anthony_brookes5

M6 with 50mm Summicron

It usually is pointless 'looking' for picture,but that is not the same thing as going out with your camera and hoping something catches your eye. I must admit I have never seen a photo of a landscape that I would hang on the wall. Sixty years of photography has taught me that the only photos that ow please me are those where somewhere in the picture is a human being however small.

Brad - I agree. If you have been using a 35mm - to pack the frame - then taking a step or two back with the 50mm does seem odd. However looking at the images afterwards I came to the conclusion that my 50mm photos were better photographs.

This is a common question amongst 35mm photographers. I confronted it many years ago and decided that 50mm was the one for me. I used a 35mm Elmar on my Leica III for the first 10 frames, then switched to the 50mm Summar. Then when I had acquired an M6 I exposed the first 10 frames with a 35mm Summicron, the next 10 frames with the 50mm Summicron, and then 10 frames with my 40mm Summicron. The results confirmedexcatly what I had found with the Elmar and Summar . I was happiest using the 50mm. The main reason was that in all the other pictures I could see some mild distortion. Not much but enough to annoy me.

Leica III with 50mm F2 Summar. Comes to hand simply and easily and the controls are all in right place.<div></div>

The Christmas shopping guide shows just how much better economic conditions were in the US compared with Britain. I had just started photography at the age of 11 and looked at a Voigtlander Bessa just like the one in the advert but it was prohibitively expensive so I bought a pre-war Zeiss Ikonta with F4.5 Tessar which I still have. It cost me £12 (about $18) , an enormous sum in those days for which I saved for over a year

Sorry - the picture didn't upload<div></div>

I went into East Berlin a few weeks after the wall came down.the atmosphere was utterly depressing.

I have not had such pleasure as when I took hundreds and hundreds of pictures with my Leica III fitted with the 50mm Summar. When I bought it in 1981 from the original owner it was absolutely mint and was boxed and in the original tissue paper. Since then I have had all models with the R4s being a favourite as also the M6. Now I have a Leica C 112 which is an incredible camera but I just don't get as much pleasure taking digital pictures. To me digital cameras are not really photography.

Thanks Rob. I have looked at a couple of tutorials since acquiring LR 5 and can now see what I have done wrong. What I want to do is clear out all I have done and start again. Can I do that ?

I use Faststone for all my photo filing. A really excellent program.Payment is voluntary.

I have received Lightroom 5 with my Leica and would like to use it as a replacement for Photoshop 7. However I seem to have got my catalog in a mess. Can I delete everything from Lightroom and start again? I have not done any developing so I am not worried about my images.

Real Porn<div></div>

My Leica III with the Summar with lens hood.<div></div>

For what it is worth i was told by a person who should know that it is not the number of pixels that matter but the size of the sensor. He said no phone will ever be able to match a modern digital camera.

Our first dog, taken in 1967 with a Zeiss Ikonta 520/2 6x9 on Ilford FP3<div></div>

Verticals can be corrected in Photoshop with transform - distort.

When I bought my first Leica in 1981 there was definitely a 'Leica look' for both the camera and for the pictures. The camera 'look' was a small rangefinder with a large viewfinder and everything in the right place. The 'Leica look' pictures had a distinctive bokeh from all three major 50mm lenses, the Elmar, the Summar, and the Summicron. The 'Leica look' to pictures has largely disappeared in the public's craving for sharpness. Digital cameras have gone berserk in the hunt for ever more pixels, in my opinion to the detriment of photography.

Forget trying to think like a photographer. Just see like an artist. The camera will do the rest.

<p>Whenever I see this often asked question I always refer to Bert Hardy's picture of two girls sitting on the railings on Blackpool seafront. A marvelous picture. The camera? A Kodak Box Brownie.</p>

<p>My first photo was of the back garden, trying to get used to the settings on my Ikonta which I saved up for what seemed to be a lifetime. First 'proper' photo was of two swans on the village pond.</p>

Get a piece of ordinary A4 paper and do various test prints till it lines up properly. If the card you are using is not an A4 dimension cut you ordinary paper to the same size as the card before you do a series of test prints. You can usually do three or four test prints on one sheet of paper. I do this regularly for birthday cards for the family.

Thanks for your comments. I have resolved it by removing and re-installing both printer drivers. I was told this can happen with Windows 7. That does seem strange as an explanation though.

I have not used any sharpening at all. The images are straight from the camera.

I don't know what I have done but suddenly all my prints look as if they are grossly over sharpened, too bright, and contrasty.. I use Photoshop 7 in Windows 7 and have done for about three months with no problems. I suspected I had made some error on the set up for Photoshop 7 so removed the programme and re-installed it but the results are the same. When I load a picture into Photoshop 7 the image on the screen is perfect, it is only on printing that it goes wrong. I have used an HP Photosmart 7960 for several years with no trouble whatsoever. Can anyone kindly show me what I have done wrong?