What They Think of Us Over at DPReview

This from a popular digital camera discussion forum.

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“Q: Why buy a Leica?

Considering the cost and the way that people gush over Leica and its lens I was expecting camera perfection… But when I look at the pictures posted I’m like MEH???

Looking at the specs, they aren’t impressive as other cameras seem to provide more features for much less cost and then reading reviews the reviewer tends to highlight several shortcomings and then comes to the conclusion that it’s the best camera they’ve ever used.So not owning one, what is so special about the Leica brand that makes people go gaga over them?

Coming from astronomy, I hear this all the time with handmade Apochromatic refractors but looking through them I don’t see the cost/benefit ratio. I’m not trying to bash Leica, but when one can get a Sony/Canon or Nikon for much less and that people post MUCH better photos…….”

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A1: I bought my first Leica (an M6TTL) when film was still popular.  I grew to love the lenses.  Later I bought a Leica M8.  I still use it from time to time.  It still takes great pictures.  (The new M bodies are too far out of my price range.  Oh well.)

I don’t own a Rolex but I do have a Tag Heuer Autavia that I have been wearing for many years.  It still keeps perfect time.

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A2: Nothing really special apart from the price and their past reputation.

Much Leica stuff is made for them by Panasonic as they have some sort of arrangement. Even Minolta used to make some of their lenses for them. My Panasonic LX3 has “Leica” engraved on the lens and it is a good lens for a compact but has bucket loads of barrel distortion that needs a lot of help from the in-camera or post processing correction. The same camera was sold as some Leica D-Lux product name but at twice the price. I guess it’s a lot like the Toyota-Lexus arrangement where the Lexus appears to be a better built Toyota.

The Leica camera models and lenses that have the truly astronomic prices are probably still hand-made by a bunch of German elves in the Black Forest or somewhere like that. Nice but why?

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A3: As an ex Leica film camera owner, I think that the current cameras are basically living on reputation…

Back in the day,  the lenses were very good,  and certainly my m4’s never gave me any issues…  they were reliable cameras… more so than the Nikon’s or Contaxs that I also had… but of course they were much simpler cameras as well, so bound to be. They were fairly small,  discrete, quiet,  reliable and robust cameras with excellent glass. Otoh… they also were a right PITA for loading,  and focusing was nowhere near to as accurate or fast as with an slr….    in effect they were actually deeply flawed,  and inevitably most of my work was done with the Nikon’s I had as well.

Moving forward…  I simply cannot see that the cameras are anything to go gaga about…  like all digital cameras their end output quality is restrained by the technology of the chip… so unlike the film camera,  their exquisite build quality is superfluous…  as they are life limited by external factors. The glass is very good…  but others have caught up and arguably a lot of the Zeiss glass gives a similar organic feel with a lower cost.

so,  I deeply regret selling my film leicas,   As they were jewels which would still be perfectly useable film cameras now…  but the gaga factor over these is more about narcissism than practicality… as for the digital gear….  they are toys of the rich, and have no real practical value for myself…. rangefinder manual focussing being rubbish in 1980,  never mind 2018.

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A4: On the whole there’s nothing special about a Leica unless you are in love with a mystical toy. In my case the purchase of a Leica M9 which was the Leica Representatives demo camera. It was an economically good move. It cost me about $3,000. Over the years, I have had Leica M2 M3 M4 and M5 cameras which are now being sold to collectors .

I started shooting Leica in the late 1960s when I was in university. I more than covered the cost of the Leica by shooting University Theatre and dance Productions. This was a far better choice for shooting the Performing Arts compared to the then available Nikon F1.

Over the years I have accumulated many Leica lenses from 24 to 200 mm which have been written off and have a book value of zero. Since I continued my hobby of àshooting the Performing Arts after University I made enough money to pay for the additional lenses and cameras. I now have a complete camera system that as far as I’m concerned that cost me $3,000.

The Leica is a superb Walkabout camera with old lenses that are even today pretty fine. On a regular basis I still get some excellent photographs with this manual full frame rangefinder camera. It is relatively small lightweight and convenient.

I normally shoot with a pretty large Canon DSLR system for Sports theater dance Studio and other forms of photography.

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A5: Nothing, except a 1950 German legacy of prestige that’s long gone but lives on in the minds people who want to show off that they have the money to spend on luxury and you can’t.

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A6: Leica cameras represent status and prestige because not everyone can afford them. If you can spend $40,000 for a camera and a few lenses you are in a very select group.

While there are other more sensible reasons to buy a Leica, the biggest factor might be as a status symbol. Which is why they are purchased by a lot of non-photographers who happened to find themselves wealthy and who want to show off their wealth.

This doesn’t mean their cameras aren’t wonderful. It just means their high prices put them in the same category with Rolex, Hermes, Gucci, Mont Blanc, and Ferrari as status symbols for some people.

Absolutely no one buys a Timex watch, Parker pen or Toyota Corolla to make a statement about how successful they are.

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A7: Because some people think owning a Leica would transform them overnight into a pro if they use the camera used by people like Cartier-Bresson, Koudelka, Eggleston and etc…

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 A8: Do you think that Leica owners are so bored that they hang around photographic forums? They are far too busy enjoying themselves. Leica owners tend not to be of the type that want to show off how much better the pictures from their cameras are. A lot of the Canon and Nikon stuff you see has been rinsed through Lightroom etc before a sanitized version is posted online for comments of admiration. Leica owners do far less, or zero image enhancements outside the ability of their camera.

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A9: Looking at the sample [Leica User] galleries I expected to be blown away by the quality of Leica, mostly I got was badly composed pictures of guys with beards and black and white homeless people.

Cafe de Jaren, Amsterdam. Need a good meal before walking the city looking for homeless people to photograph.

 

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Is the Leica M5 Still “Too Big”?

Above is the Leica M5 with a 50mm next to a Sigma SD Quattro with 17-50 2.8 zoom. Probably a bit of an unfair comparison given the Sigma zoom, but in actuality the 30mm Sigma prime – which would be the functional equivalent on the Sigma of the 50 on a 35mm body – is about the same size.

The Sigma SD Quattro isn’t considered overly large for a high-end digital (it’s a really interesting camera too, incredible value for what is in effect medium format output) but it dwarfs the M5. The pictures really don’t give you a full sense of how much bigger it is than the M5.

I note all this because one recurring complaint about the M5, even today, is its size. I’m convinced most critics who complain of its size havent ever used one but are simply repeating what they’ve heard or read from someone else, that person typically having done the same.

My sense is that the original antipathy to the camera was borne of its look – certainly different from the iconic M profile – and most of the criticism justifying the antipathy was what logicians call special pleading (put an M5 next to a Nikon F2 for clarification).

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A Review Worthy of the Thambar [Critically Annotated]

“Angelica”. Eolo Perfido. Leica M10 and Thambar-M 90 mm f/2.2

When asked, “why do you need a lens like this?”, I feel like answering that this object requires an elective affinity to be forged, and thus by its very nature, does not fall within the choices made solely for practical use.

[Oh Boy.]

Leica reviews, even the good ones, tend to be built on an edifice of words, given the ineffability of the subtle enjoyments Leica mechanical cameras have [legitimately] provided discerning lovers of photographic craft. We love our M3’s and M6’s, not because of their technical specifications but because of the ways they provide a unique enjoyment of the fundamentals of the craft of photography, that enjoyment being ergonomic, functional, aesthetic, all subjective things difficult to quantify. Even way back when, reviews of traditional mechanical film Leicas tended to have a poetic quality missing in more pedestrian camera brands because, frankly, the elusive, yet tangible characteristics that set them apart from other cameras were found at the margins of descriptive language, best described via emotional response and metaphor (hence the “buttery-smooth” description of an M’s wind-on. I’ve seen people mock that description; they shouldn’t. It is buttery-smooth. If you can think of a better way to describe it, I’m all ears.)

That sort of review, for better or worse, has followed Leica into the digital age. Now that cameras are computers – the M10 being a computer housed in the form factor of the iconic M cameras, sharing not much else – Leica reviews are now all too often over-the-top reflexive nonsense, vain attempts to justify modern Leica’s luxury pricing model. Sometimes bullshit is just that – bullshit.

We’re starting to see the first “reviews” of the new Leica Thambar lens, one in particular by an Italian photographer Eolo Perfido**, who apparently advertises himself as, among other things, a “Leica Ambassador” (You can find the “review at https://eoloperfido.com/blog/leica-thambar). I will note that Perfido in Italian is Perfidious in English, Perfidious in English meaning duplicitous, deceitful, unfaithful, untrustworthy, which pretty much sums up Mr. Perfido’s “review” from a critical perspective.

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In reviewing Mr. Perfido’s review, I’ve annotated some of his claims with my responses:

“Thambar means “something that arouses wonder” and never has the name of a lens been more inspired.” [Our respective capacities for “wonder” obviously differ considerably. It’s a soft-focus lens that has almost no practical application that can’t be met with a jar of vasoline and a $30 Soviet made Jupiter. The only thing that might arouse something close to “wonder” for me is that Leica have the cojones to market this thing for $6995.]

“I decided to let myself be amazed and started clicking less with my head and more from the heart.” [What the hell does this mean? “Amazed” by what in particular, or is this simply free-floating amazement, something like giddiness after an expensive bottle of Prosecco? Please define a shooting technique that mirrors this new “from the heart approach” and how it might differ from “clicking with your head.” This is a review, not surrealist prose].

“The shutter speeds, the perfect focus, and the classic ratio between times and diaphragms I was used to, were totally usurped by an instinctive approach throughout the session. There were just me, the model, and a lens that responded unobtrusively to all my solicitations. Yet, precisely this lack of control meant I experienced a form of photographing, which will very likely become increasingly relevant in my personal development.” [The Thambar “responds unobtrusively to all [your] solicitations” producing “a lack of control” characterised by “an instinctive approach”? Ok. Totally get it.]

“It is a lens for those wishing to take creative portraits by adding a lens with a great personality to their artistic journey. You will understand if this tool is for you by simply going to a Leica Store and trying it in person. It will be akin to being in love, so if something clicks, this lens will definitely become an indispensable part of your kit.” [But only if I “forge an elective affinity with it,” apparently. Right? I’m confused.]

I enjoyed myself so much that when it came to returning the prototype I felt a sense of inner sorrow.” [Damn right you did. You could have turned around and sold it to some idiot on Ebay for $6000.]

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Footnote**: In his defense, Mr. Perfido has photographed some really cool people, as shown on his blog. Valentino Rossi, perhaps the coolest human being alive, and Jorge Lorenzo, another legendary MotoGP rider, among them. Bravo. My advice: stick to photography and leave the reviews to someone else.

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Forget the M10: The iPhone is the New Digital Leica – Part 3

What I fear is happening today is, there is such an overwhelming volume of meaningless, throw-away images shot millions of times a day that the notion of a photograph being “special” is as incomprehensible as someone pondering the bigger ideas behind why the sky is blue or the earth is round. It’s simply taken for granted. But photographs are special. They do warrant attention, study, examination and excellence in technique and approach. – John B. Crane, Nikon F6 Project

I did some travelling this last summer, and, while doing so, wrote a number of posts about using my iPhone 6 as my camera for the trip. The gist of those posts was that I’d discovered the benefits, photographically, of travelling light. I’d been away for almost a month, a couple of weeks travelling through Italy by train and bus from friends’ residence in Mantua and then to Paris for a further week with friends there. I’d packed the usual gear – a couple of camera bodies, both film and digital, a bag of film, the usual compliment of lenses, intending as I usually do when travelling to document the experience. Early on, I’d started using my iPhone to photograph and, as I went along I realized how easy it made things, no longer requiring a bag full of cameras, lenses, film and ancillary junk toted around everywhere I went. So I made the decision to keep my M4 and Bessa at home while I used my iPhone exclusively.

I’ve finally gotten around to reviewing the photos I’d taken while away, not without first having to surmount a number of problems created by a combination of my ignorance and the potential pitfalls that always lurk on the margins of digital capture. After getting home, I tried to download the photos from my phone to my computer for permanent storage and further editing, only to discover that the photos weren’t on my phone but in the Cloud, which is fine, except I have no idea how to access said cloud, which necessitated a trip to my local Apple Store where some pleasant young woman, speaking to me deliberately as if I were some addled senior with incipient dementia, helped me jailbreak my Cloud account. Having done so, secure in the knowledge that my photos existed somewhere, I then proceeded to erase them from my iPhone, whereupon I learned that I’d also just deleted them from my Cloud. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

A push of the button and a majority of what I had shot on my trip vanished without recovery. Luckily, at some point, while the photos still resided “on my phone” I had somehow managed to save a number of them to Lightroom, how I’m not sure. There seems no explanation as to why I was able to save some and not others. Suffice it to say my photos of Italian manhole covers survived intact, which is some consolation for the deletion of the majority of others.

I’ll always be able to relive memories of the Italian sewer system.

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Which leads to the larger question: So what? So, I’ve lost a bunch of tourist snaps. I’ve still got the experience, and the memories; having lost the photos doesn’t erase that. But it’s incredibly frustrating none the less, even though I’ve no one but myself to blame. Had I been more sophisticated about how this all works, I’d have taken the appropriate steps to secure my digital files before deleting them. But I didn’t, and most of them are now gone. Forever.

I still do have about 500 of what had been over 3000 photos I’d taken. Back in the 80’s and 90’s when I travelled with a film camera I could be gone for 6 weeks and come home with 20 rolls (700 negatives) and feel as if I’d sufficiently photographed what I’d wanted to, so the idea that I’d returned home from Italy and France with 500 photos shouldn’t necessarily be evidence of missed opportunities. Unfortunately, its different. When film was the norm, I gave thought to what I’d photograph, knowing my means to do so were limited by how much film I had. As a film photographer, I was discerning in what photographed. I gave thought to each shot I took. Ostansibly, there was a reason for any given exposure on a roll of film.

Thousands of pictures like this – gone

The ease of digital capture has changed that. We’re now able, without increased cost and with minimal added work, to photograph everything. And we do, as the files that I serendipitously salvaged from from my trip evidence – manhole covers and Pizza School handbills.Powerful, arresting, non-cliched photography seems rarer than ever, as if the ease and ubiquity of digital capture has overrun our critical faculties. The iPhone seems to have turned the craft of photography for an entire generation into something radically banal, a means to document make-up strategies and dinner choices.  We’re drowning in “meaningless, throwaway imagery shot millions of times a day,” having lost any critical discernment about the miracle of photography and its awesome power to arrest and transform discrete moments of life.

Throw into this the sad fact that digitization is compromising photography as a means of historical documentation, something I’ve written about at length, most recently here. Just this morning, a reader left a comment to that piece that speaks eloquently to the issue:

When my grandmother passed away recently, we found boxes and boxes of her old handwritten letters to/from her sister who was living overseas. But years from now, there will be no shoebox of love letters from todays’ grandma or grandpa. There will only be the cloud, made impenetrable by a lack of password. Long forgotten Facebook accounts will stand like a vast field of tombstones, many hidden from view or minimized in presence. The millions of photos taken by the average person will disappear with the loss of phones, the demise of harddrives, the replacement of computers.

I have much of my old schoolwork from decades ago, as well as school notices about upcoming excursions and music recitals. Today’s students now receive emails and automated attendance forms via the school system, which will disappear with the years, too.

Like the proverbial cockroach, good paper and negatives will survive. I’ve re-begun the practice of shooting a few well chosen film images each time I go out somewhere interesting. This gives me a permanent record of the highlights of my life, which is really how it was done in the old days. Negs are saved and scans and prints are made, and my photo albums grow one roll at a time. [Emphasis added]

1976. Someone important to me, now lost to time. The negative tucked away in a binder. Photos like this have enriched my life. I’m lucky to have them

His solution has become mine as well. I’ve spent 15 years now dabbling in digital photography, finally coming to the conclusion that it’s a Faustian Bargain. What it gives in ease of use and technical perfection it takes away in its lack of moderation, which, as the Ancients knew already, is the key to all things. So, I’m now recommitted to film photography, to the ideal of a few well chosen images that will construct a permanent record of the highlights of my life. A modest project, no doubt, in an era, in theory, of almost unlimited photographic possibilities, but good enough for me as it reminds of the simple yet profound miracle of photography.

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Leica’s Continuing Appeal

Lars Netopil is vice president of the Leica Historical Society and the owner of the Leica Store Wetzlar Old-town). He is also an advisor for Leica Camera AG’s Historical Archive and Museum Department. The following is his take on the continued popularity of the Leica M line and the difference between a digital and film Leica:

Q: 60 Years of M-System – a history of highs and lows, but more than anything a history of a continuity, compatibility and charisma that is unprecedented in the camera industry. And that applies to both analogue and digital. With the M Edition 60, Leica have now released a digital model that seems the very embodiment of the M concept. How would you as a historian describe the secret behind the sheer timelessness of the rangefinder concept?

A: There have been, and still are, a number of great camera systems. However, the Leica, and in particular the Leica M, are in a different league: socially, emotionally and in terms of prestige. David Douglas Duncan voiced this when I spoke to him just recently. At an age of nearly 99, he looks back over 60 years of the M as an experienced photographer. You have already named one important factor – the system’s uncompromising compatibility. An M3from 1954 can still receive the full Leica service, and can be used with all contemporary M lenses without restrictions. This is globally unique in several ways. If you consider every M lens produced over the past sixty years to always have been the best in the world, this compatibility is certainly far from insignificant. Along with all of its technological merits, the prestige, according to Duncan, certainly also plays a part in the secret. To draw a parallel to the automobile market: A customer who buys a Ferrari, even just for the purpose of driving through Frankfurt, still has the winner’s podium of Formula One somewhere in his mind. Also, the Leica always was and still is a fashion item. This is something we currently notice most strongly with our customers in China. There, you “wear” a Leica – regardless of whether each and every customer necessarily utilises the true image capabilities of the lenses, or not. There is another factor I would like to address, and that’s the system’s permanence. A photographer who buys an analogue M does so for a lifetime. The same goes for M lenses.

It is very interesting to see the Leica M Edition 60. In essence, it is a digital M7 that has been stripped back to ISO control, TTL exposure meter and optional aperture priority mode. For the purpose of pure, truly concentrated photography it is probably the most attractive digital camera currently on the market. But it is digital nevertheless, meaning: an electronic product in the widest sense, whose validity is subject to a finite time period. To use an analogy: The tires on your car will one day have to be discarded, regardless of their superior quality, and even regardless of whether you wore them out on the road or kept them in perfect condition on your cherished collector’s car – even then, they will crack with the strain of time at some point. In the same vein, no matter how high-end the digital M’s opto-mechanical rangefinder may be, the rest of the camera is more or less a computer. This is why Leica made an excellent decision in creating the Leica M-A, illustrating a very clear commitment to analogue photography. In sixty years time, a contemporary M-A will still work just as remarkably as an M3 from 1954 does today. And the same goes for the M lenses, some of which will be 120 years old by then.

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Determining the Shutter Count on the M8/M9

Less than 1000 actuations

“Shutter count” is a big issue when selling your digital camera, rightfully so as it gives a good idea about how the camera has been used. Digital cameras, being exclusively electronic, have a limited usable lifespan directly correlated to amount of use, unlike mechanical film cameras that tend to be maintained better by frequent use.

Unfortunately, the first few iterations of digital Leicas – the M8 and M9 – don’t allow easy access to shutter count data, ( not sure about any models past the M9, so this could presumably work for those as well if actuation totals weren’t made available in a menu) with most folks resorting to investigating EXIF data from the camera files and then converting certain hexadecimal numerical values (typical digital Leica weirdness; I’m sure there’s someone somewhere trying to make the argument that this lends greater authenticity to the experience of determining shutter count).

There actually is a way to determine shutter count via your M8/M9 without resorting to a slide rule:

Turn the camera on.
Press the right arrow key 4 times.
Press the left arrow key 3 times.
Press the right arrow key 1 more time.
Press the info button.
Scroll down to body debug data.
Press Set.
Scroll down to NUMEXPOSURES.
Turn camera off to exit.

Simple, like all things Leica.

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*You’ll find a 9150 actuation M8 for sale here at reduced price of $1350/shipping. I refuse to sell this on Ebay. Someone will get a really nice M8 if that’s your thing.

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Makes Really Deep Gudeshon. Comes With Free Shipping.

Above, a nice looking early production IIIa, model G -(not to be confused with the IIIg) with a 50mm Summar being offered on Ebay by a Japanese seller. Looks nice enough, asking price  $962.94 US, which, in addition to being a weird number, seems a little high.

What’s interesting about the camera is the seller’s description, which looks like it’s been run through Google Translate one too many times:

1935 – The Barnack Leica Leica ‡Va made in 48 years. Shed is a window is good parentheses.??I am speaking of Leica, I believe that Barnack rather than the M-type.??Rugged feel I feel the machine love.???With respect to the operation, there is no problem at all strong.???Double image also meet at infinity.??Zumaru 50mm / F2.0 lens is bright non-coated. Since the non-coated that will be fluffy in the backlighting, but such order light and cloudy or rainy day, you make a really deep Gudeshon.??? You have passed from manufacturing more than 70 years, it has maintained a generally good condition. Operation is also light.???* Also has exhibition of a classic camera that has been across the hand any person Over the decades. Purchase of direction and viscous qualitatively more nervous those seeking the status of the new par, please do not.???* Also because it exhibits elsewhere, please let me know before you buy.??Manufacturer: Ernst Rights Wetzlar??Model: ‡Va??Year of Manufacture: 1935-48 years??Lens: Zumaru 50mm / F2.0 (. Although there is a clouding of about 1mm in the front lens edges, will no problem because before peripheral ball but there is mixing of fine dust, wipe scratches less very clear)??Shutter: T, Z (B), 1-1 / 1000??Film: 135??Distance Meter: range finder??Exposure meter: None (or single exposure meter, shalt use a smartphone exposure meter app)???Appearance: big crack, Atari not, the impression that has been carefully used???Accessories: domestic metal hood, domestic UV filters, Russia made of a non-genuine cap, a little tired genuine snapshot performance case (when used with the Zumaru is, remove the front)

I’m not trying to mock the seller. God only knows what I’d come up with if I were trying to describe a camera in Japanese. That being said the description made me chuckle. And it does look to be a nice camera, so I wouldn’t necessarily be put off by the failure of the description. I will note that I recently bought a set of lightweight bicycle wheels from a Chinese Ebay seller at a ridiculous price. They were described as possessing “exceptional Kentucky..very strong Kentucky. You will enjoy.” Got em last week. Nice wheels. I’m enjoying them.

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What Do You See?

 I love the photo above. It’s one of a small number of photos I come back to when I review what I’ve done (…and yes, I took it with a Leica, an M8). Which is interesting, because most viewers will scan it visually and move on without much further thought. Aesthetically it’s properly done; were I to submit it to an art school critique, viewers would probably say it’s competently framed, formally interesting, if i’m lucky might use rhetorical cliches like “original,” “strong”, authentic.” Some with a picturesque bent might quibble about the decisions I’ve made, noting the pole that divides up the horizontal plane in a way upsetting to the rule bound. I can see someone saying it’s interesting… but what’s it supposed to be about? I can hear the critique moderator now talking of the mirroring of the pole by the crosses…or maybe the crosses by the pole, a commentary on man’s need to be heard etc (if you’ve ever endured an art critique you know how pretentious they can be; my standard response when I’m asked what a photo or painting “means” is to say I don’t know. That’s for the viewer to decide).

Art School Cool, circa 1977. I’m pretty sure my standing there with those crescent moons over my head was meant to mean something – what I no longer remember. I probably went to CBGB’s that night to see the Talking Heads.

As I’ve presented the photo here, without context, the “subject ” is what you will make of it. You have only the photo and whatever interpretive scheme might be floating around in your head to make sense of what you see. That’s the interesting thing about the supposedly “objective ” craft of photography. There’s an undeniable subjective element to what we do as viewers of ostensibly “objective” photographs. Your interpretation will vary depending on the formal arrangement, the context in which it’s presented to you, the knowledge and biases you bring to the viewing. While I find most post-modernist theory turgid and incomprehensible, it’s gotten one thing right – the meaning of things, whether it be a writing (a “text” in PM parlance) or a visual representation, whether a photo, drawing or painting, resides with the reader/viewer. The meaning of the photo you view depends on you. And that’s why, presented as it is to you – little context, no explanation- you might struggle to make sense of it or appreciate it in the manner I might. You might like it, hate it, be indifferent to it, depending on what criteria you bring to your viewing and how unmoored its presentation.

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Which leads to the following reality: the means I use to present my picture is crucial to how you will understand the photo. Effective presentation is the responsibility of the photographer, and it’s what separates the successful from the frustrated. I can publish it in a newspaper or hang it on a gallery wall, or glue it into a scrapbook, whatever choice I make signaling to the viewer what I’d like you to think about the picture. I can write a caption that identifies the objective facts of the photo [Route 61, Mississippi Delta, Leica M8];  I can go further and write a caption that puts the photo in context for you [...in Money, Mississippi, about 50 yards from where 14 y/o Emmett Till allegedly whistled at a white woman and set in motion a murder that would change American history]; I might simply place it within a sequence of other photos inviting you, by process of induction, to surmise a common thread that links those sequenced into a larger whole which both helps you interpret the individual photo while imparting a larger meaning on the collection itself. The important thing is that in each individual case, the meaning is extrinsically imposed on the photo. The single photo without context means nothing. The good photographer understands that a large part of his obligation to the viewer is to put his photos in a context that assists the viewer in making sense of the photo.

Mississippi Delta.  Same day, same camera as the first photo. Ultimately chosen for the same photo series. Does this help you make sense of the initial photo?

I suppose this explains why we might differ so radically in what we consider good photography, and it points to the difference between a naive and a sophisticated understanding of photographic quality. Naive photo critiques judge a photo on its technical and formal arrangements [Is it sharp? In focus? Good tonal values? Composition pleasing? Rule of thirds applied etc]. This is the world of gearhead forums and Flickr, the reason we chase after the newest Fuji X body with the new super-duper sensor, thinking something a little better will make the difference. Stay at this level and you’ll become a proficient photographic artisan. A more educated approach looks only to whether the photo communicates a compelling meaning. It’s also why naive photo artisans tend to be confused by and dismissive of the best things being done in the field at any given time – not only are they passing judgment with inappropriate criteria, they usually don’t possess the knowledge, experience and discernment borne of broad thinking to conjure a sufficient meaning from a work, a meaning that turns the picture into something more.

 

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One More Reason to Use Film

I’m currently reading a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci written by Walter Isaacson, who also wrote a biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Da Vinci was an amazing man (I’m certain he’d be a street photographer were he alive today, but that’s a discussion for another day).

We know so much about Da Vinci because of the voluminous note and sketchbooks he kept, many of which have survived since his death. According to Isaacson, more than a quarter of his notebooks, more than 7000 pages, remain available to us some 500 years after Da Vinci’s death. Meanwhile, in researching his biography of Steve Jobs, with Job’s assistance, almost all of Job’s emails from the 1990’s were found to be unrecoverable.

Think about that for a bit.

 

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Using as Opposed to Collecting

A Like New Black Nikon F: One More Beautiful Thing I Don’t “Need”

If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity, you’ll know that i’ve been periodically selling off equipment in a professed attempt to de-clutter my photographic life. [More to come shortly.] I woke up one day and realized my collection of ‘must have’ cameras and lenses had grown ridiculously large. I’m not necessarily against owning a collection of cameras, it’s just that, when it comes to photography, I’m not a ‘collector’ but rather fancy myself a user. You’d think that having a lot of cameras and lenses would be beneficial for someone who intended to use them for specific purposes, but in reality it doesn’t work that way. What happens is that the multitude of choices you’ve given yourself make choosing more difficult. Faced with the decision of what to pick up and use, I find myself defaulting, usually grabbing the same camera and the same lens as always, saving myself the trouble of having to deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes along with justifying whatever choice I would have otherwise made. And then there’s the emotional component, you know, the fact that I got such and such camera at such and such time and such and such place and did such and such thing with it back in the day, all part of the myriad of irrational factors we consider when we make value judgments about the things we own. Such are the anxieties that come with affluence.

You’ll also know that I tend to lapse into abstract discussions about things as I’m doing here, a habit I’ve possessed since young (my favorite book as a teenager was Nausea by JP Sartre (!)), and have an annoying habit of citing obscure thinkers to make a point. From a psychological perspective, it’s probably overcompensation, something I learned early on as a non-conformist teen with a middle finger up to any authority; when faced with the specious claims of those who claim authority to speak, you can often shut them up by one-upping them with competing claims based upon arcane sources, given that those in positions of authority dread admitting you might know arguments and authorities they don’t. Using this method, many years ago already I had come to the realization that most of those who claim authority over a subject are usually full of shit, their claim to it easily deflated with some critical argument.

One thing I have concluded, with certainty, is that cameras, however beautiful or iconic they might be, are still just things produced and meant to be used. You can put them on a shelf and admire them, but the satisfaction that brings is fleeting because, at bottom, they’re tools to be used, and where they find their meaning is in their use.

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A Carl Zeiss Jena 5cm 1.5 Sonnar, disassembled, cleaned and calibrated by Mr. Sweeney himself. Is it a rare, super-cool lens to use with your Leica? Yes. Do I “need” it? No.

But I digress. The reason for this post is to sell some stuff. In this case, really good stuff, the stuff I’ve been holding off selling in the hope I’d find a reason to keep it, because, frankly, I’m getting down to the equipment I have a real emotional attachment to insofar as one can be emotionally attached to things. It doesn’t help that the IRS is sending me letters suggesting I owe them money and hinting at extraordinary measures to collect it if it’s not immediately forthcoming. So much for emotional attachments. The IRS notwithstanding, I’d recently reached the conclusion that my photographic life would benefit from some further downsizing. Specifically, I’ve concluded I “need” the following: 1 film rangefinder camera with 21/35/50 lenses. And 1 digital camera with a lens. That’s it. The rest, nice as it might be to have, is redundant and certainly not required.

What I actually have at this point is this (even though I’ve been gradually selling off things now for the last year or two):

  • -A mint black Chrome Leica M4 ;
  • 2 Leica M5’s, one black, one chrome, the chrome version needing a new beam-splitter but otherwise quite nice;
  • a Leica IIIg, in need of a general overhaul;
  • a Leica IIIf, also in need of maintenance;
  • A chrome Leicaflex SL body;
  • A standard prism user black paint Nikon F with a stuck shutter;
  • A standard prism black paint Nikon F with perfect 50mm f2 Nikkor-H, the nicest Nikon F I’ve ever seen and definitely a collector;
  • a Nikon S2 in need of a CLA;
  • A Bessa R2S with Voigtlander 25mm, 35mm and 50mm lenses and a few Nikkor RF lenses as well;
  • A Nikon F5 with a slew of manual and AF Nikkor lenses;
  • A Contax G2 with 45mm Planar and data back who ISO button is stuck that I’ve been using to take one picture of myself in the mirror everyday for about 6 years now;
  • A very nice, seldom used Leica M8;
  • A Ricoh GXR with M module;
  • A Ricoh GXR with Ricoh 28mm, 50mm and zoom modules

Frankly, as my wife periodically notes to me, that’s ridiculous.

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Pretty Much “Perfect” Black Chrome Leica M4 # 1381902 (1974). Selling this will hurt.

In deciding what to sell and what to keep (for now), I’ve taken into account what I’d recoup from selling a given item, as an example, the Nikon F5. It may be the most sophisticated, bulletproof film camera ever made: incredibly robust, full of all the features we now expect of DSLRs, it sells for a fraction of its true photographic worth. A quick trip to Ebay sees them selling for $200 and up. That’s nuts. Keep batteries in it and that camera will be working long after I’m dead, plus you get to use the full range of Nikkor lenses, manual focus lenses dating back to the 50’s all the way up to full frame AF Nikkors being produced today. All of that is worth more to me than $250 in my pocket, irrespective of how few times I use the camera. The F5 I keep. Likewise, the cameras that need service. Sell em now for next to nothing or have them serviced and sell them for what they’re worth. So, the Chrome M5, IIIg, IIIf, user Nikon F, the Nikon S2 and the Contax G2 all stay. Next step is to get them serviced, sometime down the road. Which leaves me with a working F5 and tons of optics for it, a Bessa R2S with 25/35/50/85/135, a black M5, a mint black M4, a mint black Nikon F with mint period correct 50mm Nikkor-H that’s apparently been on the camera since new (since it seems as unused as the body and plain prism), a little used M8 and two Ricoh GXRs.

The M5 I keep, as I’ve had it 40 years and is the one camera I’ve always said I’d never sell although it would make sense to sell the M5 and keep the Bessa with its Voigtlander Nikkor mount lenses. Given this, I’ll keep both. As for the digital bodies, I’ll keep one GXR with the 28, 50 and zoom modules.  If I can’t meet my photographic needs with

  • a Nikon F5 and about 20 Nikkors of various size, shape and focal lengths
  • An M5 with a 21/35/50
  • A Bessa R2S with a 25/35/50/85/125
  • A Ricoh GXR with 28 and 50 modules

then clearly my “needs” are driven by something other than what’s necessary.

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Selling this one too. Got the boxes and all the ancillary stuff. Just don’t need it.

How does someone who’s always considered himself above the petit-bourgeois consumerist mindset end up with so much pretty stuff? Good question. It sneaks up on you; while you’re busy chuckling at the lost souls on the photo forums commiserating with other lost souls about which new Fuji body they need to replace last year’s Fuji kit, which 6 months ago replaced the 2015 Fuji, you yourself are engaged in the functional equivalent, buying another camera just because, telling yourself your motives are somehow better, less suspect than the neurotic consumerists who populate the usual sites. You’re not. You’re just another American who’s bought into the idea that happiness comes from stuff, especially really nice stuff like used Leicas.

[ So…., a bunch of things – the M4, the M8, the F, the CZJ Sonnar etc – will be going up for sale on the “For Sale” page of the site. They should be up in a day or two.]

 

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Leica Resurrects the Worst Lens Ever, For $6995

Leica has announced an M mount version of the “legendary” Thambar 90mm f2.2 variable soft-focus lens. Leitz offered the original, a modified 4 element Hektor with a cemented middle pair and a bunch of uncorrected peripheral spherical aberration, between 1935-49, presumably for that era’s version of ‘Glamour Shots.’

Leica’s “Teaser” Photo for the new Thambar

According to Leica:

The Thambar’s distinctive, dreamily romantic look and unmistakeable bokeh are created by deliberately under-corrected spherical aberrations, along with a 20-bladed aperture for the circular rendition of out-of-focus highlights. Because the aberration increases towards the periphery of the optical system, both the extension of the depth of field and the degree of diffusion can be precisely controlled via the step-less aperture ring. Widening the aperture increases the soft focus, whereas stopping down reduces the effect.  The opaque area at the center of the included soft focus spot filter prevents the axial rays, which generate sharp focus, from reaching the sensor – resulting in an even more intense soft focus appearance.

Price is rumored to be $6995.00. If you really want to take dreamy photos of your girlfriend or cat and don’t have that sort of change lying around, you could simply buy a cheap 135mm Hektor (you can pick up a decent one on Ebay for less than $100) attach a generic e39 UV filter to it and smear some Vasoline over the filter. Then again, you might not get the “unmistakeable bokeh” of the Thambar, but, hey, you can’t have everything.

Jesko von Oeynhausen and Lars Netopil looking downright smug with their new Thambars

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Martin Scorsese Loves Film

Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, New York, 2002 Brigitte Lacombe. Shot with a Leica M film camera and 35mm Summicron

I love Martin Scorsese. His film Raging Bull, shot on  Eastman Double-X 5222/7222 Neg. B&W film, (a 35mm film you can still buy in 400 ft rolls from Kodak) is a masterpiece.  Apparently, he remains a film proponent in the digital age. This from a 2014 press release where Scorsese spoke of Hollywood’s contracting with Kodak to maintain production of various Kodak film stocks:

We have many names for what we do – cinema, movies, motion pictures. And…film. We’re called directors, but more often we’re called filmmakers. Filmmakers. I’m not suggesting that we ignore the obvious: HD isn’t coming, it’s here. The advantages are numerous: the cameras are lighter, it’s much easier to shoot at night, we have many more means at our disposal for altering and perfecting our images. And, the cameras are more affordable: films really can be made now for very little money. Even those of us still shooting on film finish in HD, and our movies are projected in HD. So, we could easily agree that the future is here, that film is cumbersome and imperfect and difficult to transport and prone to wear and decay, and that it’s time to forget the past and say goodbye – really, that could be easily done. Too easily.

It seems like we’re always being reminded that film is, after all, a business. But film is also an art form, and young people who are driven to make films should have access to the tools and materials that were the building blocks of that art form. Would anyone dream of telling young artists to throw away their paints and canvases because iPads are so much easier to carry? Of course not. In the history of motion pictures, only a minuscule percentage of the works comprising our art form was not shot on film. Everything we do in HD is an effort to recreate the look of film. Film, even now, offers a richer visual palette than HD. And, we have to remember that film is still the best and only time-proven way to preserve movies. We have no assurance that digital information will last, but we know that film will, if properly stored and cared for.

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Who “Invented” Photography?

I expected I wouldn’t like this video, given that I ran across it while visiting figitalrevolution.com, wherein it was reviewed as such:

While watching this video the word Photography did not come to mind…. the words pretentious, obnoxious, stupid and misleading did. Over-the-top promotions like this are nothing but porn for the cult of Leica and make me fear for their survival as a viable tool.

The lie that runs at the heart of this video is offensive: Leica invented “photography”? What kind of revisionist history is that? Many of the images featured here were shot using 4×5 cameras- which came out of the studio LONG before Leica came on the scene.

It’s too bad, because recreating these iconic images from photographic history is an interesting idea. But twisted to their own ends, Leica just ends up tipping their hand: they’re looking desperate.

I watched it and liked it, thinking it was pretty much spot on in addition to being well done.

As for the reviewer: I get it. You don’t like Leica, apparently for some of the same reasons I’m critical of them. However, the claims made in this video – certainly hyperbole from a strictly true/false perspective – are, in my humble opinion, pretty much on point. Love em or hate em, Leica “invented” photography as we know it today. You can argue around the specifics, but the basic claim is correct. Credit where credit due….

 

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Nice Leica. How Much for the Box?

Above is a beautiful Red Dial IIIf with 5cm Summitar. Looks to be in exceptional condition considering it’s going on 70 years old, but it’s also just a classically beautiful camera irrespective of age. That’s the beauty of old Leicas really, the fact that they might still appeal aesthetically, not merely as something “vintage,” but just as a camera, a tool to use to photograph things. As for its functional utility, I’ve covered that ground ad nauseum here in the past. Pick that Red Dial up, learn which way the knobs turn, point it at stuff and shoot. Works perfectly, and there’s no need to run RAW files through B&W emulation software or add grain in post production, assuming you’ve figured out how to load it with film. That camera and a roll of HP5 comes close to my idea of photographic nirvana.

As for the Summitar, I’ve never used one so can only tell you of what I know second hand. Leitz made them between 1939 and 1955 in collapsible thread mount. It was a seven-element improvement of the six-element Summar Leitz produced between 1933 and 1940. Apparently the Summar was pretty soft at f2 and “suffered from” vignetting (which begs the question of whether vignetting is bad; I think most b&w photos benefit from marginal vignetting). The lens coatings were soft as well. It’s almost impossible to find a Summar these days without obvious coating issues. As for the Summitar, it made way for the legendary Summicron and is now mostly forgotten. In any event, given its pedigree, it’s the perfect compliment for the Red Dial.

The camera is owned by a reader, someone who emailed me a few weeks ago to say hi, thank me for the blog and tell me he was coming into some Leica equipment via a friend’s death. He wasn’t sure just what it entailed but he’d get back to me once he received it. The Red Dial and Summitar are what he got. I’m envious. It’s a beautiful rig; you rarely see a Red Dial with bright, unfaded red lettering, and a critical look at the top-plate, bottom plate and lens exterior indicates the camera hasn’t seen much use.

In addition to the camera, he received a number of boxes, not for the Red Dial but rather one for an M6TTL and one for a Tri-Elmar. Unfortunately, they were empty. The Tri-Elmar in particular would have been a nice find, as they’re going for insane amounts of money these days, why I’m not quite sure. I owned one 15 years or so ago, and found it the antithesis of those qualities that made Leicas desirable – it was big, clunky, slow, counterintuitive. I never used it and sold it off at a loss (under $1000), given it was the first version, which at the time was considered inferior to the second version for some arcane reason. Now, given the peculiarities of Leica ownership, a decent copy will set you back anywhere from $3500-$6000. Sigh.

Interestingly enough, as I noted to my reader, the boxes for the Tri-Elmar and M6TTL were probably worth the value of the Red Dial body, assuming he found someone foolish enough to pay the going price. Which of course, is crazy, but then again, there is nothing totally rational about the value of things Leica.

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Transcribing the Real – Part One

Above is a photograph that immediately caught my eye among the mass of photos coming out of Las Vegas in the wake of the insanity there. It was taken by Chase Stevens, a staff photographer with the LV Review-Journal. At the risk of aestheticising other people’s misfortune, it’s a beautiful photo in its own way in addition to having documentary value. Were I to know nothing about Mr. Stevens, I’d assume he’s familiar with Frank/Friedlander/Freed/Winogrand, as the photo mirrors that aesthetic, and the use of black and white references the film era. As for its documentary value, it’s less a stand-alone photo than one in a series of photographs illustrating what happened that night, but it certainly works as one in a series. You can see the series here, along with a short article about Steven’s excellent work that night.

If you clicked through the link I’ve provided, you’re probably confused, because the photo used in the link is not the one above but rather this one:

The Las Vegas Tropicana on lockdown on Oct. 1, 2017. Chase Stevens—Las Vegas Review-Journal/AP 

same photo, but in color and obviously digital. I prefer the b&w version; you may be indifferent or prefer the later.

The B&W version is actually my creation (apologies to Mr. Stevens). I downloaded his photo as published and ran it through Silver Efex with a B&W film emulation that specified certain tone, contrast and grain values inherent in a given film stock (in this instance I think it was Kodak Plus X, maybe my favorite B&W film of all time, unfortunately no longer manufactured). I did it because my aesthetic sense told me, the first time I saw the photo, it should a ‘B&W photo’; that what seemed to me the obvious reference back to Robert Frank’s 1955 Manhattan cowboy photo required it be B&W:

Or maybe I’m overthinking this, but I suspect not.  I’m fairly certain that Mr. Stevens has some familiarity with Frank’s image, and the photo he decided to take that night owes some unconscious debt to Frank. I’m certainly not criticizing him in any way: that’s how creativity works. We learn by assimilating the work that’s come before, and if we’re good, we find a way to put our own small spin on an established aesthetic, the result being our own idiosyncratic photographic style. Creators who are truly sui generis, unique with no real creative antecedents, come along very infrequently, maybe once or twice a century in any given discipline. The painters Vincent van Gogh and Jackson Pollack come to mind, in photography HCB and Robert Frank.

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The larger question for me, what led me to manipulate Mr. Steven’s photo to suite my tastes, is the issue of the “objectivity” of photographs. As photographers, I assume all of us have at some point in our photographic evolution realized that the naive belief that photos objectively show “things that happened” in an unbiased way, without containing any subjective adulteration is, well, naive.

If Mr. Stevens had done what I’d done – ran his files through Silver Efex before he turned them in to his editor, would that have constituted an improper manipulation of his supposedly objective photographs that violated journalistic ethics? If so, what if, in the race to get to the scene Mr. Stevens had grabbed an old Leica loaded with Tri-X and shot his assignment with it? How would that differ, from an ethical perspective, from him shooting the scene with an M240 in RAW mode and sending the whole thing off to the editors for selection and editing? Is one more genuine, more real than the other? And if one is, what gives us the right to say so?

I’ve been thinking about these questions because I’ve been binge-watching Ken Burn’s documentary on the Viet Nam War, currently running on public television here in the States. What strikes me is the incredible aesthetic beauty of the era’s photography (as distinct from the often disturbing subject matter), most of it B&W 35mm film, a beauty that digital documentary simple is incapable of. This is the photography I cut my teeth on, so I’m biased, but my opinion is that that B&W Film documentary aesthetic, de rigeur through the late 70’s, is effective in a way that digital capture simply isn’t. Is it “more real?” No. More “objective?” No. “Better?” Yes. Of course, this claim for the relative quality of one versus the other is subjective to an extent, but I’ll argue in future posts that it has an objective basis. I may even drag a few “philosophers” into the discussion. Humor me as we proceed.

 

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