aplumpton

<p>Very encouraging. When creating an image becomes too easy, it is natural to cut corners in the photographic approach and execution. Although they are very familiar with the most advanced consumer electronic imaging products young people often want to engage in more measured and thoughtful approaches to photography, which is part of a photography education, whether digital or film based. The choice of analog is often made in that sense. Although older than high school students, I have a handful of young friends (25ish) working in the cinema and communications field with advanced equipment who, upon visiting my darkroom, are blown away experiencing it, and some tell me that their wish is to set up a similar facility someday. If we keep the silver base emulsions and chemical industries viable with our purchases they will likely be able to realize that wish.</p>

<p>Interesting point, Cory, but just what is the objective of the Sony curved sensor? Why curved? Is it for highly miniturised devices like smartphones, or to enable lens that are particular and easier to build or more compact, or to correct off-field performance of Leica lenses on a FF camera without microlenses, or what? I have to doubt it is being done for non-Zeiss optics on an A7r or equivalent camera.</p>

<p>I greatly appreciate your responses. Where the Sony seems weak, as several have mentioned, is in the off centre performance of Leica optics with the adapter. For me that is important and maybe crucial to any future decision. Wouter, I am indeed happy with the M9 and maybe the additional value of higher MP would not be that great as you mention (the performance curves often become asymptotic with increasing MP, if that is the word). Dieter, I do own and use regularly the Summicron 35 aspherical and your comment is very helpful, as others who address the off centre quality issue with Leica otics. My other Leica lenses, and I consider myself lucky to use them, are the 21mm f2.8 ASPH, the 50 f2.8 Elmarit, the 90mm f2.8 Elmarit and a 135mm f4 (last but one model) in addition to the 12mm and 75 mm VC lenses. How these might work will probably require that I borrow or rent an A7r to find out, but my favorite 21mm is not likely to work well given your comments in this post. I will first check your references to see if all Leica lenses react similarily or not. I have read somewhere that the WATE (which I don't have) apparently works well without image degradation over the field, for whatever reason.</p> <p>Jochen, I understand that the Zeiss lenses have been designed, like some other modern digital optics, to produce less widely distributed back light rays from the lens than more conventional optics and perhaps that is the reason they do well on a sensor without microlenses (although the A7r apparently has tilted sensors in their outer array).</p> <p>Everything has its pros and cons, but the Leica lens compatability problem is probably a killer. Too bad, as I really like the tiltable screen and live view and have often needed that in my photography.</p>

<p>I don't disagree at all about how the composition (of line, point and form) and the particular balance of masses (light, dark, differing forms) make a photo or painting something one has an appetite to look at for more than a few seconds and as an aesthetic object. What impresses me more about good photographers like this one is how they can transcend that graphical success (we also have all seen beautiful graphical results lacking in soul, and therefore limited, and I must admit it is something I work hard to try to avoid in my own compositions. Something significant beyond compositional aesthetics has to be present) and provide more than that, as Marville does in providing us a lasting perception of place, time and human evolution in this square. He chooses his time, subject and angle of view that also allows us to see many centuries of architectural and social evolution and why 19th century Paris (and many European cities) became what it did, following the desire of the fRench to quit the country, seek work and become part of an "apparent" more successful life style of the city. We have to thank him for perceiving his subject matter in a manner more than an object.</p>

<p>A camera for me is a tool to an end. I have used Leica film cameras and mainly for the rendering of their lenses. So when I was told in Leica information that the M8 digital with its smaller frame was a necessary sacrifice in view of the short back focus of my Leica optics, I rather naively bought that story. Later, the full frame and higher pixel count of the M9 sensor was my tool for fairly high quality digital photography.</p> <p>After 14000 dollars on these camera bodies, and the desire to upgrade to larger high quality print size, I am really hesitant to invest similar amounts on a new Leica, even though the M8 and M9, well maintained. may get me enough on resale for the price of entry to an M (M240). Yes, I know the M adds extra features and higher sensor rating than the M9, but why pay what Leica asks when a camera like the Sony A7r will give me a body for my Leica optics (with 3rd party adapter), equally high or higher on-sensor image quality, and some pretty useful additional features. Both have live view, focus peaking and high quality monitors, the A7r having the advantage of a tiltable screen, apart from costing less than 1/3rd that of the Leica.</p> <p>Maybe the Leica is of better build, but of what importance is that given the short lifespan of the specifications level of digital cameras? So why invest in the M240? With the small size of the A7r, Leica only has the advantage of rangefinder feel and viewing, not so important for those who use live view (Note that Leica has removed the traditional previewing frame selectors anyway, given the live view, although you can still see the area outside most framelines). Anybody else of similar thoughts, or not?</p>

<p>As Sally Mack suggests, going from the film and post exposure treatment (if you print) that you know to digital requires a fairly steep learning curve and computer time to master, especially if you are a senior citizen. On the other hand, digital imaging is convenient at exposure and you would have quick feedback on children shots that you can use to modify next exposures.</p> <p>Knowing a little more about your requirements (your type of lens, more than one lens, or not, minimum resolution or largest high quality print required, intervalometer requirement, or not, etc.) would possibly allow those here to make more precise and confident suggestions.</p>

<p>I wonder how much Charles-François Bossu influenced Atget, another later Paris photographer whose images would also have something to say in this weekly series? The two seem to have important similarities as well as differences, with Atget seeking I think a somewhat idealised and atmospheric/romantic view of his city, and Bossu-Marville intent (perhaps as a consequence of the nature of his commissions) on showing it with its warts and humanity (the latter without the aid of many photos showing people, or at least people in a very minor role).</p> <p>I first thought of the image this week in terms of compositional elements but then was more struck by its societal content and the character of the place. Although Haussmann, in creating the beauty that is Paris of the late 19th century through to today, swept away a lot of Medieval and Renaissance Paris, much is still to be found in the old streets behind the elegant buildings of his grand boulevards and routes (les grande allée). These less obvious areas are no longer so much the sites of poverty, overcrowding and corruption as in Marville's day, or as in early 20th century New York (if you haven't yet seen the film "Immigrant", with Marianne Cotillard (sorry Marianne, if your name is misspelt) it is worth the detour to the cinema as it gives a good and possibly partly true picture of similar NYC in the 1920s) and many of the old buildings are still present, despite the Second Empire and later architecture of the grand roads.</p> <p>Marville's photo shows the many layers of architecture of differing periods, which are seen to be piled onto each other, and updated, not always following good rules of architecture but clearly showing the evolution and densification of living and work places. We see a small Medieval or Renaissance building with slanting roofline in the right of the square, before the road on the right that leads into another opening leading somewhere with similar congestion. Marville tempts us to follow those intersecting roads. The buildings above the smaller building and behind it have been overlayed on each other as time progessed and the city densification continued. The important signage, like a mini 19th century Times Square 'sans' neon, speaks to the apparent considerable activity of the square, even though it is virtually empty the day Marville made this image. Unlike other Marville images of a disappearing Paris, this square has remained through to today.</p> <p>Parisian's are often loathe to have their old architecture and surroundings modified (except for the results of the many skirmishes and battles in the city over the ages and since the Parisi tribe), a fact that confronted Viollet-le-Duc in the mid 19th C when he had to deal with the locals who had no interest in removing the modifications to the cathedral and surroundings garnered over 6 or 7 centuries in order to restore the building to something like its original appearance. I get the impression that Marville relished the layered patchwork and densified appearance of Paris, that Haussmannn sought to hide under its elegant new coat, and perhaps he equated that with the many faces of the city.</p> <p> </p>

<p><em>David, let's just say that the two shots stand for the some 400.000 American and the some 25 million Russian casualties during the war.</em><br /> <br /> That important statistic alone that Anders mentions (the 25 million dead as a result of the Nazis) may reply to David in regard to the incredible and justifiable anger of the Russian people over Hitler's merciless siege of the former St-Petersburg and other war atrocities and the hate therefore instilled in the Russian soldier's mind that may have allowed him to consider defenceless (and often enemy country) women as less than deserving of civilised treatment. Or hate at the firing squad dismissal of allied soldier captives in Europe. Or the Japanese hate of US pre war actions to affect their economic survival in a trading world, apparently one reasonJapan went to war. Or Chinese hate of the Japanese for the planned massacre of tens of thousands of Japanese citizens to "try out new war weapons and methods".</p> <p>All this to question whether any one or a few photos can represent, like the Iwo Jima shot, or the Russian Reichstag conquering, what really the war was all about. They cannot I think. Things are not always cut and dry, even to a well-intentuioned and even neutral historian. Insofar as their apparent intent was concerned, it is surely noble to bolster the moral of a nation that is making enormous sacrifices in a war, as both Russia and USA did, and in that context (and in saving Europe and the rest of the world from subjugation of the Nazis), these two photos are both powerful.</p>

<p>It has been 100 years since Barnack used one of two prototype UR Leica cameras to photograph his native Germany and also his boss, Ernst Leitz 1 (who started the company in the mid 1800s). Leica has already produced a working copy of the O series Leica of the early 1920s, and I wonder if any other early Leica camera is scheduled for creation and production? Any thoughts or information?</p>

<p>Like the poem of poppies growing in Flanders field, or the magnificent Australian war memorial that celebrated bravery in a lost battle, the flag raising by American soldiers in an American and Japanese part of WW2 is an emotional thing. I see it more as a memorial to the needless dead than any aspect of national pride because I think we should be more proud of how our diplomats and politicians can avoid the strifes or greed that lead to war (true on all sides) than the first past the post thinking that creates or at the least stimulates national pride. Wars on a great scale have already failed before any shot has been fired. It is at least comforting to know that the most peaceful times over the last several hundred years occurred during the relatively long period of the last half of the twentieth century.</p> <p>As a salute to bravery and to the losses incurred, where they should not have been required, the flag raising has some meaning for me. Like poppies that grow in Flanders Fields or the Aussie memorial. Uniting the people of nations, but mainly, and below it all, in grief.</p>

<p>Lannie, I don't know if this qualifies for your OP but I have been working continuously the last two weeks on a series of images in black and white that are portraits of the oldest houses and accompanying buildings in our area. They are all shot from a similar angle and approach, that expresses to me (at least) the essence of the simple but powerful vernacular designs from the 1680 to 1750 period. Some (but not many) of the originals work a bit better in color than when transferred to B&W, but do so outside the approach of my project, so I have simply dropped them from my project (to be used elsewhere).</p> <p>The multi-toned rural stonework and wood shingles and other wood of these simple buildings are photographed in light at angles that also exhibit the type of reflection that makes their surfaces appear silvery and I am making the blue skies very dark tones of grey to try to evoke another time. I may call rgeseries memory, or identity, as these structures are a key part of the early cultural life of this area. By not showing the parts of the buildings that have had more recent modifications or embellishments and showing instead those parts that emphasize the originality of the structures, I am trying to get a bit into the heads of the original builders and show what they were trying to make. I am mounting about 15 or so on artist cardboard tomorrow morning and am presenting them tomorrow evening at a local event (with a side event of artists) attended by many locals. I am enjoying the immediacy and intensity (mainly in the searching of and choice of potential images) of the project and its very limited timeline.</p>