you're too fast for me! I also wanted to post a little torture test shot I took. 28 as well. I like the tones too. To be honest I only shoot bw when the iso goes up usually, I haven't developed an eye yet for what works and doesn't in bw.
Edward, excellent shot with the truck. For images like that I really like that "creamy" Leica rendering. Very nice colors. From what I've seen the 28 Elmarit seems to be a very nice lens.
Well, here's one last test shot I'll post - turns out the marks are sensor dust. It's a bit disappointing Leica wouldn't have made sure the m9's they were loaning were clean. I realize this could be fixed pretty easily however. Again, the light was pretty flat... but my rookie shots with the m9 may help someone somewhere!
Regardless of the rest, I sure had a lot of FUN yesterday, pretty inexpensive way to shoot an m9 for a while - and should I buy one the academy fee comes off the price.
Charles, I believe you. My favorites among the excellent portraits you have been posting have all been with the ZM 50/2.
Edward: Hehe. Yes, that is a harsh reality of the Leica digital rangefinders. The sensor gets dirty. Fast. Often. I've had to clean mine every other day. The most annoying thing for me though has been my complete inability of avoiding to smudge the viewfinder and rangefinder window. I've been forced to constantly carry a micro fiber cloth and an optical cleaning spray with me.
I had to wipe them both down regularly yesterday.. but thanks to the internet I never covered the window with my finger it was strange seeing the hood intrude into the vf though!
Well thank you for allowing me to share my first few hours shooting a rangefinder. Certainly a very different and fun experience.. but one with which I need much more time.
charles.K wrote:
Edward, really nice shots with the M9 Which lens did you use for these shots. Great rendering under harsh lighting.
Luka, it was shot with the ZM 50/2 Planar. Definitely interesting rendering
Adam, very nice shot!
Interesting points. I know FF is non negotiable for me, but I know the M8 suits a lot of others. In fact without the UV filter, the M8 is better suited for B&W rendering. There have been a number of articles written about it. Tough call
charles.k - Thanks it was a cool find, I have more shots of the area, but the lighting wasn't great, so I was forced to stick to detail shots.
charles.k and denoir - I really liked how your shot (Charles) had depth, multiple layers is what it looked like to me. But I didn't like the background blur especially the way it handled highlights (something you have no control over of course).... So I'm a bit worried about the 50/2 since it's my new lens.. Do you find the background blur is always that sketchy? As I've been looking at a lot of 50 1.5 shots, after denoirs shot of the man walking, and I've noticed that the 50 1.5 has really sketchy bokeh as well... It's not sketchy in the 100 MP or 50 MP kinda way, it's sketchy in a very distracting way. But I notice this only at like full length people portrait distance, not at like head and shoulders distance.. Any comments from the two of you?
denoir wrote:
Charles, I believe you. My favorites among the excellent portraits you have been posting have all been with the ZM 50/2.
Edward: Hehe. Yes, that is a harsh reality of the Leica digital rangefinders. The sensor gets dirty. Fast. Often. I've had to clean mine every other day. The most annoying thing for me though has been my complete inability of avoiding to smudge the viewfinder and rangefinder window. I've been forced to constantly carry a micro fiber cloth and an optical cleaning spray with me.
I use my t-shirts as a micro fiber cloth (living in Singapore it's to hot to wear anything other then a t-shirt).
Thanks Charles, we were kind of hoping for you to post a few bench shots too! Your 50/2 Planar shot renders very nicely.
h00ligan, nice shots with the M9 considering the harsh lighting. The truck shot stands out for me. If you like a digital RF setup, go try the M8 since used prices are much more reasonable and the files are just as (or almost) as good as the M9 except for the higher ISO, and small improvements here and there. I can't see any sharpness improvements from my M9 pics over the M8 pics . I still prefer the B&W files (RAW conversion) from my M8 over the M9. Also the colors on the M8 are less punchy from the M9. Not worse, but different. Good luck deciding.
Adam, I think the fast Leica glass that have smoother bokeh are the 50 Lux pre-ASPH and the Nocts. Have you tried those?
joe88 wrote:
Thanks Charles, we were kind of hoping for you to post a few bench shots too! Your 50/2 Planar shot renders very nicely.
h00ligan, nice shots with the M9 considering the harsh lighting. The truck shot stands out for me. If you like a digital RF setup, go try the M8 since used prices are much more reasonable and the files are just as (or almost) as good as the M9 except for the higher ISO, and small improvements here and there. I can't see any sharpness improvements from my M9 pics over the M8 pics . I still prefer the B&W files (RAW conversion) from my M8 over the M9. Also the colors on the M8 are less punchy from the M9. Not worse, but different. Good luck deciding.
Adam, I think the fast Leica glass that have smoother bokeh are the 50 Lux pre-ASPH and the Nocts. Have you tried those?...Show more →
Yeah, had the pre-asph 50 for a little little while, couldn't get what I wanted out of it. Though as I mentioned, online I seen great results with the lens, so maybe I was just being impatient. The Noct I really like, so I'm just waiting till a killer deal pops up. If one ever does.
Joe: I really like that first shot with the giant poster
Adam: Regarding bokeh, I can't say that I'm very pleased with any of my M lenses near MFD as far as bokeh goes. The Zeiss lenses 50/1.5 and 35/2 have a rather busy bokeh (rather than painterly) and the 75 Cron has a too neutral bokeh for my taste. At medium distances all are OK.
Personally I think the 50 ASPH has less neutral bokeh than the 50 pre-ASPH. Though the pre-ASPH can be pretty smooth at times, in some situations it goes pretty over the top. Not that it looks bad. I'm not a bokeh freak, but the 50 ASPH has been pretty damn non-distracting in my experience.
Same goes for the Noctiluxes - from what I've seen, the new one is more neutral and smooth, while the old one can get crazy depending on the background.
Denoir: what kind of bokeh do you prefer? The 75 is too neutral (I'm kind of surprised you didn't realize that before you bought it, but I guess not a lot of M talk goes on here at FM). The ZMs are too busy - double lined bokeh or distasteful in another manner? You want something in between or something completely different? I know you mentioned you like the 58/1.2, but I'm not really familiar with the lens so I don't know what kind of bokeh it has...
kidtexas wrote:
Denoir: what kind of bokeh do you prefer? The 75 is too neutral (I'm kind of surprised you didn't realize that before you bought it, but I guess not a lot of M talk goes on here at FM). The ZMs are too busy - double lined bokeh or distasteful in another manner? You want something in between or something completely different? I know you mentioned you like the 58/1.2, but I'm not really familiar with the lens so I don't know what kind of bokeh it has...
I had been told that the 75 Cron was 'clinical', which I sort of misunderstood. I have however seen good samples at medium distances with it and I have no complaints there. Good representative samples at MFD are relatively hard to find, even on flickr.The ZMs are bit too busy for my taste (again at MFD) - there are usually fairly strong highlight edges. At medium distances I have no complaints there either.
I like Zeiss ZE bokeh almost without exception. The 100 Makro Planar can have some LoCA in the bokeh on occasion but usually it's just amazing.
Somewhat offtopic, but here are a couple of examples of close focus blur/bokeh that I really like:
Zeiss 100 MP:
Zeiss 50 MP:
Rokkor 50/1.2:
Zeiss 35/1.4:
These are not very controversial, but I also like the Zeiss 21/2.8 bokeh, which few people do:
So if we go to ZM and Leica for comparison:
I should add that I have actually gotten some shots with the Cron at MFD that I've liked. I'm pretty happy with both the Zeiss lenses and the 75 Cron at medium distances. The latter took some time getting used to but I think I'm getting a feel for how to use it.
What's the Rokkor's bokeh look like at medium distances? I seem to remember shots from it by brainiac (maybe) that had somewhat harsh bokeh at longer distances...
I can see you seem to like a bit more going on in the bokeh department than what the 75 offers. It's pretty neutral - a lot of people would like it I feel like a lot of the newer Leica lenses have pretty smooth blur circles - 'neutral' - not bright edged over-corrected nor fuzzy edged under-corrected. Some of the older designs have more character (if we agree to call this stuff 'character'). Some have the under-corrected look, some have the over-corrected look.
That ZM 35 shot you posted is a tricky situation. Without seeing how other lenses compare in that same situation, it's hard to say that it's unique to the lens (not that you don't have other examples of it that you don't like). When I had that lens for about a year, I thought it had pretty nice bokeh. But not like the 100 ZE or 21 ZE pictures you posted (which I personally find a bit busy, but to each his own).
