I don’t get my hair cut at a salon. My clothes do not come from a couturier. A sommelier’s assistance is not required to help me choose whether I would prefer a Guinness or a Bitburger with my pub grub. And when I travel, I’m more likely to crash in a motel than rejuvenate in a resort. Therefore, a boutique is probably the last place you’d expect to find me shopping for something so utilitarian as a camera.
So where was I last night? Hobnobbing at the grand opening celebration of the new Leica Boutique inside Broadway Camera in Richmond BC, Canada! Why they didn’t go the extra mile and refer to the celebration as a soirée is beyond me, but my sense of semantics is completely discombobulated now.
But that’s Leica. They’re a puzzling paradox of conundrums. They build rugged, bomb-proof cameras with flawless optical capabilities designed to satisfy the highly-specialized needs of some of the poorest, scruffiest, most demanding and driven photographers in the world. They then sell the majority of these cameras to collectors who make absolutely no use of the very capabilities for which the cameras are so desirable. It’s a curious contradiction. But in the eyes of many, greatness equals “luxury.” And luxury products are not sold in stores. They’re sold in boutiques.
My income is somewhere south of ‘part time waitress at a truck stop,’ so I have an uneasy relationship with the Leica image. It used to bother me when people, seething with hatred, would see my Leica and sneer, “gee, it must be nice to be that rich.” Particularly when I knew, full well, that I was standing there in socks older than they were. But at some point, it occurred to me that I really was rich — not with money, but with a purpose and a passion and a desire that motivates me and compels me to actually sacrifice everything in order to achieve my goals. And that is, without a doubt, my definition of luxury. So why shouldn’t I shop for my tools at a boutique?
Fortunately, due to a last minute cancellation by a guy who took a photograph of his cousin having coffee with the nephew of David Hasselhoff’s accountant’s brother-in-law, there was an opening on the Leica Boutique’s “minor celebrity” guest list. I accepted instantly.
In truth, there were three reasons I chose to attend: 1) The possibility of snacks; 2) The possibility of seeing, handling and shooting with the recently announced M-Monochrom; and 3) the possibility of meeting legendary Canadian photojournalist, Ted Grant.
Of these three possibilities, I managed to succeed at only one.
I had assumed the presence of snacks would be a sure thing. And, frankly, with food being one of the numerous things I sacrifice in order to be a Leica M-series shooter, my very first order of business was to scout for hors d’oeuvres. There were none. Zip. Not even a bowl of peanuts or a plate of carrot sticks. I suspect Leica — knowing this particular event would be attended by several of us hobo-like photojournalist types — simply had no desire to help extend the longevity of its poorest customers, since we do tend to spend an awful lot of time monopolizing sales staff with very little actual sales resulting.
After the failed snack scouting expedition, I got on with the next order of business — scouting for an M-Monochrom. And there one sat, inches from my grasp but locked inside a glass case. I asked to shoot with it. I was forbidden. I asked to touch it. I was forbidden. I attempted all forms of devious trickery and sleight of hand, but could not diminish Leica’s resolve. At one point, a store employee reached into the case to remove an S2 and accidentally brushed his hand across the M-Monochrom. I watched in horror as Brian Bell, Leica’s National Canadian Sales Manager, bludgeoned the poor fellow to death with a nearby chrome M9-P, then deftly wiped the blood from the camera before returning it to the shelf. Immediately, a team of dark-suited, red-tied “cleaners” descended on the scene, whisking away the body and any evidence of the crime. At least I think that’s what happened — I was feeling a bit faint from hunger at that point. In any event, I decided I best give up trying to get my hands on the M-Monochrom.
My third order of business was to meet Ted Grant, and at this I was successful. Ted’s sharp wit, charm and charisma were infectious. I was particularly honored when Ted pulled me away from the crowd and into another room, where he extracted his latest book from a cavernous pocket within his photography vest and handed it to me for my perusal. I spent a good thirty minutes looking through it, and each time I paused to admire one of Ted’s excellent photos, he would tell me a little about the shot — how he got it, and the circumstances surrounding it. For a documentary-style photographer like myself, there is nothing better than having a wiser, more experienced and better documentary photographer share his stories — particularly one who’s as sagacious as Ted Grant.
Returning to the noshless soirée, I pointed out the M-Monochrom to Ted and was nearly blinded by the twinkle that formed in his eye. He wanted this camera as much as I did. I watched — like a pupil watches his master — as Ted sidled up to Brian Bell and unleashed a flurry of wit, charm and subterfuge in an all-out attempt to convince him to extract the M-Monochrom from its glass coffin. No dice. Even Ted Grant, the “father of Canadian photojournalism,” couldn’t puncture the impenetrable wall… but it was still an honor to watch him try.
If you’re a serious documentary photographer then, in all likelihood, you will eventually succumb to the lure of the Leica. Standing there in the Leica Boutique at the back of Broadway Camera, I realized that no matter how jaded one is — or how manly, ragged, rugged, cynical or insolvent — each of us will one day find ourselves walking incongruously into a space we never expected to be — a boutique. I suggest we all just “go with it.” It’s actually a rather pleasant place.
ABOUT THIS STORY: There is a slight possibility that, for the sake of entertainment, some events may have been fictionalized ever-so-slightly in the telling — but only a tiny bit.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: I can tell you that these shots were taken with a Leica M9 using either a 28mm f/2 Summicron or a v5 50mm f/2 Summicron. I can also tell you there weren’t really a whole lot of shots to choose from. Ostensibly I was there to shoot photos for the Leica Blog, but I had so much fun talking to Leica sales personnel, Broadway Camera staff, various customers and, of course, Ted Grant that I sort of neglected that responsibility. Oh well, it’s not like they fed me or anything…
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
For many years, I’ve harbored a secret conviction that digital cameras delude us into believing we’re much better photographers than we really are. Snapping up-down and willy-nilly with a blithe disregard for focus, exposure, composition, context, pathos, ethos, irony or significance is a sure-fire way to take a lot of crappy photos. But digital cameras allow us to take so many photos and review them so effortlessly that, inevitably, even the worst photographer manages to accidentally stumble into the occasionally compelling shot. Such cavalier technique works on the “stopped clock is correct twice a day” principle. But with the Delete button so close-at-hand, and without contact sheets to remind us of our failures, we retain only the “good” shots — thus deluding ourselves into believing we’re every bit as wonderful as the legendary photographers who preceded us.
I’ll admit right here — before the eyes of my peers — that I was wrong. To state that digital cameras delude photographers into believing they’re much better than they are is, itself, a deluded idea. Photographers were, in fact, deluded long before digital cameras were but a twinkle in Steve Sasson’s grandfather’s eye. It’s not the technology that deludes us — it’s our own egos.
I stumbled upon this humbling realization on a recent trip down memory lane. “Memory Lane,” as I define it, is “a long strip of acetate with a silver halide coating.” I consider my film cameras to be miniature time capsules. My past self records a person, scene or event that it thinks my future self will find interesting. Some film cameras, like my Leicas, are short-term time capsules — so frequently used that they reveal their images within a day or two after capture. Other, more “casual” cameras (like my medium formats or panoramics), are long-term capsules — often retaining negatives for 6-months before my future self gets to develop them. Curiously, the longer a roll of film sits in a camera, the more convinced I am that Pulitzer-caliber shots reside within. With each month that passes, my future self grows more certain of my past self’s ability to find, frame and shoot moments of sheer magic.
So imagine my delight when, during a recent cleaning expedition into some long forgotten drawers, I found an old Diana camera with half a roll of exposed film inside. I vaguely remember entombing it several years ago, when I decided that the camera (for which I paid a mere $10) wasn’t really worth the cost of the film it shot. I had no idea what kind of film I’d left in the camera, nor any recollection of what those half-dozen exposed frames might contain. I knew only one thing — those exposures sat within the camera for so long that they couldn’t possibly contain anything other than masterpieces!
This discovery set me on another expedition — to see what other film cameras were sitting around with half-exposed rolls. My Widelux, which I last loaded in August, still had a few frames left to shoot. So, too, did my little Rollei 35T. My Yashica Mat was sitting idle on the shelf since December.
These cameras, plus the unearthed Diana, all contained exposures taken by my past self — who my present self has always considered to be a superior photographer. I could barely conceive of the photographic heights I must have achieved within these four rolls of half-exposed film. I could wait no longer. Over the next four days, I took each camera for a walk and exposed its remaining frames, then got on with the task of developing this year’s Oscar Barnack Award winners.
Upon opening both the Diana and the Yashica Mat, I was somewhat surprised to see that each contained Kodak Portra 400NC color film. One thing my present self knows about my past self is that he has practically no interest in color photography. So I’m not completely sure why these cameras both contained color film, nor why I still have several rolls nestled up next to the beer in the bottom of my refrigerator. I suspect my past self got a good deal on some expired stock, and took advantage of it.
When one struggles to make a living with photography, one becomes inherently cheap. So, Pulitzer or no Pulitzer, there was no way I would pay some lab to perform the C41 color processing on this film. Besides, in the past year, all the photo labs had abandoned downtown Vancouver for cheaper rents in the boondocks. I could see no reason to jump in the car, drive out of town, hand over cash money and drive back the next day just to get some color negatives to scan.
So, convinced that my past self had no intention to make any use of the color information contained within this film, I simply stand-developed both rolls of 120 film in Rodinal. During the 60 minutes that the film sat undisturbed within the elixir, I thought about the riches these frames would bring, and of the future assignments that would surely result. After a glorious hour of daydreaming, I gave the film a water stop bath, a swish in the fixer, unspooled the rolls and excitedly held them up to the light. Not a single frame contained the slightest hint of mastery. Each shot was, in fact, as dull and worthless as the bulk of my daily photographic output.
Undaunted, I got on with developing the two 35mm rolls — one from the Widelux and one from the Rollei 35T. In spite of the heightened expectations brought about by my unyielding admiration of my past self, neither strip contained anything of value. So banal were all these shots that, although I’ve sprinkled them throughout this article, I suspect you didn’t even notice them. Masterpieces? Hardly. Noteworthy? Nope. Interesting? Not even. It turns out that, even though my expectations grow exponentially with the amount of time since an image was shot, the shots themselves are no better now now than they were on the day I took them. Delusion is a cruel mistress. She is not the sole province of the digital shooter. She does not distinguish photographers by their chosen imaging surface, lens, camera type or brand. She is merely there, hovering over us — sadistically motivating us to try and live up to our own self-aggrandizing misconceptions.
Which reminds me — I just realized I have a half-exposed roll of film in my Vermeer 6×6 pinhole camera, and I’m rather certain I haven’t shot with it since last autumn. A Post-It™ Note attached to the camera’s top tells me there’s Plus-X film inside but, alas, that note doesn’t tell me what’s on any of the exposed frames. No problem, ’cause I’ll bet you dollars to donuts there’s a Pulitzer Prize sitting on one of those frames…
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: “Morning, Yaletown” and “Holeyscape” were shot with a Widelux F7 on Tri-X at ISO 400 and developed in Ilfotec DD-X. The first “Rain” and “Shine” set was shot with a Diana toy camera on Portra 400NC at ISO 400 and stand-developed for 1 hour in Rodinal 1:100. The double exposure evident in the sky of the first “Rain” photo is compliments of the Diana’s dicey film transport mechanism. The second “Rain” and “Shine” set was shot with an old Yashica Mat on Portra 400NC at ISO 400 and stand-developed for 1 hour in Rodinal 1:100. “Obfuscated View, English Bay” and “Obfuscated Temptress, Vancouver Sidewalk” were shot with a Rollei 35T on Tri-X at ISO 400 and developed in Rodinal 1:35.
This article (along with many of its associated comments) first appeared on May 3, 2012 in my f/Egor column for the Leica Camera Blog.
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There’s a new monkey in my house and he’s riding my back. Rodinal’s his name and film developing’s his game.
My reference to Rodinol as “new” is slightly inaccurate since it’s been a darkroom standard since the 19th century. It was one of the first products sold by AGFA, and it remained in AGFA’s catalog until a few years ago, when various corporate acquisitions, mergers and spin-offs spun Rodinal right into oblivion. Fortunately, AGFA’s 1891 patent has long expired, and a handful of other manufacturers are now bottling the stuff under all manner of alternative names.
So my new monkey isn’t really new — he’s just new to me. And his name isn’t really Rodinal, it’s “Blazinal.” But it’s all just semantics because, new or old, Rodinal or Blazinal, I’ve got a serious jones for the stuff.
Rodinal, for the edification of those who think “megapixels” when they think “cameras,” is a high-acutance film developer. Basically, this means it produces sharp negatives with pronounced micro-contrast, but at the expense of a very prominent and conspicuous grain. If that sounds like gibberish to those of you accustom to a CMOS-to-SD workflow, please partake in the following paragraph:
Film is coated with silver halide crystals, which are highly sensitive to light. Once the film is shot, any exposed crystals will turn black when dunked into a developer. Following development, the film is immersed in a fixer, which washes away all the unexposed silver halide leaving only the exposed, black crystals behind (thus creating a negative image). These crystals are what’s known as “grain.” Of course, nothing’s new under the sun so, like today’s photographers who obsess over minimizing digital sensor noise, film photographers were forever trying to reduce the visibility of those crystalline grains. That’s why, over the course of the 20th century, solvent-based developers (like Kodak D-76) supplanted the popularity of high-acutance developers (like Rodinal). Solvent developers contain agents that actually dissolve some of the blackened silver crystals, softening the “edge” effect of the little granular clumps and thus minimizing their appearance. These so-called “fine grain” developers produce a smoother image, but at the expense of sharpness and micro-contrast.
Flash forward to 2012. Thanks to an ill-advised experiment in false economy, I now find myself with numerous rolls of color medium format film — all frugally purchased long-ago from expired stock. But since my home is equipped only for black & white developing, I would actually need to send these negatives to a lab that had medium format C-41 processing capabilities — thus completely negating my rationale for pinching pennies on expired film. Since color rarely plays an important role in my photography, I decided to save some cash and develop those color negatives in black & white chemistry. I knew, if I dropped that color film into a 1:100 solution of Rodinal for 60 minutes, then I’d have a perfectly scannable B&W negative. So I picked up a bottle of Blazinal from my local camera shop, rolled up my sleeves and commandeered the kitchen sink in a bloodless coup.
Via a glitch in the internet’s time/space continuum, those early Rodinal experiments will appear in an article titled “A Derelict Memory Lane,” which was written prior to this article, but which will appear later in time.
Suffice to say that the experiment was a success. And, as a bonus, I now had a nice big jug of Rodinal to play around with. Truth be told, I was never all that happy with my current developer, Ilfotec DD-X. While it does seem well-suited to tabular grain films, like Ilford’s own Delta series, I usually prefer the traditional, organically-grained films like Tri-X. Back in my early (pre-digital) days, I often developed Tri-X with D-76, which I still prefer but which never achieved quite the look I wanted. Here, in the 21st century, I no longer shoot enough film to counteract the short shelf-life of an opened jug of D-76. So, with DD-X readily available and sporting respectable longevity, it became my developer by default. But what I wanted was grain. Yes, grain. If I want my photos to be polite, I’ll shoot digital. When I want peppery bits of impudence, I’ll opt for Tri-X. But, try as I might, I never could get a well-defined grain structure from either DD-X or D-76.
So, after finishing a recent roll of Tri-X, I dropped it in a 1:35 solution of that newly purchased Rodinal clone and followed the recipe outlined in The Massive Dev Chart’siPhone app. The result? Exactly the type of negatives I’d been longing for: sharp and with a full (yet scannable) tonal range; high micro-contrast; and crunchy, beautiful grain. In short, Rodinal gives me exactly that ineffable tonality and graininess that I want from film.
This past weekend, high on Rodinal, I took three cameras to Vancouver’s 420 pot protest to photograph others who shared my euphoric mood (albeit courtesy of a different chemical substance). Two of the cameras contained 35mm Tri-X, which I developed in a 1:35 solution. The third camera contained Fuji 160c color film, which I stand-developed at 1:100. While the photos might be somewhat lacking in compelling content, I have nothing but admiration for the Rodinal. In spite of some extremely contrasty lighting conditions — sometimes shooting directly into the sun — plus some schizophrenic exposure choices on my part, every single negative is scannable, printable and full of the tonal characteristics I desire.
I can hardly wait to blow through the bricks of Tri-X currently in my fridge. There are so many things to try: push-processing night shots; different dilutions; and, once the Tri-X runs out, alternate film stocks. While my dissatisfaction with the tonality and dynamic range of digital motivated my return to film a couple years ago, my film use remained “casual” at best. Now, my “discovery” of Rodinal (albeit 120 years late) has kindled that re-engagement with a vengeance. I suspect it’ll be some time before the kitchen sink returns to its usual food-preparation responsibilities.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: “Imbibing Fee” and “Ladies Imbibe” were shot with a Leica M2 and a v4 35mm Summicron lens on Tri-X at ISO 400, developed 1:35 in Blazinal. “Imiber’s Incline” was shot with a Fuji GA645 on 160C color film, which was stand-developed 1:100 in Blazinal. “Darth Imbibes” and “The Dude Imbibes” were shot with a Leica M6TTL and a 28mm Summicron lens on Tri-X at ISO 400, developed 1:35 in Blazinal. “Lovers Imbibe” was shot with a Leica M2 and a Voigtländer 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar lens on Tri-X at ISO 400, developed 1:35 in Blazinal.
Additional photos from the 420 protest, all developed in Rodinal, can be found on ULTRAsomething’s “Bonus Content” page for 2012.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
The year was 1977 and I, supreme ruler of the ULTRAsomething empire, was just one of several thousand bell-bottomed, platform-shoed, polyester-bedecked high school doofuses with a ridiculous haircut and a father who had recently joined the voluminous ranks of proud new Canon AE-1 owners.
At the time, I paid very little attention to his new camera. Saying “cheese” while staring into its front lens element was, for me, absolutely no different than performing the same ritual for his old Yashica SLR. Besides, I wasn’t even remotely into cameras then. I had far more pressing interests: like writing 20+ minute prog rock songs in 13/4 time, and learning how to quote various Rachmaninoff musical phrases using only wild, squelching feedback.
Truth is, I barely remember the AE-1. I mostly recall my Dad complaining that it was too large, heavy and awkward to bother carrying. A perusal of old family slides reveals a marked decrease in the number of photos taken during the AE-1 years. If my memory is correct, a single roll of film once contained photos from two years’ worth of Christmases — not exactly what anyone would consider a prodigious output.
Although I recall my Dad being quite proud of the camera, I suspect he never really bonded with it. He took scores of great family photos with his older Yashica, but the quality level seemed to diminish precipitously with the arrival of the AE-1. Guided by my own modern photographic obsessions, 20/20 hindsight and father/son DNA similarities, I have a theory for why that was: automation made him sloppy.
It’s the same point I raise again and again in this blog: The more decisions you let the camera make, the less interesting your photos become. Beginning in the mid-1960’s, a smattering of esoteric cameras started to feature semi-automatic exposure capabilities, but Canon’s AE-1 was the first to deliver it to the masses. One had simply to set the lens’ aperture ring to “A” (for automatic), point the camera, and the built-in meter would send exposure data to the internal processor, which would then set the aperture for you. That’s right, the AE-1 was the first mainstream camera to feature Shutter Priority mode. Canon marketed this camera aggressively to amateur photographers, touting its ease of use and ability to create perfect exposures. But the problem then (as it is now) was that many photographers relied too heavily on this snazzy new feature — instantly forgetting everything they once knew about exposure — and chose to simply “let the camera decide what to do.” Consider, for example, the following two late-1970’s AE-1 photographs that my Dad took of yours truly:
In the first photo, it’s obvious that Dad let the camera’s built-in meter determine the exposure — failing to compensate for the backlighting of the scene, and thus underexposing my drummer, Ralph, along with the majority of his 10 zillion piece drum kit. In the next (flash) photo, we see that the camera’s center-weighted meter did what center-weighted meters do — expose for the middle of the frame. The camera paid little attention to the foreground object (me) since I resided at the edge of the frame, and thus failed to compensate for the flash overexposure on my face. Curiously, Dad seemed to pay as little attention to me as the camera (unless it was truly his intention to document my understated bedroom wallpaper for insurance reasons). I suspect that the half-way-toward-point-and-shoot simplicity of the AE-1 sometimes made him forget focussing was still a necessity — a problem Canon “rectified” with the advent of their auto-focus EOS series, a few years later.
Soon after the AE-1’s arrival, I left for college and spent four years trying to learn enough electrical engineering to become a music synthesizer designer. Somewhere in that span, Dad switched to an auto-focus point-and-shoot camera, and I never saw the AE-1 again…
… until two months ago when, on my visit to his Arizona home, he pulled it from a box and said, “is this worth anything?”
“On the open market? Not much.” I replied. “But to me? You bet! I’ll shoot anything I can load film into!”
And so began the resurrection of my Dad’s old Canon AE-1.
The camera probably hadn’t been out of its box in 30 years. Fortunately, Dad removed the battery before storing the camera, so there was absolutely no corrosion. Additionally, the Arizona climate helped prevent the growth of any mildew or fungus. Aside from the film door’s foam light seal, which had turned to goo, the camera looked exactly the same as it did in the late 1970’s. I rummaged through the box and dug out the three lenses he owned. One, a zoom of some sort, had a broken aperture blade, so it went back into the box. That left two primes: a Canon 50mm f/1.4 and a Promaster 28mm f/2.8. I popped the 50 on the camera, the 28 in my pocket, and hit the local drugstore to search for a battery and some Tri-X. Batteries they had. Tri-X, they never heard of. These were the Arizona suburbs, after all. So I made do with a 3-pack of Kodak BW400CL, which I’d been wanting to try anyway.
Numerous personal impediments have prevented me from shooting much these past couple of months, but I did manage to push two of the three rolls of Kodak BW400CL through the camera. And, while none of these photos have any aesthetic value other than to “test” the AE-1’s operation, taking them has allowed me to form several impressions:
1: It’s now been 18 years since I bought my first digital camera and I still prefer the look of film for any photo that doesn’t require massive resolving power in order to succeed as an image. I think I can safely say that the ubiquitous, modern, bayer-pattern digital sensor is just not the “be all, end all” solution for me.
2: There’s just something soul-satisfying about thumbing a camera’s film advance lever — each flick is like putting an exclamation point on the 1000-word photo you just took.
3: The AE-1 is almost exactly the same size as my Leica M bodies. Compared to the big, bulbous, behemoth SLRs of today, the AE-1 is quite petit. Frankly, if they still made SLRs like this, I’d be inclined to shoot with them a lot more frequently. And, honestly, I’ll probably take more “keepers” with this 35 year-old film SLR than I will with my digital K-5.
4: That 50mm FD lens rocks! Stopped down a few notches, it shames any of the EOS-era lenses I once owned.
5: Wide open, that 50mm FD lens is softer than overcooked spaghetti — but in a surprisingly pleasant way. So pleasant, in fact, that I sometimes find myself looking for subjects that will benefit from the dreaminess inherent in the f/1.4 aperture.
6: The ProMaster 28mm lens was a disappointment. I still don’t know who, exactly, made this lens. Some sites suggest Tamron and others opine Cosina. Either way, I found its corner quality far too lacking for me to bother using it again. I don’t think the lens is actually damaged — rather, it appears to have always been this way, and you can plainly see the edge defocussing even in this old 1980 photograph of my college apartment.
7: Much to my surprise, I ended up liking the BW400CL film! Who knew? I thought it would annoy me that, since it’s a C41 film, I couldn’t develop it myself. But I must admit: dropping it off at a drugstore and picking it up the next day felt joyfully, lazily decadent. And the results are superb. It won’t be replacing my refrigerator full of Tri-X any time soon, but the film had scads of dynamic range, and a very minimal amount of grain when I exposed it properly.
8: Speaking of exposure, the AE-1’s internal meter was deadly accurate. Normally, I expose either by eye or by handheld meter. But when I do rely on in-camera metering, I much prefer the type of old-school center-weighted metering that the AE-1 offers. In my mind, modern matrix/scene type meters give too much exposure control to the camera and not enough to the photographer.
9: In its day, Canon marketed the AE-1 as the “amateur” alternative to its professional F-1 35mm SLR, and readily admitted to the “cheapening” of some components. But from my perspective some 35 years later, there is nothing cheap about this camera’s build quality. While I’d probably be reluctant to take it to a war zone and pump dozens of rolls of film a day through it, I’ve seen many modern “pro” cameras with build qualities nowhere near as good as the AE-1’s.
Ultimately, I find the combination of the Canon AE-1 and its 50mm f/1.4 FD lens to be a truly satisfying marriage. A quick search of the internet indicates there are hundreds of copies of this camera/lens combination available for about $150. I’m sure there are thousands more in people’s garages and basements, just waiting to be rescued and resurrected for even less money. Even at E-bay prices, I would consider the AE-1 to be an absolute steal for anyone interested in engaging (or re-engaging) with film.
So Dad, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), thanks for using this camera so sparingly and for storing it so carefully for the past thirty years. It’s found a permanent home amongst my camera collection and, should you be wondering, the answer is “no, you can’t have it back now.”
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: All the black & white photos were shot by me, using the Canon AE-1 with a Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 lens and Kodak BW400CL film, which was developed at the local drugstore and scanned using my Plustek 7600i scanner and Silverfast Ai software. The color photos were shot by my Dad over 30 years ago using this same camera.
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This article’s original working title was “Digital SLRs Make You Stupid.” But after typing only a paragraph or two, I realized dSLRs might well make me stupid, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they make you stupid.
Now don’t get too comfortable wallowing about in smugness — I’m not letting you off the hook that easily. In reality, we (as a collective of photographers) are all a smidgeon muttonheaded, but we each possess our own personal and individual stupidity catalyst. Mine might well be dSLRs. Yours might be mirrorless cameras, lenses, flash units, noise specs, software, video codecs or even fashion.
Generally speaking, it’s photographic gear that dims our wits. Every month, photo equipment suppliers dump fresh buckets full of gear guano into photographer filled trenches. So thick and heavy is this guano, that it impedes our ability to move forward — blinding us to anything not presently deposited upon us. We can’t see the future. We can’t see the past. We can only see the gleam of the new and the shiny. All our favorite websites are flooded with the latest product puffery. All our photo friends are salivating profusely. Everyone’s in a rush to sell their “useless” old camera gear and tender their little plastic cards for a chance to sip from this month’s Holy Grail. The only way for a photographer to avoid the guano is to treat it like the monster under the bed: close your eyes and it simply disappears.
For some time now, I’ve been rather proficient at keeping my eyes shut and the covers over my head. Of course, being predominantly configured from human DNA, I’m not completely immune to new contraptions. But for the last several years, I’ve managed to successfully ignore every manufacturer’s gear guano deluge. Sure, I bought a few cameras — but these were mostly old and inexpensive film cameras from a previous era. With the blankets pulled tightly over my head and my flashlight shining upon books by Koudelka, Frank, Friedlander, Davidson, Moriyama and a thousand others, I was comfortably impervious to the marketers and their ceaseless paraphernalia droppings.
My favorite camera of all time is my 1958 Leica M2. It has no spot metering. Nor does it have center-weighted, matrix or scene metering — in fact it has no exposure metering at all. It has no scene modes, no style modes and no Av, Tv or P modes. It has no autofocus, no focus tracking, and no ability to even select a focus point other than “smack in the middle.” You can’t use it with long lenses. You can’t use it for sports. You can’t use it for macros or tilt/shift photographic effects. It has no depth-of-field preview, no exposure bracketing, no art filters, no image stabilization, no live view, no gyroscopic levelling, no GPS, no wireless tethering, no USB connector, no user-customizable buttons, no histogram, no HDMI output, no clock, no self-timer, no high-speed frame rate, no electronic communication with its lenses, no power button, no white balance setting, no built-in flash, no focus assist light, no face, blink or smile detection, no weather sealing and, most egregiously, no video! In fact, the Leica M2 body gives me access to only one parameter: shutter speed. ISO? That comes from the film. Aperture and focus? That’s for the lens to control. Everything else? That’s up to me and my creativity.
Even my digital purchases have been measured and thoughtful. My shooting style frequently makes use of wide-angle lenses, so my upgrade from a cropped-sensor M8 to a full-frame M9 was a no-brainer — it had a direct impact on my ability to better-practice my craft. And my decision to jettison Micro Four Thirds in favor of the Ricoh GXR could hardly be the result of marketing hysteria. After all, the GXR was already a two-year-old camera when I decided to buy one, and Ricoh doesn’t even bother to sell them in Canada.
Over time, I’ve developed my own photographic vision(s), and I insist that my photo equipment conform to that vision. I do not wish to make my vision conform to the photographic equipment. I’m pig-headed that way — or at least I was until the Pentax K5 digital SLR landed on my camera shelf. I bought it primarily for one purpose: to take photos in the rain. And, if I had treated the K5 like every other camera I own, I would be perfectly happy letting it sit on the shelf, waiting for the next rainy day to fulfill its purpose. But I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I started digging through the owner’s manual, reading about its multitude of special features — all of which promised to magically transform me into a “better” photographer. Naturally, I started to learn how to use each and every one of these features, even though I had no actual need for the majority of them. “You never know,” I thought, “I might need this feature one day.”
These are the words uttered by every shutterbug who steps onto the slippery slope — the one misstep that snatches the well-meaning photographer from his blanketed, marketing-proof cocoon, and sends him sliding into the gear guano canal with all his other pea-brained photo brethren.
For the last decade, SLRs have been conceived and marketed as “all things to all people.” Because no single do-everything camera can possibly perform every one of its functions better than the competitor’s do-everything camera, people are forever and for always dissatisfied with their current selection, and thus envious of any new product — each of which is sure to have at least one or two features that surpass the capabilities of their gear. The more functions a camera gains, the more room there is to contrast, compare and pit one camera against another. Marketing heaven.
And this is precisely why my purchase of something so ordinary as a year-old, garden variety SLR landed me in the gear guano canal. I don’t recall ever taking a “test shot” with any of my Leicas, yet in the last two months, I’ve taken thousands of inane trial exposures with the K5. I’ve spent countless hours painstakingly configuring its myriad custom settings, while continuously fine-tuning its micro-focussing accuracy to correctly confirm focus with the paleolithic-era K-mount manual lenses that I prefer.
Every time I encountered a feature I didn’t find particularly worthy, I’d get mildly annoyed. For example, the K5’s video capabilities pale in comparison to both my old Panasonic DMC-GH2 and my even older Canon 5DmkII. Never mind that I rarely shoot video, or that neither camera’s superior video functions prevented me from selling them. Suddenly and inexplicably, I decided the K5’s video capabilities weren’t “good enough” for me, and I would likely need a replacement camera. I leapt to this ridiculous conclusion solely because of my awareness that other dSLRs have much better video functionality. Of course, any K5 replacement would still need weather sealing — I wasn’t going to give that up just to get better video quality. So I quickly found myself reading everything I could about the new Canon 1Dx and the Nikon D4 — two weatherproof cameras with much better video capabilities than the K5, and with a pair of sphincter-altering $6000+ price tags hanging off them.
Putting video out of my mind for a little while, I continued to take more “test” photos with the K5. And the more I took, the more that camera’s anti-aliasing filter began to bother me. Neither my M-Mount Ricoh GXR module nor my Leica M9 have an anti-aliasing filter. This means their images have the potential to be much sharper than anything I could ever take with my K5. Forget the fact that I rarely use any camera under such ideal conditions that I’m able to obtain optimal focus — The fact that the K5 would never produce as much resolution as my other cameras led me to conclude that I simply couldn’t live with that quality-squelching anti-aliasing filter.
So it was back to the internet in search of a solution, and because I didn’t want to give up weather-sealing, I soon found myself studying up on the $10,000 Pentax 645D medium format camera. But wisdom prevailed, and I reckoned that, in my heart, I’d never be happy with the 645D knowing that the $23,000 Leica S2 would more sufficiently satisfy my “needs” — a pointless admission since the odds I’ll ever afford either are greater than the odds I’ll be struck by lighting while sitting indoors on a sunny day. Besides, while I’m certain that either camera would give me the sharpness, dynamic range and resolution I need to make very large prints, neither camera shoots video — so I’d be crazy to give up the K5. In spite of the fact I had decided its video wasn’t “good enough,” it’s still better than having a modern SLR with no video at all. Isn’t it?
In the middle of this mania, Nikon announced the new D800e and I thought, “At last! A perfect solution! It’s got great video specs, an option to purchase it without an anti-aliasing filter, and enough pixels to make big prints — and it’s ‘only’ $3000! What all can I sell?” But then I started worrying about clients. Nikon’s going to market this camera to the masses, meaning they’ll sell hundreds of thousands of them. Is any well-healed client going to hire me if they see me shooting with the same camera they use? Perception is reality, after all. Further complicating this mental exercise was my realization that the D800’s weather-sealing is somewhat lacking when compared to my K5. “Maybe,” I thought, “I could do without weather sealing…”
It’s at this point that I became cognizant of being way over my head in gear guano. I bought a K5 for essentially one reason: inclement weather shooting. And now, because it has a million other bells, whistles and buzzers on board, I start comparing its bells to Canon’s; its whistles to Nikon’s; and its buzzers to medium format — effectively rationalizing away the one real reason that I own the camera: weather sealing! Why am I worried what my clients will think if I use a particular camera on an ad shoot? Who cares? Last I checked, I don’t have a single advertising gig on my calendar, nor do I plan to look for one. Will my fine art prints fail to sell because my existing cameras only have enough resolution for a 13″ x 19″ A3+ print? In truth, it’s far more likely they’ll fail to sell because I’ve never actually bothered to delve into the world of fine art photography. Besides, I’m a photographer who primarily documents humanity — who’s going to pay money to hang those shots on the wall? No one. No matter how big I make the prints.
I’m one of the lucky ones — it only took me a couple of months to recognize my descent into the guano, so I still had enough strength of will to extricate myself. I’m now back to using my K5 properly — in the rain and, on occasion, as a nice way to shoot wonderful (and wonderfully inexpensive) Pentax lenses from days gone by. But I’ve re-learned my lesson, and any way you slice it, the fact remains: SLRs make me stupid. In this, I know I’m not unique. But as I mentioned earlier, SLRs aren’t the only gizmos that consume a photographer’s brain matter faster than a bong-toking zombie — any unreasonable gear obsession will do it. And it’s not an obsession that’s unique to cameras, or even to the digital age. Plenty of photographers once whiled away weeks, months and even years in the darkroom, taking “test shots” and experimenting with different films, developers and papers — all in search of the illusive quality of “technical perfection.” But there is no such thing as technical perfection. There is no perfect camera. There is no perfect lens, flash, film or Photoshop plugin. There is only the perfect image — and people have been taking them for well over a hundred years with some amazingly imperfect gear.
Which reminds me: There’s a world full of subjects out there, and I’ve been neglecting my lovely little Leica M2 for far too long now…
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: Only one of these photos was shot with my K5 digital SLR. Can you guess which one? In all the others, the camera occupied its rightful place as the medium, not the message — as it should be. “Cup Holder, Vancouver Style” was shot with a Leica M9 and a pre-production 21mm Super-Elmar-M f/3.4 ASPH lens. “Little Ray o’ Sunshine” was shot with a Ricoh GXR using its A12 28mm f/2.5 lens module, which I “guess focussed” using Ricoh’s ‘snap focus’ feature. I was immediately drawn to the little girl’s expression, and included it here since it so accurately mirrored mine as I wrote this post. “Urban Gypsy, Good Fortune” was shot with a Leica M9 and a 28mm f/2 Summicron lens.
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We live in an era where sharpness, literalness and hyperrealism dominate the modern photographic terrain. In spite of this, my own photography is actually informed by the golden age photojournalists of the 1930s and 1940s, post-war photo essays from the 1950s, and John Szarkowski’s New Documentarian leanings of the 1960s. I wasn’t always this anachronistic. Rather, I used to be even more so.
My earliest photographic tendencies skewed dramatically toward pictorialism, early surrealism and the Czech avant-garde. Although these weren’t exactly harmonious movements a century ago, my late 20th century perspective allowed me to pick and choose elements from each without buying into an entire philosophy. I became a “pictsurrealist.” In the fanciful world of my youthful daydreams, I would be the new Frantisek Drtikol. In the fanciful world of my recent dreams, I would be the new Garry Winogrand. But in the real world, I’m simply Egor — a perennial photographic outsider.
Perhaps the greatest thing about being unpopular is that you don’t have to worry about alienating your fan base — you have none. So, for this reason, I’ve always recklessly infused my mid 20th century documentary stylings with a sprinkling of my early 20th century surrealist tendencies, while accepting a fair amount of pictorialist qualities in photos where sharpness would otherwise be the norm.
The contradictions of my own photographic disposition are a perfect reflection of photography’s own 180-year struggle to define itself. Is a photograph’s primary purpose to produce a visual record of times, places, people and events? Or do photographs exist primarily as objects of stand-alone beauty? Should a photo tickle the intellect or the eye?
Each generation of photographers does little to settle the debate, as each tends to pick a side and adhere to it at all cost. Last year, in an article entitled More Poe than Van Gogh, I proposed an alternative view that generated substantial internet discussion, but ultimately did nothing to resolve the argument. And, truth be told, I chose my side several years ago — deciding that my strongest inclinations were toward documentary photography and that I would use the camera to illustrate those little slices of life that people might otherwise miss. There would be no more room for postcards in my portfolio. But this mortal coil is not a linear path, and I’ve recently begun to experience a shift back toward my own “pictsurreal” proclivities.
Because I am now so publicly identified with the documentarian side of the great photography debate, my backslide into pictsurrealism has caused me a fair amount of self-induced embarrassment. But why should it? Why must one’s photography fall under a single mandate? Maybe my duelling penchants aren’t actually at odds with one another — maybe they’re simply two sides of my own personal photographic coin? If you were to flip a coin every day for the rest of your life, would you expect it to always come up heads? Of course not. So, day in and day out, when I point my camera and flip that photographic coin, why would I expect it to always come up documentarian? Some days, the coin is going to say “pictsurrealist.” And so, rather than fighting against the coin toss, I decided to just go with it.
Fortunately, for the sake of both bank account and sanity, my photographic tools are the same regardless of the outcome — it’s only my eye and my technique that change with each flip of the coin. There is, however, one tool that I tend to employ much more in my pictsurrealist work than in my documentary work: the pinhole lens. Actually, “pinhole lens” is a misnomer since pinholes are completely lensless. They are, in fact, air. A teensy tiny bit of air, but air nonetheless.
Shooting through a pinhole is like shooting through a wormhole. It’s a shortcut through time. Pinholes create a timeless look, which is a quality I desire no matter which side of the coin I’m shooting. If I take a visually appealing photograph today, I’d like its appeal to be one that would resonate with viewers 100 years in the past, as well as 100 years in the future. Similarly, if I document some interesting aspect of human nature, I want that photo to be relevant across generations.
Pinholes and rangefinders are an ideal match. I’ve written many past articles about the rangefinder advantages for documentarians, but I could make an equally strong case for the pictsurrealist. Traditional SLRs and modern mirrorless cameras both provide through-the-lens subject monitoring, but rangefinders use a viewfinder that’s separate from the lens. This means rangefinders, unlike these other cameras, actually let you see what you’ll be photographing with that pinhole. For me, this is a huge benefit. It means that each time I make a pinhole, I can take a few shots, learn its field of view, and then use it exactly like I would a real lens.
And, yes, I said “make” a pinhole. Of course, you can purchase pinholes for the Leica (and, for convenience sake, I frequently use one made by Leica Goodies), but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or even an optical physicist) to design a pinhole lens. A strip of gaffer’s tape and a sharp object are all you need. Granted, my homemade pinholes aren’t exactly objects of beauty, but they work … and every pinhole I make is different. For example, the one shown in the following photograph (and fondly dubbed, the “Psychopathilux”) is actually a piece of tape that I stabbed multiple times with an X-acto knife, then stuck to the front of the M9.
And here are a pair of photos from this particular version:
As with everything in photography, love and life, the pinhole is not perfect. Those who are attracted to the idea of a “lens” with nearly infinite depth of field should know this does not mean everything from 1 cm to infinity is impeccably sharp — rather, it means everything is equally unsharp. Also, I would suggest that anyone who suffers from obsessive-compulsive sensor cleaning disorder forgo digital pinhole photography. If you ever freaked out over how dirty your sensor looked at f/22, just imagine what it’s like at f/140. You don’t just see every molecule of dust on your sensor — you see its atomic structure. Pinhole photography demands intimate familiarity with Photoshop’s assortment of heeling brushes and, perhaps, a prozac prescription.
But if you own a rangefinder and aren’t averse to bucking the sharpness, literalness and hyperreality trend, there’s little else to prevent you from experimenting with a pinhole. And, given the current scarcity of Leica lenses, the pinhole might just be the only new “lens” your Leica will see for quite some time. So take a look through the wormhole — and see what’s looking back.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: All photos accompanying this article were taken with a pinhole rather than an actual lens — some pinholes were store bought, and some were homemade.
This article (along with many of its associated comments) first appeared on January 18, 2012 in my f/Egor column for the Leica Camera Blog.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
I always found the idea of making New Year’s resolutions somewhat curious. Why must one wait until January before resolving to rectify all the mistakes of a squandered and miserable existence? If you have an epiphany on June 29th, what good does it do to wait six months to act upon it? Wouldn’t right this moment be more appropriate?
Normally, I wouldn’t be too concerned with the New Year’s resolutions of others, except they always seem to affect me in some way. Take, for example, the ever-popular diet resolution. For eleven-and-a-half months each year, I can belly right up to my grocer’s salad bar, build a big beautiful salad, and be eating it within minutes. But in January, the crowd around the salad bar makes Christmas shopping at the mall look like a hike in the wilderness. If people would simply begin to eat properly the moment they acknowledge their cookie and peppermint white chocolate mocha lunch habit might be a problem, then I wouldn’t be forced to forgo salad for the first two weeks of every year.
Although the collateral damage from other people’s resolutions is mostly disadvantageous, there is actually one New Year’s resolution that always delighted and amused me. I dubbed it, “The January Effect.”
Each January (usually around the 3rd or 4th of the month, after the population had sobered up), I would begin to garner quite a bit of attention from the fairer sex. Nothing extreme — just the little smiles, looks, touches, hair flips and mild flirtations women use to signal interest. Mind you, I’m not (nor was I) what the average female would consider to be a platinum catch. In my heyday, I would have generously applied a grade of “B-” to my physical desirability. I was not so desirable that I could attract a woman’s attention from across a crowded room, but was desirable enough to hold the attention of the women I met. For 11 months each year, these were the rules of attraction with which I complied — but each January, my mojo would seemingly and suddenly shift into overdrive.
It actually took me a couple of years to realize I hadn’t suddenly and miraculously become handsome over the holidays. In fact, my new found desirability had nothing whatsoever to do with me. Instead, it had everything to do with the women themselves. I came to realize that I was their New Year’s resolution. I had become the personification of the salad bar. Each January, weary from the previous eleven months spent pursuing the unattainably handsome, dangerously seductive or tantalizingly rich, women would resolve to lower their standards. This, they decided, would be the year they would “smarten up,” drop into a lower league, and thus land a more respectable guy. Apparently, I fit that mold.
I won’t lie. I loved the January Effect and began to anxiously await its arrival each and every year. Even though I eventually married a woman so far out of my league that I needed a telescope just to see her, I (and my ego) still enjoyed my annual illusion of desirability. It felt good to be the desire-ee rather than the desire-er.
Sadly, about a half dozen years ago, the January Effect began to diminish precipitously. My daily reception of carnivorous glances became weekly glances. The next year, I received a grand total of one. The year after that, none. Thanks to a combination of age and gravity, I had dropped below the female threshold of “good enough,” and entered the realm of “not if you were the last man on earth.” I am now enveloped in my fifth January without personally experiencing the January Effect.
With the demise of the January Effect came the end of “good things” happening as a result of others’ resolutions. So, in that vein, I’d like to take this opportunity to suggest a few resolutions that others might make that would benefit me.
For example, I would like The Vancouver Canucks hockey team to resolve to win this years’ Stanley Cup. I really don’t want to see the opposing team hoist the cup and flaunt it on Vancouver ice again. However, should the Canucks fail to win the cup this year, I would alternately like to request that inebriated, under-aged men from the suburbs resolve not to try and burn down my city.
But I realize I can’t control other people’s resolutions. So to counter any potentially negative effects resulting from the resolutions of others, I should probably just consider making my own. But what to resolve? I searched high and low for the answer, and gave it some serious thought.
Eventually I decided to seek a resolution from within my own photography. Are there things I’m doing wrong? Buds to nip? Bad habits to break? I dug into last year’s Lightroom library to see what I could learn. One of my first discoveries was the sheer preponderance of pigeon photos I had taken. What was that all about? What was the point? Maybe I should resolve to stop, but why? If I happen to see a particularly photogenic pigeon, what good would come from a resolution to not take its photo?
I mean, if I really feel the urge to stop photographing some segment of our flighted friends, maybe I should resolve to cut down on photos of crows feeding on the carcasses of drowned rats.
Digging deeper, I noticed that I took precious few photos of people who stared directly into the camera. I don’t know whether the dearth of direct portraits was a stylistic choice, or simply one born of fear. But it did start me flirting with the idea of going all Diane Arbus. The idea of actually getting to know people before I take their photo has a certain appeal, but I think such a drastic change in both my personality and style is a bit too much heavy lifting for a little ‘throw away’ New Year’s resolution.
On the opposite end of the quantity scale, I noticed that I photograph a lot of kids. Yet, even though they’re great subjects, I frequently choose not to publish them. Maybe it’s because I fear the wrath of angry parents? If so, then perhaps I should resolve to stop. But frankly, every kid I photograph is ridiculously cute. So maybe I’m actually doing something good — providing ample evidence that not every person who photographs a child is a pedophile. So, no — I’m not going to stop photographing kids just yet.
Then there’s my never-ending obsession with taking softly focused photographs of people whose body language intrigues me. Because I’m more interested in the shapes of the bodies than the details upon them, I will often shoot these out-of-focus. These are some of the most divisive photos in my portfolio — some folks love them, some hate them. Some might view this schism as a negative thing, and resolve to reduce (or even eliminate) these photos from their repertoire. But I’m thinking the opposite: In any art form, controversy is good. So I’m standing behind the “focus, schmocus” quote I first published in my Bartlett’s Rejects article.
Other observations flitted by. I saw my Lightroom library contained a lot of shots from a lot of odd and old cameras. I certainly see no reason to give that up for a New Year’s resolution. If anything, I’d like to do more of it, but cost factors prevent this from becoming a bona fide resolution.
Further perusal of my photo library reveals a rather unnatural attraction to signage — whether for reasons of whimsy or incongruity. Sure these signage shots are cheap and easy, but my pavlovian instinct to keep shooting them is not a monkey I’m ready to exorcise. Besides, I’m hoping they’ll have some kind of historical significance long after I’m gone. I’d like to think they’ll make my offspring rich, but I don’t have kids. So maybe they’ll help British Columbia pay its bills in the late 21st century.
Darkness continues to fascinate me. As I discussed in The Geometry of Night, I really consider the night to be one of the few untapped, unappreciated avenues open to photographers. Unfortunately, that article had the fewest readers of any article I ever wrote for Leica. My own warped logic tells me this implies that I’m actually on to something good! So I’m sticking with it. But I don’t think it really counts as a New Year’s resolution when you say, “I resolve to keep doing exactly what I have been doing.”
As a self-proclaimed documentary photographer, I suppose I should resolve to make more of an effort to figure out what the heck it is I’m actually documenting. But really, scenes like the following are just so much more interesting when one hasn’t a clue.
I finally concluded that any resolution I make must be simple in concept and focused in intent. For example, I enjoy dabbling now and then with lens flare, so maybe I should resolve to do it more? But the problem with this approach is that lens flare either works for a subject or it doesn’t — to overindulge thoughtlessly would be a reckless resolution.
Eventually, on about my fourth pass through last year’s Lightroom library, I found my New Year’s resolution: take more photos with a 50mm lens! To my surprise, I shot less with a 50mm than with any other focal length. For something that’s supposedly a “standard” lens, I was surprised to learn that I used it so little. I was even more surprised to find that, in spite of its limited use, so many 50mm images managed to find their way into my narrowed collection of “good” shots. So why didn’t I use it more? I don’t rightly know. But I resolve to find out. So this year, I’m declaring in full view of the world that I resolve to take more photos with a 50mm lens. It’s a pure, simple and doable resolution. And, best of all, it’ll distract me from the emptiness of another year passed without benefit of the January Effect.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: Astute readers will recognize the deft and surreptitious way in which this article satisfies one of my ongoing resolutions — to occasionally purge my library of unpublished photos through an otherwise pointless article. Here, then, are the gory technical details surrounding these photos: “Another Guy Gets the Look” was shot with a Leica M6 TTL and a Voigltander 50mm f/1.1 Nokton lens using Delta 3200 exposed at ISO 1600 and developed in Ilfotec DD-X. “Blowing the Final Frame” and “Problem Solved” were shot with a Rollei 35T using Tri-X at ISO 400 and developed in Ilfotec DD-X. “Thomas Hoists the Cup” and “Riot, Dusk” were both shot with a Leica M9 and a Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 Color-Heliar lens. “Looker,” “Thinkers,” “Bent Pigeon” and “Granville Room” were all shot with a Leica M9 and a 35mm f/2 (v4) Summilux lens. “Dining on Drowned Rat” was shot with a Pentax K-5 and a Pentax-M 120mm f2.8 SMC lens. “Pillars,” “Donair” and “Regal” were shot with a Leica M9 and a 28mm f/2 Summicron lens. “Cooler Now Than I Will Ever Be” and “Flare Flair” were shot with a Ricoh GXR using a Ricoh 28mm f/2.5 A12 lens/sensor module. “Cellular” was shot with a Leica M9 and a Voigtlander 50mm f/1.1 Nokton lens. “Marine Building Lobby, Vancouver” was shot with a Widelux F7 using Delta 400 film exposed at ISO 400 and developed in Ilfotec DD-X. “Duck!” was shot with a Leica M2 and a Voigtlander 50mm f/1.1 Nokton lens using Tri-X exposed at ISO 400 and developed in Ilfotec DD-X.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
I photograph people. On the streets and in public places, my eye and my camera keep a vigilant lookout for the little nuances that help define what it means to be human. Because of this somewhat curious behaviour, I’ve been cursed at, chased and threatened, yet I don’t resent when these street confrontations occur. They’re merely a response to our mistrustful times and to an over-abundance of poorly conceived street photography on the internet. But unlike those in the dSLR brigade who shoot from across the street with their long safari lenses, my wide angles make me much easier to catch and berate. Which is fine — it gives me an opportunity to explain what I’m doing and why. Rarely, however does dropping such names as W. Eugene Smith, Robert Frank or Garry Winogrand result in any sort of deeper understanding from my admonishers, but it does help diffuse the situation long enough that I can make a quick escape.
I am very conscious of the fact that photographing people in a public place is a privilege, not a right. One needs only to look at the clampdown on photography in various countries to realize how easy it is to lose that privilege. So I never take photos with the intent of being exploitative or disrespectful of my subject.
The problem, of course, is that different people have different ideas of what might be considered disrespectful. The hardest thing about being a humanistic photographer is not finding the intriguing shot, it’s not timing the shot, it’s not focusing, exposing, framing or even post-processing the shot. The hardest thing about being a humanistic photographer is deciding whether or not I should actually publish a particular shot.
The fact is, I don’t know the people I photograph. In general, I photograph only those with whom I feel some intangible connection, friendship, camaraderie, empathy or attraction. If I feel a sense of dislike for a person or their actions, I usually don’t photograph them. Unfortunately, even though my photographic intentions are honorable, I can never truly say whether or not my subjects might be offended by a particular photo. All I can do is to look at each photo and ask myself whether or not I would take offense if this were a photo of me. Granted, I have far less shame than the average person, so I try to err on the conservative side.
Unfortunately, not all photographers show their subjects the respect they deserve. So let me make a simple suggestion to any photographer who shoots on the street. Ask yourself two simple questions before you trip that shutter. First ask, “What is my purpose for taking this person’s photo?” Then ask, “Would I still take this photo if I were two meters from my subject and not 20?” If the answer to the first question is, “to disrespect this person” or the answer to the second is “no,” then maybe it’s not a photo that should be taken — nor is it one that should be published.
I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in freedom of expression. But I also believe in compassion and respect. At times, these can be conflicting values. It’s exactly why I have such a hard time deciding which photos to publish and why my hard drive is full of some rather good images that will never see the light of day. Freedom doesn’t just mean “the freedom to photograph and publish everything you want.” Freedom also means “the freedom to choose which photos you don’t publish.”
Street shooting is a privilege. Empathize with your subjects. Like your subjects. Respect your subjects.
This article (along with many of its associated comments) first appeared December 19, 2011 in my f/Egor column for the Leica Camera Blog.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
A couple years ago, when flappers were dancing the Charleston and ULTRAsomething was still published on newsprint, I would sometimes write about various photographic challenges and how I approached their resolution. Apparently I enjoyed these articles more than my readers did, because they’re amongst the least popular posts ever published on ULTRAsomething.
Although I began to write less frequently about these challenges, I never stopped creating new ones for myself. One of the great things about photography — unlike endeavors such as athletics or underwear modeling — is that you actually improve with age. But you can’t improve if you don’t push yourself, and that’s why I’m always inventing new, self-imposed photo challenges to coax me from my comfort zone.
Last month, I gave myself a new assignment: take a photo that screams “autumn!”
Simple, right? It would have been, had I not stipulated that the photo be shot in black & white. And just to make it tough on myself, I imposed a few additional requirements: I would use neither chicanery nor metaphor. Nor would I allow myself to invoke the transitive property of geometry: “if it’s North America and it’s a photo of a Jack o’ Lantern, then it’s obviously autumn!”
Nope. I wanted a nice “typical” photograph of autumn foliage that, in spite of the fact it was black & white, would still convey “autumn.”
My first attempts all involved scenes that contained a cacophony of colors — red leaves, yellow leaves, orange leaves and green leaves. I knew that careful color filtering would reveal the tonal contrasts between trees, since leaves of different colors would render in different shades of grey. And what was the end result? A bunch of grey trees! I will neither bore you, nor embarrass myself, by posting the pitiful results.
So I simplified the concept, and chose to work with only the basic computer graphic colors: red, green and blue. With a bit of color filtration, I knew these colors would resolve into three distinct tonal shades: white, grey and black. It wasn’t hard to find a scene that contained all the elements: red leaves, green leaves, blue sky and water.
As a test, I photographed the rather banal vista shown below, and applied some red filtering in post production. As expected, the red trees turned white, the blue sky turned black, and the green trees remained grey.
There’s just one problem: This photo bears a striking resemblance to an infrared photograph. Anyone who’s ever seen an infrared photo knows that leaves turn to white and the sky turns black. So in the previous photo, there’s nothing that makes this shot say “autumn” instead of “infrared.” Sure there are a few grey (green) trees in the left of the frame, but even that’s to be expected with infrared photography.
So I rejected this method too, and I wandered around for another month — tempted to either quit or cheat. I just couldn’t figure out how to take a black & white photo of brightly colored foliage, yet make it say “autumn.”
Then last week, with fall waning and winter bearing down, I saw a pair of trees on a hillside — each resplendently adorned with a radiant mixture of yellow and green leaves. It was the sort of scene that color photographers get giddy over. I stared at this scene for a good five minutes. I knew that, somewhere beneath all this color, there must be a black & white shot.
As I walked beneath the trees and looked upward into the complex labyrnth of branches, I heard the fallen leaves rustle beneath my feet. So I looked down — and that’s when I saw the shot shown at the top of this article.
I’d spent so long shooting tree tops, it never occurred to me to shoot tree bottoms. When else, other than autumn, would we see a brightly colored mix of leaves at the base of a tree? And because the leaves are so much whiter than the tree trunk (which, instinctively, we know is brown) we automatically intuit that the leaves must be brightly colored. Consequently, I think this photo succeeds — not necessarily by being a great (or even particularly interesting) shot, but by fully satisfying the dictates of my self-assigned challenge.
Come to think of it, this is probably the reason I stopped publishing articles about overcoming difficult photographic situations — it’s because, by definition, these articles force me to display failure and mediocrity. Considering the state of today’s photographic job market, this doesn’t seem like an overly wise career move.
But then, prospective employers don’t really read this site — photographers do. So here’s a little tip to my fellow photographers: give yourself assignments. Hard ones. Because the more you push yourself, the more you’ll learn to really see the world around you, and the better your photos will be. And in your twilight years, while your buddies all lament their faded physiques and reminisce about past glories on the playing field, you’ll know (as a photographer) that your better days are still to come.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: “Autumn” was shot with a Pentax K-5 fronted with an old Pentax-M 120mm f/2.8 lens. “Red or Infrared?” was photographed with a Leica M9 and a 35mm version 4 Summicron lens.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
I never could relate to that song by The Carpenters. While I’ll willfully agree that Mondays usually do seem to suck chalk, what’s so bad about the rain? Why did it take a combination of both rainy days and Mondays to get Karen Carpenter down? Wasn’t the fact that it was Monday justification enough for her melancholia?
Personally, I love the rain. It’s refreshing, cleansing and invigorating, and it puts a nice thick veil between me and that nasty old sun. As a rain lover, I live in the perfect place: Vancouver Canada. Winters here could send any Carpenters fan scurrying for a lithium prescription — even on a Thursday. But as much as I enjoy being out in the rain, there is one minor snafu: I’m a photographer. And modern digital cameras aren’t nearly as receptive to precipitation as I am.
In the past, I’ve taken several approaches to the problem of photographing Vancouver in the winter. For many years, I simply ignored the challenge completely and defined “winter photography” as “time to practice my studio lighting techniques.” But as the years passed and my photographic obsessions grew more vernacular, the winter rains became aggravating. I wanted to be outside, not holed up in the studio with a rickety assemblage of artificial lights and contrived tableaux. I needed to feel the drops sting my face, and witness the frantic scurrying of passersby dodge and weave their way through an umbrella labyrinth.
In short, I needed a weather-sealed camera. So every autumn I’d look at the camera industry’s latest offerings, and every autumn I’d reject them — or rather they’d reject me. Weatherproof cameras were built for one of two “camps,” but I resided in a third. These cameras were either 1) small point-and-shoots with limited ergonomics and dubious optical quality designed for summer beach and pool amusement, or 2) large, full-bodied dSLRs designed for shooting professional sports, tracking elusive Connecticut Warblers, or impressing young ladies on Model Mayhem. My camp desired a camera right smack in the middle of these two extremes — a location bypassed annually by modern camera developers.
So for the last few years, I’ve circumvented the winter camera problem by employing decidedly non-modern cameras — mechanical film cameras, to be precise. They’re inexpensive, durable and readily available. With no electronic components, there’s nothing to “short out” should a little rain or snow invade their bodies. With no batteries, there’s no power source to rapidly deplete in cold weather. Plus, I just like inventing good excuses to shoot film.
Still, as much as I enjoy working with mechanical film cameras, I’m neither rich enough nor famous enough to shoot 100% of my winter photos on Tri-X. So this autumn, I did what I do every autumn — peruse the digital weatherproof camera landscape. From my usual campsite, I gazed toward the western horizon at the little Fuji Finepix XP’s, Olympus Tough’s and Panasonic TS’s. I looked to the eastern horizon at the Canon 1D’s and the Nikon D3’s. And as I turned to walk back toward my collection of beloved film cameras, I tripped over a newfangled digital weather-resistant camera sitting right here in my own camp — the Pentax K-5.
I saw several advantages to the Pentax. To start with, it was the first weather-sealed camera that delivered a higher than expected image quality for a lower than expected price. Second, it was small (for an SLR). I need a camera that enables me to carry it all day in one hand, while dancing betwixt and pirouetting around my scurrying subjects. Third, there exists a wealth of inexpensive old legacy lenses for the Pentax mount; really inexpensive lenses. I mean, there are old Pentax lenses out there that I can purchase for less than I’d spend shooting and developing a day’s worth of Tri-X.
Recently flush with the proceeds of several equipment sales, I had just enough cash for the now heavily-discounted K-5 body with its 18-55 weather-sealed kit lens. For a few pennies more, I also added an old manual focus Pentax-M 120mm f/2.8.
I now had my inclement weather camera — the one I could use in a monsoon, in a hale storm, a sandstorm or a blizzard. I couldn’t wait to go get drenched. And as fate would have it, for three days subsequent to the purchase, Vancouver basked in absolutely glorious weather.
Monday arrived and brought along its friend, the rain. I was still not fully-certified on the intricacies of the K-5, so I avoided the downtown throngs and wandered along the shores of English Bay. Its plethora of static subjects afforded me the time to experiment with various settings, and to learn the system’s quirks — paramount among them the irksome way Pentax lenses focus in the opposite direction of Leica’s. The few times I did try to photograph people, I spent so long wrapping my head around the ‘backward’ focusing, metering stratagems and numerous modes and buttons, that my subjects had often passed me by.
Although I’m still a couple weeks away from having complete instinctual control over the K-5, the very fact I could fumble about with it while standing in the driving rain was most liberating. Never before could I (or would I) risk spending hours walking in a deluge while shooting with a digital camera.
Of course I was always mindful that the K-5 is marketed as “weather resistant” and not “waterproof.” The camera is obviously not meant for submersion or merciless abuse. Unfortunately, Pentax (nor any other camera manufacturer) makes any effort to quantify exactly what they mean by “weather resistant.” There exists a perfectly good international standard (called an “IP rating”) that specifies exactly how impervious a particular device is to dust and water. But camera manufacturers are reticent to publish these IP numbers — preferring to forgo something meaningful like: “this camera features an IP64 rating,” in favor of something meaningless like: “this camera features 77 weather seals.”
Suffice to say, in spite of the weather resistant claims, I don’t do anything too stupid with the K-5. I wipe it down frequently with a small rag and, should I be standing for an extended period with the camera exposed to the elements, I’ll drape the rag over its top. Why tempt fate? If Pentax doesn’t feel comfortable giving the K-5 a meaningful water-resistance rating, why should I rely solely on marketing puffery and trade show parlor tricks?
Still, I’m (mostly) human. And so I have, on occasion, yielded to the temptation to stick this camera in places I’d never consider sticking any of my other digital cameras, just to see what sort of photo I might get…
Speaking of temptation, I feel a strong urge to address a few additional K-5 curiosities. But I’ll stop here before this article deteriorates into another tedious camera review (though it’s likely I’ll foist such tedium on you in the future). The only real point of this article is to share the joy and liberation I feel being able to shoot on some of Vancouver’s more heinous winter days; and to remind my fellow photographers that, thanks to the Pentax K-5, neither rainy days nor Mondays ever need get you down.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: In spite of appearances, the Pentax K-5 (with which I took all these photos) does not create an image with a 2.5 x 1 aspect ratio. That’s merely the result of my futzing around with cropping. “Winter. Monday. Vancouver. #1”, “Winter. Monday. Vancouver. #3” and “The Day Before” were all shot using a Pentax-M 120mm f/2.8 lens. “Winter. Monday. Vancouver. #2” was shot with a Pentax-DA SMC 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL WR, and “Splash” saw the K-5 mounted with a super-cheap Takumar-A 28mm f/2.8 lens while sitting only a few centimeters away from the crashing surf.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Many people assume that writing product reviews is all ice cream and pony rides. After all, who among us wouldn’t desire free use of the latest, shiniest wonder-widget for a week or two? So when I tell you that Leica lent me their new 21mm Super-Elmar-M f/3.4 ASPH for review purposes, you’re excused for concluding that my preparations involved clearing out extra freezer space and ordering up a fresh bale of hay.
In actuality, reviewing products is work. In the case of camera lenses, a good review requires the photographer to carefully, painstakingly and rigidly control the shooting environment — locking the camera to a tripod and minimizing all extraneous sources of variance or error. Good reviewers also spend long hours photographing test scenes, test targets and test walls. A true product review is objectively clinical rather than subjectively instinctual. Yes indeed, product reviews are laborious. And that’s exactly why I don’t write reviews — I write “impressions.” Writing impressions enables me to spend my precious few days using a product the way I would if I owned it, rather than descending into the laboratory and running measurements. A photographer’s “impressions” may not benefit an interested buyer as much as a full-on review (like the sort crafted by Sean Reid, for example), but it does help those who may share that photographer’s inclinations. And, best of all, it lets me at least pet the pony and have a taste of that delicious ice cream.
A 21mm Allure
I don’t believe in pigeonholing lenses — each lens’ use is limited only by the imagination of the photographer who shoots it. So the photographs included with this article should, in no way, suggest these are the only types of photos at which this lens might excel. Instead, these photographs suggest the way I, personally, might use this particular lens. For me, the 21mm focal length is an ideal match for several subjects, but none more significant than its value as a street and documentary lens.
Because 21mm lenses have extensive depth-of-field, they’re “deep” lenses as well as “wide” lenses. The benefit of this, for documentary-style photography, is that they allow you to photograph your subject in context with its surroundings. I discussed this at some length in an old ULTRAsomething article called “The Contextual Lens” should you wish to read more.
Consider the shot above. If you wanted to photograph a pigeon for a birding book or encyclopedia, then you’d use a long lens to isolate a single specimen from its environment. However if you wanted to show the social interaction between pigeons, between pigeons and humans, and between pigeons and their environment, then you’re going to need a lens with some width (and “depth”).
In a similar vein, consider the following photo — the subjects of which were only 2-3 meters away from me. Had I photographed this grouping with a “standard” lens, the curious context would have been completely lost. I would have been able to photograph only a subset of the group — perhaps the amiably disposed policeman, or the seemingly happy moustachioed man, or the thoroughly disinterested fellow with the cap, or the handcuffed gentleman in the Hawaiian shirt. Each, as an individual subject, is not that interesting. Together they provide a story — even if I can’t figure out what that story might be.
In my short time with Leica’s new 21mm Super-Elmar-M, I found nothing (affordability aside) that would discourage me from purchasing it for “street” or documentary photography. It’s impeccably built and has a focus ring that’s both smooth and tight. At first, the tightness caused me some mild distress, but I’ve come to recognize this as a benefit. On the streets, I’ll frequently scale-focus a 21mm lens by setting it to a pre-determined distance, which enables me to shoot rapidly without having to re-focus. The tightness of the ring insures that the focus remains exactly where I set it and doesn’t drift.
The lens is reasonably petit and, sans hood, is roughly the same size as my naked 28mm Summicron. However, that 28mm Summicron’s cartoonishly large plastic monstrosity of a hood nearly doubles the size of the lens and can actually be seen from outer space. In contrast, the 21mm Super-Elmar-M’s hood is made of metal, is delightfully lilliputian, and barely increases either the length or width of the lens. In fact, even with the hood screwed onto the front, the lens intrudes only the tiniest amount into the frame of my external 21mm Leica viewfinder.
While so-called “street” photography is my prime motivation for owning a 21mm lens, I also employ this focal length for architectural, landscape and abstract photography purposes.
This is where the benefits of the Super-Elmar-M really unveil themselves. The lens is sharp. Crazy sharp. “Shoot-a-vast-landscape-yet-still-see-the-larva-on-a-single-maple-leaf” sharp. Poetically sharp.
In the tightly-controlled conditions of architectural and landscape photography, the performance of this lens stunned me. I’m in utter disbelief at the level of microscopic detail made visible by the combination of the Leica M9 and the 21mm Super-Elmar-M. If sharpness is your bag, then the 21mm Super-Elmar-M is your lens.
Under the Microscope
As I mentioned earlier, whenever I write about a particular piece of equipment, I give my impressions of its capabilities within my own limited spheres of use. I apply lenses, I don’t test them. So, commensurate with this practice, I dodged, burned and processed all the previous “test” photos as I saw fit, and I mostly shot the 21mm Super-Elmar-M hand-held (often zone-focusing) exactly as I would do if I owned it myself. For example, consider the photo shown here (called “Dressed to Kill”). To shoot it, I held the camera high above my head while I executed a clumsy sort of vertical leap and pirouette — blindly releasing the shutter at the jump’s apex. Astute readers will likely recognize this isn’t exactly what one might consider a “controlled” technique. Normally, such a photo would have no place in a lens review. However it’s perfectly at home in an “impressions” article — particularly since it happens to be one of my favorite images that I took with this lens.
Of course I’m aware that many potential purchasers will scan the internet looking for “sample” images. And for a lens that’s designed to appeal to perfectionists, I know my own artsy-fartsy proclivities and oft-ambivalent attitude toward technically perfect renderings does not do Leica any favors. So the following discussions will all be accompanied by more pedantic photographic offerings that are designed to illustrate a particular optical topic, rather than exist as a stand-alone photo of merit.
[21 Super-Elmar-M f/3.4 ASPH vs All Other 21’s]: The truth is, I can only compare this lens directly with one other 21mm lens — my own 1995 Leica Elmar-M f/2.8 Pre-ASPH. The pre-ASPH has the dubious distinction of being once dissed by Leica lens expert Erwin Puts, which makes it actually affordable on the used market. Last year, right when I’d finally decided to purchase a Voigtlander 21mm f/4, my dealer called to tell me he’d just received a Leica 21mm pre-ASPH on consignment. When I did an A/B comparison between the 1995 Leica and the new Voigtlander, the Leica smacked it in every conceivable way. I don’t know if this was a particularly bad copy of the Voigtlander 21 or if this was a particularly good copy of the pre-ASPH, but there was no doubt which was the better lens. And I’ve been very happy with that 1995 pre-ASPH… until Leica sent me the Super-Elmar-M to review. Have a look:
and…
The 21mm Super-Elmar-M outperforms my old 21mm Elmarit in nearly every measurable way. It’s impressively sharp across its entire aperture range and also from corner-to-corner. It is contrasty (not always ideal for my own use, but universally regarded as ‘desirable’) and it resolves heretofore unimaginable levels of micro-detail. The only technical point to favor my old pre-ASPH is its f/2.8 maximum aperture — though at only a half-stop faster than the 21mm Super-Elmar-M, it provides little practical benefit (given my particular requirements for a 21mm lens).
[Chromatic Aberration]: No one likes chromatic aberration — the thick purple border that appears along edges of maximum contrast such as you might see when photographing tree branches against a bright sky. Heck, I shoot black and white, and I still hate chromatic aberration (since it tends to soften edges or produce weird halos in B&W photos). One of the first things I photographed with this lens was a tree top against a bright sky. I saw no sign of chromatic aberration, so I photographed another… and another… and another. Wide open (which, admittedly, isn’t exactly “wide” at f/3.4), I found it nearly impossible to take a photo that contained anything more than the tiniest smidgeon of chromatic aberration. And I tried. I really tried. Even specular highlights remain free of fringing. This lens is simply remarkable in this regard, furthering its desirability for both landscapes and architectural work.
[Flare]: I did not actually test this lens for flare because I never actually saw any — even when shooting directly into the sun in my futile attempts to force chromatic aberrations.
[Barrel Distortion]: One thing I expect to see in wide angle lenses is barrel distortion. But after several days of shooting the 21mm Super-Elmar-M, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t ever felt the need to correct for it in Lightroom. Intrigued, I looked back through two weeks worth of ‘contact sheets’ in search of barrel distortion. When I thought I saw some (which wasn’t often), I was able to correct it with a single tick of the distortion parameter in Lightroom’s Lens Correction tab. Below, on the left, is an example of an uncorrected image. To the right is the image after I applied “correction.” There is almost no discernible difference between the original shot and my ‘corrected’ shot. And, honestly, I’m not even 100% certain whether the corrected shot is better or worse. Suffice to say, barrel distortion (other than the relative lack of it) will not be something people mention when they discuss this lens.
[Color Rendering]: I hesitate to even mention this lens’ color capabilities, since color photography is not my forte and I have little clue how to assess a lens’ color rendering. So I’ll keep my comments ignorantly simple and state only this: Normally I have terrible trouble wrestling my color photos into something I find “appealing” — even though I always shoot critical shots with an X-rite color chart, create custom RAW camera presets for a particular scene, and have an entirely color-calibrated workflow. But with the 21mm Super-Elmar-M, I have no such color problems. I was pleased with the colors as interpreted by Adobe Lightroom and, surprisingly, I was also pleased by the colors no matter how much I shifted and manipulated their hues. Bottom line: This is one of the few lenses I’ve used that actually makes me consider making a deeper exploration of color photography.
[Bokeh Quality]: Anyone purchasing a 21mm lens isn’t likely to be overly concerned with bokeh quality. First of all, massive depth-of-field is one of the main reasons for purchasing such a lens and secondly, f/3.4 doesn’t exactly scream “bokeh!” Still, in order to ward off inquiries from the internet bokeh police, I opted to perform a couple tests. Below is an example in which I focused on an object .7 meters away, opened the aperture to f/3.4, and made sure to include plenty of infinity subject in the shot. As you can see by the 100% crops, the lens defocusses very smoothly. Obviously, the background doesn’t ‘melt’ away (this is a 21mm lens after all), but it’s perfectly free of weird swirly anomalies or any other freakish artifacts that would deter me from using it at 3.4. Even more encouraging is that focus is so sharp at f/3.4.
[Focus Shift]: What focus shift? Given the fact that 21mm lenses have such extensive depth of field, I neither expected nor noticed any focus shift. Still, I did due diligence and ran a series of tests to confirm my practical findings. As expected, the intended subject was scintillatingly sharp at all apertures, and there wasn’t even a hint of focus shift. For this reason, I have not bothered to include the actual focus test photos with this article. One thing the photos did reveal, however, is that the lens seems to achieve maximum sharpness at f/5.6, softening a barely discernible hair at f/8, then f/11, then f/16.
[Vignetting]: I don’t know if it’s the lens design or a function of the lens correction algorithm in the M9, but I saw very little noticeable vignetting. Admittedly, I never bothered to photograph a blank white wall to verify this as gospel. However, the fact remains that vignetting was never a problem in my photos. In fact, for many street-type photos, I found myself having to add some vignetting in Lightroom in order to get the sort of look I like. But in architectural work, the lack of vignetting is a nice thing. By contrast, my old 21mm 2.8 pre-ASPH shows significant vignetting even with the appropriate M9 lens profile applied. Speaking of lens profiles, I noticed that M9 firmware version 1.162 did not list the 21 f/3.4 lens amongst the list of manual lens choices. However, if I chose “Auto” lens detection then the appropriate profile was applied. Ideally, I would like to be able to manually select the 21 f/3.4 lens from the Lens Detection menu. Most of my lenses are older and therefore not digitally coded, which prevents me from relying on Auto detection to identify a lens.
[Options]: One of the wonderful things about investing in the Leica M system is the sheer number of options with which photographers may avail themselves. For example, although the majority of my test shots were conducted with the Leica M9 digital camera (which I knew would reveal the optical advantages of this particular lens), I was also able to shoot it on my 1959 Leica M2 film camera, and on a Panasonic DMC-GH2 Micro Four-Thirds camera (via a Novoflex lens adapter). Several photos from the M2 are sprinkled throughout this article, and I was extremely happy with the Super-Elmar-M’s performance on this 52 year old camera — in spite of the fact I coupled that decidedly ‘new school’ lens with a distinctly ‘old school’ Plus-X 125 film, and developed it in a slightly inappropriate developer (Ilford DD-X). On the GH2, the 2x crop factor inhibits the 21mm field-of-view to one commensurate with a 42mm lens, giving the Super-Elmar-M an entirely new career path. As with all M-mount lenses on Micro Four-Thirds bodies, there is some pronounced softening in the corners, but center sharpness remains intact (as illustrated by the following gratuitous nod to modern lens reviews).
Conclusion
In my experience, there are only two possible downsides to reviewing demo products: Either you like a product so much that you develop a serious case of gear acquisition syndrome; or you dislike a product and are forced to either write a negative review or politely decline to write ANY review.
Before the lens arrived, I felt confident that neither of these possible downsides would occur. Leica M-mount lenses are of notoriously high optical and build quality, so it would be unlikely I’d dislike the product. On the other side of the coin, I already own an excellent copy of a Leica 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit pre-ASPH, which I absolutely love. So it would be highly unlikely that Leica’s new 21mm would be so much better than my old pre-ASPH that I’d suffer any gear lust…
… but gear lust I have. The Leica 21mm Super-Elmar-M is one of the most stunning lenses I’ve yet mounted on any camera. From the very moment I began to shoot with this lens, I dreaded the day I would return it. I own many Leica lenses, and all but one are at least a generation or two removed from the current model. As a man who tries to earn a living through photographic endeavors, I simply can’t afford new Leica lenses. Because of this, I’ve successfully convinced myself that I prefer the way old lenses render, and have often downplayed the emphasis many people place on lens sharpness. But the 21mm Super-Elmar-M has cast some serious doubt on my rationalization efforts.
If I didn’t already own the old Leica 21mm pre-ASPH, I would gladly fund a new Super-Elmar-M by offering my services as a human guinea pig to the local medical community. It’s just that good. Fortunately, given my propensity for “street” and documentary photography, I am well-served by my existing lens, since many of the new Super-Elmar-M’s optical advantages would be lost on my herky-jerky, blurry “context” shots. If, however, I ever returned to landscape or architectural photography I wouldn’t hesitate to upgrade to the Super-Elmar-M. It would inevitably “wow” my clients as much as it continues to “wow” me.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: All photos were shot with a pre-production Leica Super-Elmar-M 21mm f/3.4 ASPH lens. A Leica M9 digital camera was used for all photos with the exception of “One for Lee Friedlander,” “Pigeon Way,” “Cathedral Place” and “Vancouver Public Library,” which were all shot with a 1959 Leica M2 using Plus-X 125 film and developed in Ilfotec DD-X 1:4; and “Panasonic GH2 Wall,” which was shot with the 21mm lens mounted to a Panasonic DMC-GH2 with a Novoflex adapter.
This article (along with many of its associated comments) first appeared November 23, 2011 in my f/Egor column for the Leica Camera Blog.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
Once every three months I slip away from all the limelight, tinsel and glamor of the blogging world, and I take a good long look at ULTRAsomething. Why do I publish articles? Who do they benefit? Who reads them? Is there any tangible reason to keep writing them? Should I actually write more of them?
Sometimes, when I ask these questions, I even try to answer them myself…
Why do I publish articles? I suppose it’s because I care about the things I write, and because I’m genuinely concerned about the future of photography. It’s not that I fear an end to still photography, it’s that I fear an end to what once made still photography so meaningful. I fear that both viewer and photographer are losing the ability to see beyond a photograph’s façade and into its soul. Ultimately, I write because I’m selfish — I enjoy seeing good photography. I enjoy photography with heart, with passion, with meaning and with purpose. That’s why so many of my articles are designed to remind photographers that their ultimate self-satisfaction will not come from following populist dictates, but from exploring their own motives, techniques and personal vision.
Who benefits from these articles? I’m not sure. Certainly not me. They have no value in marketing my photographic services since they’re voiced more for the benefit of other photographers than for clients. I once hoped they would entice paying publications to commission my writing services — but I soon learned that no one is actually willing to pay for content anymore. And if I really am writing these articles to benefit other photographers, then do they? Judging from the majority of landscape, editorial and portrait photography I see published, I would have to say “No.” Photography is continuing to devolve unabated into the domain of “illustration” and a competent, though ultimately dull, sameness.
Who reads these articles? ULTRAsomething attracts many thousands of readers every month. Web stats tell me that of my 25 most-read articles, 22 of them are about photographic equipment. I find this both encouraging and discouraging. It’s encouraging because it means photographers are reading ULTRAsomething in hopes of finding a way to improve their photography. It’s discouraging because it means most photographers believe that the path to better photography lies in buying more gear.
Is there any tangible reason to keep writing these articles? I struggle with this question at least once every three months. If these articles make me no money, then why bother? If these articles bring no new business, then why bother? If people skip the crux of this site — the philosophical articles — and read only the equipment reviews, then why bother? So once every three months, I resolve to pull the plug on ULTRAsomething. And once every three months, I break that resolution. Maybe I’m just a masochist. Or maybe I truly believe that, even if people come for the ‘gear reviews,’ they might just hang around long enough to read a few of the more contemplative articles.
Should I consider writing more frequently? Curiously, every time I wrestle with shuttering ULTRAsomething, I begin to flirt with the alternative — writing more articles. Perhaps the problem with ULTRAsomething is that it’s not a blog, but a collection of occasionally published articles on a variety of topics. To build both a loyal and large readership would require that I write all the time — even when I don’t have anything compelling to say. And this has always been my problem with most blogs — the sheer amount of banality, re-blogging, linking and aggregating that’s required to create daily posts. Is that really a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not. But to tackle such an endeavour and infuse each post with at least a modicum of quality would require that I turn ULTRAsomething into a full time job. That means it needs to generate income…
Give the People What they Want
It occurs to me that I cannot answer all these questions alone. My web stats indicate that over half the people who visit ULTRAsomething are repeat readers, so this implies I must have some sort of “fan base.” Some of you even check in with comments now and then, which I really and truly appreciate. Others choose to contact me via email, which is fine (though commenting on an article does have the added benefit of generating more online conversation).
Maybe, instead of trying to decide what I want to publish, I should ask what you want to read?
I have but two goals for ULTRAsomething — one altruistic, and one the opposite:
1. I would like the site to provide value beyond answering “which camera should I buy this month?” I want the site to help photographers think a bit more about what they photograph and why — to become more in touch with their own vision and to worry less about satisfying the fickle demands of the latest Flickr fads.
2. I would like the site to generate income. I will never turn ULTRAsomething into a subscription site, but I do need to pay for its existence and the time I spend developing it. This means something somewhere must be sold to somebody. Whether I sell workshops to readers or eyeballs to advertisers, ULTRAsomething needs to develop a commercial element.
So what do you want to see from ULTRAsomething? A greater emphasis on technique? Maybe more actual photojournalism and less talk about photojournalism? Book reviews? Software evaluations? An increase in the attention given to alternative gear, techniques and methodologies? Or maybe the opposite — more prominence given to the modern? Perhaps you want more architectural photography? Landscape photos? Nudes? Puppies in a basket? Puppies in a basket with a nude? How about guest posts? Workshops? Interviews? Longer articles? Shorter articles? More frequent articles? What about off-topic articles, like a detailed account of my ongoing battle with the incompetent nincompoops at my cellular company who have yet to send me the iPhone I ordered on announcement day?
ULTRAsomething is only half mine — I just write it and photograph for it. The other half belongs to you — since you’re the ones who read it and view it. So what is it you’d like to read and see? I genuinely want to know. Because the more viewers I get, the better my chances of attracting sponsorship, and the better able I am to serve up more of what you want to consume.
ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: A few months ago, I stumbled across the misguided souls in “No. 9 Nightmare,” who were all participating in some sort of ‘street photography’ workshop. It nearly depressed the life right out of me. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to raise my Leica M9 with 28mm f/2 Summicron lens, and take the shot as a reminder of how not to host a workshop. “Another Fringe Event” was also shot with a Leica M9 and a 28mm f/2 Summicron lens, and depicts Granville Street the afternoon before the Fringe television show shot its Season 3 finale. Do not be confused by the Brooklyn Philharmonic sign — many of the locations you see in TV and movies are actually Vancouver masquerading as somewhere else. “Contemplation” was shot just a few days ago, while I was out taking a stroll with my Ricoh GXR and a Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 lens mounted to Ricoh’s new GXR Mount A12 module.
If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.
