A few more from last year with the M9 and 35CronIV. I wanted to sell the 35CronIV after getting the 35Lux ASPH but finally decided not to. Think I'll stick to the old adage, never sell Leica lenses. The 35CronIV is so compact and a great for street walkabout.
Charles, fantastic horse shots! I really like the rendering of hte 75 Lux.
Joakim, very nice shots and congrats on the 90 Elmarit. The rendering in the bench shot looks really promising with very creamy OOF rendering.
Ron & Kl, nice shots!
joe88 wrote:
Did you notice any focus shift on #4? Looks like the trees are a bit out of the focus zone or maybe its the web re-size?
No, it's worse than that - it's camera shake blur. I really must work on my shutter release techique as I'm managing to get camera shake at relatively high shutter speed. I suppose I'm pressing down the whole camera when I press the shutter release.
As for focus shift, I've been lucky with my copy of the lens. There is focus shift but at MFD where the effect is strongest the focus point falls within the DOF at all apertures. So I don't really have to worry about it.
Here's a German chestnut stand in contrast to yours:
Not the greatest image, but thought I'd share anyway. It was shot at ISO 2500 and on aperture priority. Unfortunately the camera metered the bright light in the hut and underexposed quite a bit. I was able to pull out some details but you can see the left and right edges of the image starting to shift purple, revealing some of the M9's high ISO unpleasantries.
Edit: Great B&W set Luka! I'm particularly fond of the first and second.
Very nice shots with the X1, all of them! The B&W tones are excellent!
You might want to try a soft shutter release. It helps. I have the small beep from Match Technical. Works great on digital and film. I do have to remove it with the film M when storing in the bag, else it always fires a blank frame.
Edit: Thanks Ron You got some pretty good tones above for ISO2500. I tend to meter manually on the M9 for night shots at High ISO, knowing the M9 will always push exposure to the right.
Luka, Thank you!! Excellent B&W series with X1! The tones and rendering are very nice. #4 is my definite favourite Like Joe, I have soft shutter buttons on both M9's. Yes and like Joe, I have just about flattened my battery if I don't turn the camera off, as it inadvertently shoots long exposures frames sitting in my bag, or with the lens cap on.
Joe, great street shots I agree, keep the Leica lenses, particularly the small and light ones, as they have very different personalities and yet excellent in every way.
Ron, nice night shot. Very good for ISO 2500 quick capture!
The reason why I have not added a soft shutter button is because it adds to the total height of the camera.
I realized afterwards that both the X1 and M9 have turned out to be a really great choice for Egypt and that it was fortunate that I did not bring along my 5DII. The reason is simple - I didn't get to choose the time of day for the photography and subsequently it was typically during mid day with extremely harsh shadows and highlights. It would have been a disaster with the 5DII as I would have not been able to do anything about the shadows in post. Fortunately both Leicas have an amazing amount of headroom in the shadows. I was also positively surprised how the high contrast scenes worked well converted to B/W.
Kyle, nice set with the Tri-X and D76. #1,3 and 5 are my favorites. Arista Premium aka Tri-X is now my go-to film for 135. I've been experimenting Tri-X with DDX 1+9 and am loving it.
Luka, nice shot and framing of the the camel and rider! Which site was this?
Kyle, nice shots! The ZM 50/1.5 is a very nice lens
Luka, superb shot!!! Elegant in its simplicity Interesting observations about lighting and contrast. Quite often, when I head out to take shots, the lighting is extreme and very contrasty even at 3 pm, and may explain why I do like the M9's so much I have mentioned this before, but I am finding the 28 Elmarit, brilliant in harsh lighting, and particularly when converted to B&W. All the details in the shade and highlights are there with great tonality, with minimal PP. I am now at a point, where I select the type of lens, based on the quality of lighting now.
Hopefully, I'll have some better ones to share, they are all importing from a trip to Northern AZ. Doing this on an uncalibrated monitor too, so they may get better, fingers crossed.. heh.
This is what Flagstaff looks like... before the police ask you not to stand on the tracks.
@ Denoir - I was just about to ask if your B&Ws were HDR. We're you able to just boost the shadows in post to get that detail? If so, that's amazing. I have a 5D2 also and I know that trying to boost the shadows with that much contrast would've been ugly with tons of noise and poor detail.
I've been on the fence about whether to get the M9, but I think that just put another notch in the "Pro" column.
She was learning to use the 7d overlooking Sedona's red rocks. I think it's too big for her.. she's 4'10" which also makes getting down low to shoot her difficult!
1) it overexposes in daylight (at least in az) by 2/3-1 stop when you let it drive. If you want to preserve highlights, underexpose. Unfortunately the first day I shot a LOT in Aperture priority mode in contrasty situations and forgot to do this. :/
2) I find the add on viewfinder serves little to no purpose outside of zone focusing at 6 ft. It doesn't work well with the thumbsup as parallax worsens.
3) using the thumbs up with it around the neck.. shooting in zombie mode while pulling the strap tight (using your body as a tripd) allows me to hand hold to about 1/13 with acceptable results
4) I really missed the following when using it on this trip. - wider - narrower - faster. The x1 doesn't work well for landscapes particularly imo - it's not wide enough... and for portraits it distorts at anything less than full body.. also @ 2.8 50mm would be much more beneficial for subject isolation.
5) it can RESOLVE for an aspc
6)I found the quietness to be a big benefit on several occasions.
One special announcement for interested parties. Adorama has 1 black M9 left in stock... as of this posting I think... I have no ties to Adorama, and am not a shill for them, just trying to pass along possibly valuable info.
