope to have the digital darkroom skills to rescue these negatives in post-processing...but photography is my hobby and I'd rather be out shooting than sitting in front of a computer screen.

 

I guess our experiences and approaches are just different, and I'm not saying you're wrong. At least not about this, anyway. About your Sony digicam producing Leica-like images, well, that's another story. It may be able to focus in absolute darkness, but not with the Noctilux's limited depth of field. Nor, I imagine, can it shoot with a shutter delay on the order of 10 milliseconds.

 

I admire good digital work and I recognize that my own prints would turn out better if my digital darkroom skills weren't pathetic. But, scrolling through the images posted in the Photo.net Critique Forum, I find it pretty easy to pick out the occasional Leica image. When a talented photographer, which you clearly are, with a refined aesthetic sense, which you apparently have, claims he cannot see a distinctive Leica look, I have to be a little skeptical and wonder whether he has an axe to grind.

Just to clarify one point before the naysayers jump on it: I can identify the Leica images in the Critique Forum not because of their technical quality, which isn't discernible at screen resolution, but because of a distinctive "Leica aesthetic," so to speak, which Leica equipment fosters in its users.

From reading your above post you brought in the notion of "rescuing" failed exposures.

Why? Was that the subject? Digital printing is not about that, though, as with darkroom

printing, it can certainly be done to some limited extent.

 

Digital printing is no different than analog printing in that a proper exposure with great

light makes life easy - I never said otherwise, though you seem to suggest I did. Why?

 

Also, I never claimed my "Sony digicam producing Leica-like images." Why do you suggest

I did?

 

Also, you posed the notion of focusing in low light - which I responded to directly and

succinctly. You, then in your last post, said yeah, but what about limited depth of field,

and shutter delay. I've made no claims about that. Why do you bring that up? The claim

was about low light focusing.

 

As far as having an axe to grind, certainly not. I admire people who can consistently

deliver great pix no matter what the camera or capture method is. Though from my

questions I posed above, I do wonder about your axe.

 

I still do not know what this leica aesthetic is. I haven't seen one here, or in any of the

photography journals/books I've read. I haven't looked at a NG in a long time, but can you

pick the camera used in their pix for each issue?

This photo, as many of the others posted by Mr. laurel, have an almost 3D effect, which IMO is what is frequently referred to as the "Leica look". The Noctilux? Probably, though other Leica lenses often exhibit the same effect when their sweet spot is found. If Sony is getting anything close to this, it is because of the Zeiss designed lenses.

Brad, I'm not sure we're communicating on the same wavelength, but I'll make a good-faith attempt to answer the questions you raised.

 

<From reading your above post you brought in the notion of "rescuing" failed exposures. Why?...>

 

I brought in the nation of rescuing failed exposures because that is the only reason would I bother spending any significant amount of time staring at a computer screen. I'm trying to master digital darkroom techniques to make life easier and printing faster. If I have to sweat the details in post-processing just to make straight prints from good negatives, I may go back to wet printing.

 

<Digital printing is no different than analog printing in that a proper exposure with great light makes life easy - I never said otherwise, though you seem to suggest I did. Why?>

 

I believe you said that good post-processing was the main factor, other than good light, in getting a good final result. Taking these words at face value, I got the impression you thought post-processing was more important than getting the exposure right in the first place. Thus, I did in fact think you "said otherwise."

 

<Also, I never claimed my "Sony digicam producing Leica-like images." Why do you suggest I did? Also, you posed the notion of focusing in low light - which I responded to directly and succinctly. You, then in your last post, said yeah, but what about limited depth of field, and shutter delay. I've made no claims about that. Why do you bring that up? The claim was about low light focusing.>

 

The premise of this thread is that there is something distinctive about Leica images. Your remark about your Sony digicam is relevant only in that context. It's ability to focus in low light is altogether irrelevant to this discussion, unless it can focus in low light AND yield a Leica-like image. I brought up depth of field and shutter delay because these are the factors that might make the Sony's results un-Leica-like.

 

<As far as having an axe to grind, certainly not. I admire people who can consistently deliver great pix no matter what the camera or capture method is. Though from my questions I posed above, I do wonder about your axe.>

 

My axe is this: I come to the Leica Forum to enjoy discussing "Leica photography," and I can't for the life of me understand why someone would spend his time coming to this forum to dispute the notion that there even is such thing in a distinctive sense.

 

<I still do not know what this leica aesthetic is. I haven't seen one here, or in any of the photography journals/books I've read. I haven't looked at a NG in a long time, but can you pick the camera used in their pix for each issue?>

 

I wouldn't bother trying. In recent years the dominant aesthetic in NG has changed. In my opinion, too many (though not all) NG photos are taken close-up with wide-angle lenses. When printed in a magazine of NG's physical dimensions, the result looks very unnatural to me, i.e., not like what the scene might have looked like if I had been there to see it myself. Though others may differ with me on this point, this is not the Leica look that I find pleasing elsewhere.

 

I hope I've answered your questions. With that in mind, let me pose a new one: Do you acknowledge the possibility that those of us who claim to see a "Leica look" might actually be seeing something you're missing...or do you think we're all deluding ourselves?

<i>My axe is this: I come to the Leica Forum to enjoy discussing

"Leica photography,"</i><p>

I can see why. All the great photographs in the world are

identified first and foremost by the look the lens produced, not

the photographer or the subject or anything else. Same goes for

any other art form. It's what kind of paints Picasso used that are

the issue, right? <p>

So where is your Leica-like Leica Look Leica photography,

Jonathan? Or where is any photography from you we can check

out? Or are you like so many other lost souls here, stuck in the

vortex of a vacuum of equipment fetishism?

Come on, trying to convert those who are themselves here to convert must certainly be the most unrewarding work there is.

Let's just call this the Nerd forum. ;)