joe88 wrote:
Actually its quite interesting topic you brought up on the Planar and Sonnar design being modern and classical respectively. According to camerapedia, the 6 element Planar debuted in 1890s while the Sonnar was launched in 1932, first with the 6 element 5cm f/2 collapsible, then in 1935 with 7 element f.1,5, the world's fastest 35mm lens.
I believe the Sonnar was designed around minimizing air-glass surfaces with the use of more bonded elements to minimize flare and increase contrast. This was the big constraint on lens design at the time. The Planar/Double Gauss didn' catch on until after the development of lens coatings that could control internal flaring on all the internal air to glass surfaces used in this lens design.
Gary, the 1st car shot is amazing. Love the electric blues and the warm yellow and green reflections on the metal. Cute portrait of your daughter too. I didn't know this is how you look like in real life
Ryan, thank you very much! Love the light and colors in the first shot.
Zhangyue, lovely portraits of the children as usual.
Peter, welcome to this thread. Beautiful set with real gritty b/w film.
Unfrtunately, it has been raining in Bangkok recently, so no chance to try the Sonnar yet. Here are a few test shots indoors, WO, MFD, ACR default settings except for WB. The focus at f/2 is hit or miss. Curiously I am finding that I either hit the focus spot on, or back focus by about 2 cm. In the second photo, I missed the focus completely (on the first eye) but luckily I hit the second eye spot on
You can also notice the flare in backlit shots. The sharpness is a bit too much for portraits, too harsh on the skin. I find the Tele-Tessar to be better for portraits.
Edward, nice portraits! I have found play/reduce with clarity slider will do the trick for portrait, especially leica M with no AA filter. At least you can try brush to do that to keep globe contrast. But most case, brush is not needed as most background will be blur and you want low contrast, clarity anyway.
Isn't the ZM85/2 supposed to be sharper than the ZE/ZF100MP? I agree with Michael, a bit of minus on the clarity slider will probably help somewhat. But I think these look good. Edward, maybe time to look at one of the vintage Zeiss 85/2s Joe suggested earlier?
Gary - great car photos! You guys have all the nice cars in Calgary, it seems. Love the one of your daughter too. You've trained her well, it seems.
Welcome to the thread, Peter - looking forward to your future contributions!
Joe, Ryan, Michael - great family life images! While digging back through this thread to my early 2012 posts, it was fun to see some of the kids' photos from then and realize how much they've grown in such a short time..
Here are a few from Lake Ontario... I met up with another FMer (from the Canon board) to try out a new lens with some bird photography, but this is what I got with the Leica as the sun set..
Those bird shots with the Canon are really good Ron!
I was playing around the other day and trying out the "film modes" with the M240. The choices are B&W Film, Vivid Color Film, and Smooth Color Film. I shot in DNG and also recorded Vivid JPG's at the same time. Apparently, the vivid is supposed to simulate shooting with Velvia. The M240 has WB challenges as it is and the vivid mode really amped things up further. Much too saturated for my liking, but here are a few samples for those curious.
Haven't shot in a while, new job keeping me busy (insane) =(
Going back through the last few months worth of pages, lots of nice photos, and more and more tempted to get a M240 everyday. =)
Ron, thanks for your comments, I agree with you about our kids, they grow up with this thread. They are the reason I am into this hobby, it is a pleasure to meet many virtual friend here and get inspiration everyday, learning new thing and share joy and passion.
BTW, I really enjoy your 200-400mm BIF shots, great photographer will always be great no matter what they shoot.
Thank you Michael! It's definitely a great community here and also fun to meet up when possible. So far I think I've met three total; two from this thread. The 200-400 though will put a stop to much of my Leica related GAS for a while, at least bigger ticket items...
Scott, love the expressions and depth to the image. Great use of a wide angle at close range.
Jabber, lovely rendering.
Gary - you're making me regret missing out on a local sale of that lens for $500(!) back over a year ago... Do you find the size reasonable for an M kit? Images look good, if a bit saturated. For some reason though, lately I've also been boosting saturation a fair amount. Maybe Michael's influence?
From the same place, just looking down at my feet instead of at the horizon.. not sure which I prefer:
Zhangyue, Ron, thank you very much for the advice. Indeed the Sonnar is amazingly sharp since WO, and I am certainly not complaining Now I have to find out if the 1-2 cm backfocusing is caused by the M9 or the lens.
Ron, beautiful set, but the first 2 shots really stand out. The b/w set is also very nice.
Gary, they don't look exceedingly "vivid" to me and the WB is right on.
Jabber, Tag, nice shots!
rscheffler wrote:
Gary - you're making me regret missing out on a local sale of that lens for $500(!) back over a year ago... Do you find the size reasonable for an M kit? Images look good, if a bit saturated. For some reason though, lately I've also been boosting saturation a fair amount. Maybe Michael's influence?
Yes, $500 for that lens would be a great price. I had my eye on one locally here even though I wasn't really looking for one. Funny how that happens. It is pretty much mint with orginal box and caps. The price started around $1099 with was way too high. They kept lowering the price and with a bit of haggling, I got it for $625. This was the first time out with it and I am quite impressed. I find the size to be a bit large and heavy for the M. I suppose it feels OK but I like my M kit to be as small as possbile. It is built very well and I will keep it around for the odd M telephoto outings.
Gary the first image (pole,graffiti) looks a touch green to me. I think just a few points of magenta should do the trick. Otherwise I think they look good.
Nice B&Ws Ron. I think I prefer the tighter crop. With the tighter crop you have the wonderful diagonal line leading your eye into the frame from the upper left.
