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Lens for street


VMPEOPLE

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Hi all,

 

question :confused: !!!

 

I really don't know if I shall go for a 28 cron or a summilux 35 for street photography.

If anyone has got experience with these lenses any help would be most appreciated !

 

Of course knowing that in the future I may use this lens with full frame !

 

thanks in advance for your help.

 

kind regards.

vince

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It really comes down to personal preference, and when you think you will be upgrading to full frame. I have both 35 and 28, (and a 50) and use both on my M8 (the 35 is one stop faster) but for 75% of the time it's the 28mm that I use.

 

You could ask your friendly dealer to lend you a 28 and a 35 for a couple of days and see which suits you best. If you buy Leica lenses they will hold their value, so if you go 28mm for your M8 then upgrade to an M9, you should be able to get your investment back to fund a 35mm.

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As Terry says, this is all about personal preference, and has absolutely nothing to do with what other people think. I would no more try to advise you on what sort of underpants to wear than on what lens to use for "street", which in and of itself is a vague term.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

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Hi all,

 

question :confused: !!!

 

I really don't know if I shall go for a 28 cron or a summilux 35 for street photography.

If anyone has got experience with these lenses any help would be most appreciated !

 

Of course knowing that in the future I may use this lens with full frame !

 

thanks in advance for your help.

 

kind regards.

vince

If you can afford it is 35mm 1.4 Summilux all the way on full frame M9. On M8 it would be 28 mm. If this is going to the only lens you want to use. Never use Voigtlanders.

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I'd probably choose the 28 personally. I use both on my M8, and the 35 is my favourite lens - but not if what you're looking for is up-close work in the street.

 

You could work with either, but I'd say particularly if you intend to shoot in busy streets - the 28 will have a more useful fov.

 

edit: If what you mean by street photography is 'street portrait' then I'd choose the 35, but if you want to get a bit more in the frame, I still say 28 :)

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It' a personal thing. More architecture and street scenery wide angle. Ift you want also portraits I would go for a 35mm.

But as "bill" says 100 answers 100 different opinions. This all might even more confuse you. So lend these two lenses and test, test, test. Or buy a mit used and you wouldn't loose a big amount of maoney.

I started with a 35mm on my M8. And since I am more interested in people/street than architecture/street i don't regret my decision. Although my cron is fantastic sometime I am a bit jeallous for the summilux users.

Cheers and let us know your decision.

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If you can afford it is 35mm 1.4 Summilux all the way on full frame M9. On M8 it would be 28 mm. If this is going to the only lens you want to use. Never use Voigtlanders.

 

And on what kind of silly argument is this statement based? If you've read reviews from professional reviewers such mr. Reid, you'd know that the VC lenses perform very decent at a fraction of the price of their Leica counterparts. There are even (rare) cases where the VC lenses perform better (the Heliar 75 for example).

I regulary use a VC 28mm/3.5 for my M8 and I can really recommend it to the topic starter. It's a nice lens to start with and it has extremely good optical qualities (albeit a little slow). It's also cheap and light. If you like the perspective, you can't wrong with it.

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Hi to all and many thanks for your opinions !!!

 

well I've got a 50 summilux already but with this lens I'm not close enough....I look like a "voyeur" with a camera :D

 

by street I intend to shoot in busy streets really amongs people (very close) that they do not really notice or realise that they may be in the frame :)

 

I want to have a lens with which and can work very fast...zone focusing for example...and not always have to look through the camera to compose....

 

I've may have a penchant for the 28 !

 

thanks again to all of you.

 

cheers.

vince ;)

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You might like to watch these 3 videos on Street Photography by Chris Weeks. He uses an M8 with 24mm Summilux and in other videos an M9 with 35mm Summilux. A 24mm (with a 32mm equivalent field of view on the M8) might be suited to your needs if you like street work with a close up perspective. Being close and trying to quickly get the subject in the frame isn't so easy with longer focal length lenses, plus it doesn't always show the subject in context with their surroundings.

 

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition - Part One of Three on Vimeo

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition - Part Two of Three on Vimeo

Street Photography: Documenting the Human Condition - Part Three of Three on Vimeo

 

 

Bob.

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thanks again,

 

I think I'll go for the elmarit 28, my friendly dealer ;) did lend me one....and I'm acutally very happy with it....it's so small and discreet....really what I'm looking for...

 

what about contrast of this lens...my dealer say's it's not very contrasty and on this forum I read that it's actually more contrasty than summicron 28 :confused:

 

thanks in advance for your help...if you've got experience with this lens :o

 

best regards.

vince

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thanks again,

 

I think I'll go for the elmarit 28, my friendly dealer ;) did lend me one....and I'm acutally very happy with it....it's so small and discreet....really what I'm looking for...

 

what about contrast of this lens...my dealer say's it's not very contrasty and on this forum I read that it's actually more contrasty than summicron 28 :confused:

 

thanks in advance for your help...if you've got experience with this lens :o

 

best regards.

vince

 

Elmarit is more contrasty. But, another subjective and personal preference thing, so best to try out both, if possible, from your friendly dealer. (My guess is that your dealer doesn't have a cron in stock.)

 

I tried both, but picked the cron. Pluses and minuses. YMMV.

 

Jeff

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If you can afford it is 35mm 1.4 Summilux all the way on full frame M9. On M8 it would be 28 mm. If this is going to the only lens you want to use. Never use Voigtlanders.

 

ahh, yes and my opinion: 100 people and 100 answers...

try using Voigtlander lenses. i have a Voigtlander Nokton 35mm and i like it. very much. great lens for a great price.

for street photography i like my WATE on my M8...

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Great choice, I faffed about with voigts/zeiss etc for a while but invariably came back to leitz glass in the end

 

after a lot of thought etc, I ended up with 28mm as the ideal street lens for my M8...tried to get a new one but Leica UK and all my usual shops were sold out, would have to wait til around feb for one....well me being an impatient bugger, I ended up with a mint 28 summicron-M asph (bit more expensive and a bit bulkier but WOW.....what image quality.....I'd say it was as good at f2 as the elmarit is at f2.8 and by f4 , identical to the elmarit......ie both are BLOODY AMAZING!!!

 

Enjoy the elmarit, its a fantastic lens and would have been the one for me If I could have found one.

 

Happy Christmas too!

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If you can afford it is 35mm 1.4 Summilux all the way on full frame M9. On M8 it would be 28 mm. If this is going to the only lens you want to use. Never use Voigtlanders.

 

There's nothing wrong with Voigtlaenders. In optical terms they're good to excellent. In terms of performance to cost they're absolutely outstanding.

 

I own pretty much all the exotic Leica glass, but I can still find a place for Voigtlaender lenses. Some of my favourite work was shot on them.

 

BTW - any claims that you have to have 35mm for this, or 28mm for that are totally baseless. Any lens is good for street photography. It just depends where you stand, and what you choose to put in the frame. I've done plenty of street photography - certainly enough to have found out what works and what doesn't. I suspect I've used every lens I own on the street at some time or other - with a range of lengths from 15mm to 90mm. They're all good.

 

Considerations about optical quality are also pretty pointless for street photography. It's best to keep concerns about optical limits for shooting off a tripod. In the middle of a crowd of people, all moving, when you're moving too - there are so many other factors that affect the quality of your final image that the lens is almost the least significant.

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