Primary lens 35/1.4 or 28/2 and digital newbie

[ckchen72]

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Hello!

 

I'm wating on the M8 and its my first experience with digital. For now, I really just want to shoot with one lens and need some advice. I've shot with an 35/2 before and 50/2 before, and on a M6 and liked both, I probably would have used the 50 more if I had the magnifier. I shoot in available light, mostly documentary and some portraiture. Thoughts and experiences would be greatly appreciated. Also as this is my first experience with digital, whar books do people recommend for establishing workflows, printing...and I guess the whole digital experience.

 

Thanks!

Calvin

[carstenw]

Both lenses are among Leica's best. If you prefer 50 on film, go for the 35/1.4. Note that the 28mm focal length corresponds to 37mm, so it gets a little closer to the 50 than a 35 on film, although not much. The 35 is about 1cm longer, IIRC.

 

The only really good raw processing program for the M8 at the moment is Capture One. Lightroom works well most of the time, but has real trouble with infrared in tungsten light. Soon more programs should have a decent import and conversion quality.

 

Get a card reader and store your pictures in a year/month/day fashion. This makes it easiest to find things, and the rest of the info can go in EXIF. A program like Lightroom can do this automatically for you.

 

For proper printing, you really need to profile your monitor and printer. You can buy your own little kit or use professional services to get this done. I recommend Bruce Fraser's "Real World Color Management". On a Mac with a recent Epson R2400 or better printer, you can get by with the ColorSync profiling which comes with the computer. In my experience, that will get you close enough for non-professional use.

[Guest Olof]

28/2 as your first lens

 

50/1,4 as your second lens

[Eoin]

I'd agree with Carsten, of you found the 50 more useful on the M6 the obvious choice is to duplicate as close as possible the same focal length on the M8 with a 35mm (46.5 effective).

 

The Summilux M 35 Asph is a wonderful lens with colour and contrast in bucket loads, how ever the bokeh can be a bit strange from time to time if that's your thing. But either it or the Summicron 35 will not disappoint.

 

The only comment I'd make is you may find it a little lacking in width and perhaps the 28 Summicron or Elmarit Asph's may be a better choice as a 1 lens choice till you get comfortable with the crop factor of the M8.

 

Workflow is a whole different kettle of fish, it realy comes down to your choice of software v output you require. I have no doubt you'll try many applications before settling on one you prefer. I use Apple Aperture as my basic file management and processing application with a hack to handle the M8 DNG's. I also have CS2 for the 1% of my images that I want to do something special with and can't do within aperture. I used Phase One C1 pro on and off since getting into digital SLR's and RF's but I just can't gel with it. Lightroom looks interesting but I'll wait until the release version is stable before investing time or effort into it. Obviously I'm running Mac's rather than PC's so your choice may be limited by the platform you choose. But as far as the applications I have mentioned are concerned, they are all available as free trial downloads so you can get a feel as to what they do and if you'll like the workflow.