stephen_jones4

I wonder what the point of blind people hanging around a leica forum to slag off beautiful pictures is.

Beautiful.

I agree with above - I forgot to mention eos macro - very good choice (not same look as Leica/Zeiss but v.gd. in it's way)

just before the semi-inevitable abuse...

I've used/owned almost all of these lenses. The 135 f2L is the sharpest - and also by far the least pleasant/flattering. The Nikon 85 1.4 ais is pretty good in a gritty, Nikon kind of way (much better tones than the AF version)- the 85 f2 is quite nice too. The Contax 85 1.4 (I had the German AE version with a slight scratch on the rear element) is a dream but soft at 1.4. The 80 1.4 Leica R lens is incredible for portraiture - extremely flattering. The 90 SAA on the M is a bit of a pig to use, has iffy bokeh but extraordinary in-focus clarity and beauty. The 90 on the Contax G was always a bit soft, but very pretty in a Zeiss way. The Canon 85 1.2 is a very good lens but you need an EOS 1v to get it to focus even vaguely rapidly. The 70-200 f4L that I used was pretty good - but a bit clinical and slightly harsh for flattering portraiture.

If you go with Leica M, get the 75 summilux - I did a portrait session with one and thought it was pretty marvellous. I think the big zooms are a bit unwieldy for portraiture and don't let you get closer than 1.5m anyway (the f4L lets you get to 1.1(?) m).

If you're keen on Zeiss/Leica gradation I can't imagine that you'd be happy with Canon lenses, but then again a lot of people on this forum take pride in boasting that they can't tell the difference between makes, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

Finally, I found the mm/ae contax lenses better (i.e. more flattering) than the more modern G lenses (which are pretty fantastic in their way) but then you'd be putting money in a system which just about takes the dead-end biscuit.

Good luck, I'd be interested to know what you end up doing. Just to confuse you further, what about pentax (semi-viable digi-slr and some peachy portrait lenses)..?

FWIW, I always think that MR's pictures on his Luminous Landscape website look like graphic art/poster "art" (and not like photographs). Me, I'd rather have a (hopefully interesting/well-executed) painting or a (hopefully interesting/well-executed) photograph - these hybrids are an unhappy compromise to my mind, which remind me of 1980's Athena poster art.

Despite people getting so prickly about pretentiousness, I would have thought it obvious that there is room for some degree of self-expression even in so lowly a form as photography. I agree with your last sentence: I haven't yet seen any digital stills work that makes a virtue out of the "look" of digital - to me digital has so far remained a poor cousin to film photography, carried along on over-hype from the corporations and magazines. (which, of course, means that it will become the de facto standard, whether I like it or not.)

p.s. I like the idea that the dodging might be deliberately obvious - like Manet's woman at the bar looking out at the viewer - "I am a fiction - you are looking at me etc.!) Very plausible. Let's give him an honorary degree just in case.

Just a minute, maybe Alfie was a genius too...

I use the m-grip. It doesn't feel right to me without.

Interesting theory, although didn't Tom Abrhamson (sp?) have a very early one (which he rates extremely highly)?

BTW, when I asked above for sample pictures, I didn't ignore the two given - I meant ones which were more "testing" of the lens' relative abiltiy.

Cheers

This lens seems to get widely differing reviews: anybody got any sample pictures?

...sure looks like an extra nipple on my monitor...

Surely there's a therapist somewhere who would take him on pro bono...

Jay - you are a one man campaign. Please, please stop. It's so predictable; so boring. By now everyone has been made to feel your pain but you're pissing on my parade - you seem set on single-handedly smashing a brand. Why not pick on one that could cope with it - Nikon, Canon, BMW, MacDonalds, Gap, Sony - why bully such a niche player?

I have an R6,2 - no problems. I had an R6 - no problems. I had an SL2 - no problems. I have 2 m6ttls, and an M2 - no problems. Nikon F4 - broken af module. Nikon F100 wouldn't work with Ilford delta 3200 - rewound film mid roll (pretty annoying when you're shooting a ballet). Buddy's Nikon F100 had an electronic fault that appeared intermittently ("Err" message as if in prog. with non-ais lens) - had to be rechipped. Bad things happen to good people every day.

I'm v. fond of RG (I have a copy of "Overtones" isbn 390816110x which is superbly printed) but I know he's somebody that some people get a big kick out of hating. As you say the printing/quality of his images is hypnotically beautiful. As he seems to be quite big on blacks I would imagine he doesn't often over expose his film... They look like they have the sharp, handsome grain of Rodinal, though.

FWIW I agree entirely with the above. It's extraordinary to me that people would hang around a Leica forum just to continually and rather boringly knock the brand - does this happen, I wonder, on the Nikon/Canon forums, or do these marques not inspire the same passion/hatred/irritation/envy?

Big on grotesque. Rather brilliant(?) The first is my favourite - a touch of the Bram-Stokers.

This is a very well-balanced and compositionally exciting and clever composition (multiple layers; triangles resting on triangles; every mm of the frame teeming with intrest; proponderance of dark tones balanced by bright and lively highlights...), whoever took took the shot. I have to wonder about the people who knock it (and as for the frighteningly imbalanced and ugly crop...): it's as if they have never thought to consider that photography has a visual component which might be worth studying.

1st and 3rd, very nice Andrew - quite beautiful. "Subway" may be a stroke of genius Diego, or just very lucky?..?

They brought a smile to my grumpy face.

I have one. It's a wonderful lens. The pictures it gives do not have the same "feel" as the elmarit for the M or the 5 element elmarit for the R: it is sharper, more modern, less dreamy: more like the other aspherical lenses. The bokeh is fine, though, and has never been a problem for me. (It is not nearly as smooth as the 75's but is nothing like a nikkor 35-70 2.8 I used to own, and I would guess is better than that of my 35 asph.) I'm sure you'd enjoy the pictures it gives (even if, judging by the colours of projected slides, the 135 apo is the best lens in the whole M line-up.)

I think this may be rather brilliant. I tried cropping it but I think you've got it right. I'd like to see a series.

To confirm what William says, inter alia: the key problem for me is that if I push my glasses close to my eye (to get snug up to a v/f), my eyelashes cause smearing on the inside of the spectacle lens which clouds/flares my vision. Beware.

OK, it was a joke. But...Peter, it's every man's right to wear a flat cap, hacking jacket, jodhpurs and riding boots in any urban environment. Anyone who thinks that such a person is attempting to place himself above others (or is a bit insane) is merely a twisted cynic. I believe our own Duke of Edinburgh can be seen tootling about in a Barbour jacket when driving his black cab in the Smoke - what could be more natural? Call me old-fashioned, but I personally would never go to the pub without my crown.

Rob - glad irony is not lost on you. Anyway, that's the most constructive comment you've ever made in repsponse to something I've written. I'm touched.

I saw it and the film on BBC4 afterwards which he shot. He just can't resist taking the piss out of people, can he? I'm entirely on the side of the oldies at Magnum - I find his lack of generosity and human feeling malignant and repulsive. The point of all those do-gooders like HCB is that they wanted to elevate the human spirit - to dwell on the decency (sometimes the heroism) of humanity - or at least not to traduce it. (Apart from anything else, isn't it too easy? (maybe that's what I really object to) In the film (which struck me as more involving than his stills) he cuts from a man telling of his happiness to be living in England to a picture dominated by a rubbish bin - how trite! Is this supposed to be sophisticated irony? Obviously Britain is a shit-hole, do we need to pay somebody to point that out? It's instructive that he chooses to live in a Regency house in Bristol with a twee middle-class wife (Bristol is, to my knowledge, the most class concious city in the UK - a place where Barbour jackets are openly worn in town). He's a mean little man with a considerable talent who's made shed loads of money for daring to be nastier than his peers. Nothing pays, it seems, like schadenfreude.

I feel better now. I'm off to ridicule some saddo's with me camera.

I think your picture above is rather wonderful - glamourous and sympathetic, sexy and funny.

I had this on an M6ttl from new. You really ought to get a repair person to fix it - it's easy enough but you need the right tool. I think it cost me £20 for the guy's time.

The idea, as I see it, is that a lens with good bokeh has background blur that stays in the background - i.e. does not come forward to distract from the main information in the picture. In this way, what is in front sticks out from the back ground -adding to a three-dimensional feel to the image. The 75 summilux has excellent oof in this regard. My nikkor 35-70 2.8 afd lens had such bad ("nisen" or cross-eyed) bokeh that it actually spoilt pictures. In truth, none of them were headed for the museum anyway.