Neil Macmillan Posted October 18, 2009 Share #1 Posted October 18, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) See it here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 18, 2009 Posted October 18, 2009 Hi Neil Macmillan, Take a look here Portrait of Cartier-Bresson. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
luigi bertolotti Posted October 18, 2009 Share #2 Posted October 18, 2009 Interesting... M3 with no frame selector lever: if it was of him, one of the first adopter (no surprise, indeed). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted October 18, 2009 Share #3 Posted October 18, 2009 Also interesting is that he's got a universal viewfinder on his M3. Isn't this the man who's famous for only using a 50mm lens? What's more, it looks like the old VIDOM, which showed you the image reversed left-to-right. This sounds and IMO is crazy - turn the camera vertical and the image goes upside down until you rotate the eyepiece to correct it - but it's one advantage is that the reversed image makes it easier to hold the camera level. Could that be why HC-B used it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted October 18, 2009 Share #4 Posted October 18, 2009 Not sure is a VIDOM : it has chrome nose and black body: don't think VIDOM was made that way (afaik, chrome nosed VIDOMs are all-chrome)... could be a VIOOH - right way round image; seems that HCB is looking through the VF... so can be a proper fame is on, but which lens is that ? it looks someway "long" (Elmar 90 ?), but the hood is clearly "vented" (his fingers appear clearly behind it) and that's tricky... no hood for 90 is made like that; and the hood is also chrome... the only hood so made that I can remember is the one for the Summarex... but the front lens doesn't seem to me of Summarex' size. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
nhabedi Posted October 18, 2009 Share #5 Posted October 18, 2009 Also interesting is that he's got a universal viewfinder on his M3. Isn't this the man who's famous for only using a 50mm lens? No, he's famous for almost always using a 50mm lens. He also used 35mm and 90mm and probably other focal lengths as well, but he always maintained that the vast majority of his shots were done with 50mm lenses. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted October 19, 2009 Share #6 Posted October 19, 2009 Not sure is a VIDOM : it has chrome nose and black body: don't think VIDOM was made that way (afaik, chrome nosed VIDOMs are all-chrome)... could be a VIOOH - right way round image; I've seen pictures of black-bodied VIDOM, and IIRC have seen one at a dealer's. I can't really tell the colour of the body from Bown's photograph. After closer inspection I think you're probably right and it is a VIOOH - because of the curve of the body beneath the accessory shoe. seems that HCB is looking through the VF... so can be a proper fame is on, but which lens is that ? it looks someway "long" (Elmar 90 ?), but the hood is clearly "vented" (his fingers appear clearly behind it) and that's tricky... no hood for 90 is made like that; and the hood is also chrome... the only hood so made that I can remember is the one for the Summarex... but the front lens doesn't seem to me of Summarex' size. The front element looks much too big for the Elmar 90. Could it perhaps be a Sonnar, 50/1.5 or 85/2? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted October 19, 2009 Share #7 Posted October 19, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) The front element looks much too big for the Elmar 90. Could it perhaps be a Sonnar, 50/1.5 or 85/2? ... well... it's only a curios, but really is a lot difficult to identify the lens... and can be you're right to think it's not a Leitz: 1) Tried to mount my Summarex, with hood, onto M3 : absolutely not matching HCB's pic - much bigger. 2) The lens seems to have (unclear) something "black stripe" on the collar... vulcanite ring of Elmar 90 ? Could be... and the flat ring around the lens flange also could be not uncompatible with an Elmar 90...but as you say the front lens is too large, and there is also that strange hood (ok... it could be 3rd party.... ). 3) Anyway, the ring around the flange that I quoted above could surely be a LTM adapter, and this opens the door to a large number of non Leitz lenses: but I have no "trained eyes" about them: Zeiss - Nikon - Canon... who knows ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
elgenper Posted October 19, 2009 Share #8 Posted October 19, 2009 See it here. OK, OK, folks... Very interesting and all that.... But, have you looked through all the 30 portraits in the album? Perrsonally, I´ve never heard about this photographer, but she seems to have been around quite a lot. While she may not be Annie Leibowitz, there are lots of good images of well known people. So, thanks a lot for the link! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted October 19, 2009 Share #9 Posted October 19, 2009 OK, OK, folks... Very interesting and all that.... But, have you looked through all the 30 portraits in the album? Perrsonally, I´ve never heard about this photographer, but she seems to have been around quite a lot. While she may not be Annie Leibowitz, there are lots of good images of well known people. She's well known in the UK, famous in some circles for arriving for a session with one camera and one lens in a shopping bag - so wouldn't cut a figure on this forum even if she used a Leica. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shtarka1 Posted October 19, 2009 Share #10 Posted October 19, 2009 Amazing Talent! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted October 19, 2009 Share #11 Posted October 19, 2009 For those who've never come across Jane Bown, she was with the Observer, a UK Sunday newspaper from the early 50's I think. Is famous for her trademark arrival for shoots with her camera(s) in her shopping basket. In Don McCullin's autobiography "Unreasonable Behaviour" he refers to her carrying her Rolleiflex and Leica in said basket. In the 1970s she appears to have cut back to one camera, which I believe to have been an OM-1. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpattison Posted October 19, 2009 Share #12 Posted October 19, 2009 In case there's someone who isn't aware.... Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinis Posted October 20, 2009 Share #13 Posted October 20, 2009 I wonder where the picture he took at that moment is? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarryW Posted October 20, 2009 Share #14 Posted October 20, 2009 Dodger, Interesting comment in her book 'Unknown Bown' when asked about the importance of equipment she says: "I stopped using the Rollei in the 60's when the Observer magazine was launched and started to use a Pentax 35mm, although for a time I used both. Now I have about a dozen or so Olympus OM1s, all were bought second-hand more than forty years ago. I never use lights or a light meter - I can gauge settings by the way light falls on the back of my hand. I'm really not precious about equipment, I'm much more interested in what's happening within the frame and, most importantly of all, what the light is like. I have several lenses although I really only use the 85mm and the 50mm." Later on in the interview she states: " I have a setting I like to use - 60th of a second and f2.8 and I usually make the picture work around this" As stated in another thread I think that she is a tremendous photographer whose images have recorded half a century of UK history. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mc_k Posted October 25, 2009 Share #15 Posted October 25, 2009 thank you for the reference and these quotes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
telewatt Posted October 25, 2009 Share #16 Posted October 25, 2009 the lens on the picture should be the "Zeiss Sonnar 1,5-50mm" LTM ,he mostly used in the 50's... regards, Jan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted November 1, 2009 Share #17 Posted November 1, 2009 the lens on the picture should be the "Zeiss Sonnar 1,5-50mm" LTM ,he mostly used in the 50's... regards, Jan Are you sure it isn't a f:1.5/85mm Summarex? The presbyopic old man Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrid Posted November 1, 2009 Share #18 Posted November 1, 2009 HCB started to use a VIDOM in the pre-war days. You can spot what appears to be the same black paint example in photographs of him that span several decades. I forgot what book I read it in, but he actually recommended the use of a VIDOM to Capa in the early days of their friendship (pre-war Paris). There is at least one other shot of him that appears to have been taken on the same day. In that shot he is clearly using a rigid 2/50 Summicron. I think this may also be true in this shot, but the hood is confusing, because it is not the usual funnel shaped hood that came with the Summicron. It really does look a lot like the hood from a Summarex... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted November 1, 2009 Share #19 Posted November 1, 2009 Are you sure it isn't a f:1.5/85mm Summarex? The presbyopic old man Luigi mounted his Summarex on an M3 and thinks not (post #7). I wondered if it could be a Sonnar (85/2 or 50/1.5). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
telewatt Posted November 1, 2009 Share #20 Posted November 1, 2009 Are you sure it isn't a f:1.5/85mm Summarex? The presbyopic old man ..not sure....but in the 80's he did a interview talking about the Lenses he mostly use...and there he told about his Zeiss Sonnar 1,5/50mm, made for him fitting the M3.... regards, Jan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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