Thanks Katie! Will have to check out those threads, for sure. Hoping for a speedy return of your M-E!
Edward - great use of the Sonnar to IMO complement the subject with Sonnar background rendering (perhaps not everyone's taste, but one I do like).
Paolo - great to have some X photos here!
Michael - great, as always! Interesting to see a bit of a different style between M and S images.
Gary - very cool! Everyone here is complaining about it being under -20C...
Mitch - that's an interesting point/observation/question... Perhaps it's a reason I have favored the 28 Cron in such situations. DOF with 28mm is just that much more, and it's easier to hit focus with it at f/2... f/1.4 is useful when you need it, but if you're going to be stopped down most of the time, what's the point of a bigger, more expensive lens? OT, but I'm curious about the art - who is the artist?
Very nice Ron! Yes, I am thankful we have Chinooks here in Calgary. Yesterday it was +13C and should be about the same today. I'm also thankful for the 322 days of sunshine per year (average) we have. It allows us to make it through those bitterly cold days.
Thank you very much Ron. Amazing set with wonderful colors and almost surreal snowscape. You're right about the sonnar background blur. I think it would be great for weddings and portraits. It's obviously not my style, I've been shooting so far with basically neutral lenses lacking their own character and that suited my photography more as I like to concentrate on and emphasize the subject matter. It's a fun lens to use though for family and friends portraits.
Mitch - I use the 35FLE for weddings. Almost always shoot it wide open, and never had a problem with the shallow DOF (I use my RF for everything though). I think the DOF increase that would allow one to be sloppy with the RF, or would allow one to shoot moving subjects without ample practise is probably f/4 or f/5.6 at 50mm and under.
rscheffler wrote:
...Mitch - that's an interesting point/observation/question... Perhaps it's a reason I have favored the 28 Cron in such situations. DOF with 28mm is just that much more, and it's easier to hit focus with it at f/2... f/1.4 is useful when you need it, but if you're going to be stopped down most of the time, what's the point of a bigger, more expensive lens? OT, but I'm curious about the art - who is the artist?...
Ron - Yes, it's because I also have the Summicron-28 that I'm hesitating to get the Summilux-35 FLE.
The exhibition is by Will Klose, a interesting young British artist living in Chiang Mai. His website is here. If you click on any of the paintings you can see whole series for that set. The exhibition I saw was called Disquiet: it shows houses in his neighbourhood in suburban London with incongruous groups of men outside them. The gallery's description of the exhibition states the reference to Thailand at the end of the carefully-written first paragraph. He has received a portrait award by the British National Portait Gallery, which you can see here.
This is the Old Customs House on the Chao Phaya River next to the French Embassy and near the Oriental Hotel. Built in 1880 under King Rama V in the Neoclassical style by an Italian architect, Joachim Grassi, it operated until 1949 when a new port was established further down river at Klong Toey. At that point it became the home of the Harbour Fire Brigade. A colorful, dilapidated building it is still occupied by fire brigade families, although there are plans to convert it into a boutique hotel. It was used for outdoor scenes in Wong Kar Wai's film, "In the Mood for Love".
As for the Summilux-50 pre-ASPH lens (version II), I've always liked it's rendition, and bokeh, better than that of the subsequent ASPH version. However, shooting with it directly into the light, I found it flared more than the DR Summicron-50, a lens that I am beginning to like more for its rendition with the M9 and the M-Monochrom.
In the previous post I wrote about the tendency to flare of the Summilux-50 pre-ASPH. Then I remembered the picture below, which I rather like and which made me think the this type of flaring by this lens when shooting directly into strong light is more attractive and usable in B&W than in color, as in the picture below:
M-Monochrom | Summilux-50 pre-ASPH | ISO 320 | f/11.0 | 1/1000 sec Wiang Pa Pao
Ron, the snow scenes are amazing.
Mitch, love the customs house.
Ryan, the shots of your kids are awesome, I need a monochrom!
And to everybody else I missed, great stuff.
Lovely light, Ryan!
Mitch - I've yet to use a 50mm that can't be induced to veiling flare. I suppose it's a matter of degrees. 50 Lux ASPH will also do it too, though not sure how it directly compares to the pre-ASPH. Very cool character in those old buidlings. What strikes, me having looked through various urban decay image sets over the years is how quickly nature can reclaim structures once people stop caring for them... These certainly seem to have suffered much longer!
Since everyone is probably getting bored of the snowscapes, I'll cap them off in one 'post sunset' group. Funny how once the sun was down it immediately felt a lot colder. Despite knowing it would still be a ~1 hour trudge home through many snowdrifts, I couldn't help stop at some, despite the light. As it faded, it would seem some technical imaging limits were reached as tonality was stretched in post while trying to pull something out of the hat...
In the previous set you could see some buildings covered in a blue "wrap" in the background, here are a few close ups from one of those buildings, M9 and Noctilux.
Wow Edward, the Sonnar signature is so deliciously obnoxious in the second one! I didn't realize the ZM could be so competitive with the Nikkor 5cm/1.4 Sonnar.
Enjoyable exploration, Joakim. I like the last one a lot.
René - interestingly complementary images. Has the strong Franc scared away all the EU tourists?
That's a very creative description Ron! It does have some crazy bokeh wide open but it gets more tame from 2.8 upwards.
Love both shots by the way. The first is a nice chaotic abstract, like a drawing, and the second shot is perfectly framed in vertical format with a beautiful pattern.
rscheffler wrote:
Wow Edward, the Sonnar signature is so deliciously obnoxious in the second one! I didn't realize the ZM could be so competitive with the Nikkor 5cm/1.4 Sonnar.
My thoughts exactly!
I also agree that the 50lux pre-ASPH can have major veiling flare when shooting into the sun. I really softens up the image much more than modern lenses (typically) would. However, I would have loved to keep both the 50lux pre-ASPH I owned and the 50lux ASPH. Finances would not allow though. The pre-ASPH lens is wonderful and I do miss it at times. Having said that, my 50lux ASPH is superb!
Never shot with the ZM-50/1.5, but wonder whether it's more a matter of having bright highlights and points of bright light in the background that is the culprit here, rather than the inherent bokeh characteristics of this lens. Almost any lens, Noctilux included, will get excited into weird bokeh when shot this way. Would be interesting to see some shots wide open agains a background without bright light.
thanks Ron :-) not so far. hope not deter all guests. because it is really beautiful here in Switzerland. later do with some pictures advertising. rscheffler wrote:
René - interestingly complementary images. Has the strong Franc scared away all the EU tourists?
I didn't realize the ZM could be so competitive with the Nikkor 5cm/1.4 Sonnar. 
