jtdnyc

I don't need to see an early draft of a genius's work in order to appreciate the final product. However, if I am trying to understand his process -- and maybe replicate it myself -- then, yes, seeing an early draft might be instructive.

 

In the Darkroom Age, many instructional books showed "straight" prints or work prints side-by-side with the final, chemically-manipulated product. At least one book even reproduced the negative on the page, uninverted, so that the reader could see what the artist had to work with.

 

Personally, I have no desire to see original captures of the POTW, but it's not so ridiculous an idea as some of the comments posted above might seem to indicate. Isn't education one of the purposes of this site? Wouldn't it be instructive to see more of the steps by which the photographer got to his result?

Wow. I purchased by pre-ASPH Cron in 1985. At that point no cap was available for the square hood. Apparently one did become available. I stand corrected and apologize for offering what apparently is misinformation. Anyone know when the cap was added to the catalogue?

Unfortunately, Leica didn't make a cap for the hood of the 35 Cron pre-ASPH. I never found a suitable third-party hood cap, either.

 

When I needed to protect the lens (or to protect the rubberized shutter from the sun), I just jammed a rectangle of stiff black paper in the front of the hood. The rectangle was about a quarter inch longer than the opening of the hood, so that I could make a fold and thus have a tab for removing the hood easily.

 

Leica does make a hood cap for the 35 Cron ASPH, but I don't often use mine as it's easy to lose and expensive to replace. Caps for lens hoods is not Leica's strong suit.

Good tonality, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder.

 

Here are examples of the sort of tonality I prefer:

 

www.flickr.com/photos/lesged/

 

which I was directed to by this thread:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00ET4M&tag=200512100412

 

It would be interesting to know what you think of these examples.

You could probably check the catalogue number on the Kodak website

 

www.kodak.com

Take a look at this thread.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00KhKt

 

I think it will answer many of your questions.

 

Good luck!

Alex, for years I have been putting off joining the LHSA. Now your article has inspired me to ante up. Thanks for the kick!

If I get one or two keepers per roll, I'm content; three or four, I'm happy; and more than that, I'm ecstatic.

 

Even with no keepers on a roll, I don't feel I've wasted time or film if I have learned something, which is often the case.

 

Sometimes I discover the keepers when going over old rolls years later. And sometimes I wish that I had known, when I started taking pictures seriously twenty-odd years ago, all that I know now about composition and technique. Maybe there would have been more keepers along the way.

To be able to answer your questions exactly, we'd have to know two more bits of information: how far the subjects are from the camera, and how big an enlargement you plan to make. To take an extreme example, if your subjects are 30 feet from the camera and you plan to make 4"x6" prints, you could shoot any of your examples at f/2 and the DOF would be more than adequate!

 

However, assuming you intend the subjects to fill the frame, here are my thoughts:

 

1. Child by window light: any aperture might yield a nice picture, depending on the effect desired. Shoot several frames at different apertures. No rule says it has to be f/2.

 

2. Mother behind mother: If they truly filled the frame and I wanted to print an 8x10, I'd use f/5.6 or even smaller. If they were, say, 6 feet away and I were printing 4x6, then I'd probably feel comfortable with f/4. Of course, part of the answer here is not technical but artistic: do you want them both to be in perfect focus, or do you want to use a slight fall-off in DOF to put primary attention on one of them?

 

3. Mother and child side-by-side: f/4 should be adequate. I'd focus on the eyes of one of them and then recompose by taking a step laterally. This would maintain the plane of focus after recomposition.

 

4. Cup in the corner at f/2: I'd focus on the cup and, as in the case above, recompose by moving laterally rather than swinging the camera around, which repositions the plane of best focus. The 35 Cron ASPH has an extremely flat field; therefore, it would also be possible to focus on something at the same distance as the cup that might happen to be closer to the rangefinder patch. The flat field means that everything at the distance focused, including the cup, would then be sharp.

 

5. When to use f/4: The lens may be at its best at f/4 on the optical bench, but only on the rarest occasions should that fact drive your decisions in practical picture-taking. Use f/4 when, paired with the appropriate shutter speed, it gives the exposure you need and the depth of field you want. The slight superiority of f/4 over f/2.8 or f/5.6 in terms of resolution will usually not show up in the final picture unless you are using a tripod and extremely fine-grained film to shoot a highly-detailed subject.

 

The DOF marking on the lens itself are adequate in most situations. When shooting a double subject (especially a static one), I have sometimes focused on the first one, noted the postion of the lens, then focused on the second, again noted the position, and finally set the lens somewhere in between.

 

If you're making enlargements bigger than 8x10, you might want to use the DOF marks for the next wider aperture, e.g., use the marks for f/4 if shooting at f/5.6, just for insurance.

When unsure of what I'll be shooting, I put TX or XP2 in a Leica M with a 50 if I'll be outdoors or a 35 if I'll be indoors; if both, then usually the 35.

 

If the Leica is too large, I carry a Contax T2.

 

I used to carry a Minox C all the time. Now that was a camera that could really go anywhere!

Carlos, thank you for the link to the "suggested reading," but you might be interested to know that I am a lawyer by training and was the writer of a video on the history of censorship, narrated by Walter Cronkite, that was shown daily in the main exhibition hall of the New York Public Library for several months in 1984. I know more than a little about this subject.

 

The First Amendment deals with censorship by the government and has no applicability in this instance. Even defamation is permissible under the First Amendment, if it is either factually correct or simply an expression of opinion.

 

If you're talking about the *spirit* of the First Amendment, rather than its actual text, you might consider whether a call for censorship of someone else's opinion is consistent with that spirit.

I don't think it is.

 

Using your logic, I'd be demanding removal of the word "twisted," but I'm happy simply to respond to it.

Putting aside the specific photo and the specific comment, I find it ironic that here we

have an artist demanding censorship -- and invoking the First Amendment as if it

supported his position!

I think I'll head to Cambridge on a bookshopping trip.

Absolutely classic. Congratulations!

No photos to contibute, but my sympathy to all who suffered from the fire.

"Theft is taking property with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of it."

 

Not true. By adding the element of permanent deprivation, what you have defined is larceny, which is a particular variety of theft. Legally, the concept of theft is much more general and can include the unauthorized use of images. In fact, there need not be any "property" involved. People who jump the turnstile to ride the subway can be arrested for theft -- "theft of services" would be the actual charge.

Few people in this forum have been as generous with their knowledge and experience as Doug Herr. LFI has picked a winner in more ways than one.

Famous Leica photographers are often best known for their work with a

particular focal length. Think of Sieff with his 21mm lens; Winogrand, 28;

Gibson, 35 (I believe); and you-know-who with his 50.

 

Any nominations for the Leicameisters of the 24, 75, 90 and 135?

 

I think it would be educational and inspirational to see classic bodies of work

done with these focal lengths -- in any 35mm system, but especially with a

Leica rangefinder, since these focal lengths are sometimes assumed to be SLR

territory.

 

With any nominations, links or book titles would be appreciated.

Agreed, Michael...but I wish the elegant simplicty of the camera and lenses extended to the design of the website. Having to install the latest version of Flash to see a site that surprises you with unsolicited music is, to my mind, very un-Leica-like.

I doubt they will sell one additional camera because of the fluff they've added to the site. All it will do is make people who just want lens specs click away from the entire site in frustration. Having the music come on automatically is especially annoying.

Thomas, thanks for the link. The prospect of "new, improved" Portra films more than makes up for the misinformation I received today. However, it's disappointing that the salesman at the Adorama film counter was unaware of the latest information. Maybe I should have walked a little further...to B&H!

I live within walking distance of Adorama and just got back from the store,

where I attempted to buy a roll of 35mm Kodak Portra 400VC. The salesman at

the film counter told me that they had no 400VC in stock and wouldn't be

getting more, as Kodak is discontinuing the film in that format. He said NC

was disappearing also, though they had a little left.

 

When I asked for an alternative, he offered me Kodak 400UC. I agreed to buy a

roll, but when he typed it into the computer he saw that it had been deleted

from the Adorama system, and so the order had to be written up manually. His

explanation was that 400UC was being discontinuted, too.

 

I have shopped at Adorama since the early 1980s and have trusted the

information I have received from their salesmen. I know that film sales are

dropping, but this is the first I've heard that Kodak is discontinuing its pro

color negatives film in 35mm.

 

Could this possibly be true?

 

(Incidentally, I tried to buy Kodak color negative film at Spectra earlier in

the week. All they had available at the closest store was 160NC.)

In 25 years of attending photo shows in galleries in New York, I have never encountered a single instance in which the photographer paid the gallery and then sold tickets at the door. On the contrary, admission has always been free -- even to the opening parties, which often include free drinks.

 

However, I'm always eager to learn about a new business model. Could you please give an example of a current show organized in this manner? I'd like to pop in and take a look.

 

Thank you.

In addition to everything mentioned so far, there is another factor at work here. The G45 is an extremely well-corrected lens; at medium apertures, perhaps the best normal lens I have ever used. Such lenses tend to show the transition from point of focus to out-of-focus areas more clearly than do lenses with a lower level of overall correction. That's one of the reasons why some people claim to see less d.o.f. from Leica ASPH lenses than pre-ASPH.

 

In olden days(optically speaking), there were some designers who deliberately "clipped the peak"; that is, designed a lens to give somewhat lower performance at the point of focus than might have been theoretically possible, so that pictures made with the lens would be smoother, rather than have an abrupt fall-off.

The great thing about that 80-year-old camera is that you've "updated the sensor" every time you stick a roll of the latest film in it!

 

Nice pix.