Lenses that inspire you to take photos

[Capuccino-Muffin]

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4 hours ago, tiffany.watt said:

I love the summaron. I AM so lucky to have it. 28mm is perfect for me and it is so light and small it is my most used.

The King of Mood

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[rcusick]

10 hours ago, Steven said:

Try it with Ilford XP2 pushed one stop 🥰

On my way to bryce and zion.  Will try when I get back!

[ianman]

11 hours ago, Steven said:

I don't think I've ever heard someone say anything bad about this lens. Everyone praised it. I must try it... or own it... 

you should read the first pages of the initial thread about it here. There was plenty of criticism. Terrible vignette, not sharp, f5.6 blasphemy, what are Leica thinking, overpriced, etc.  until some of us started posting photos... then it all went quiet and soon enough they were popping up everywhere

[Tom R]

Those rare instances where I need to replace/repair a lens inspires me to make more pictures. (That's why I own only three Leitz lenses and three M bodies.)

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Steven said:

😇

Might you have forgotten to post the link to the thread you are referring to ? 

I think the negative comments were at the start of the summaron image thread which was only changed to an "image" thread after several pages.

 

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Steven said:

Thanks. 
have you used the summaron, Steve ? 

Yes i bought it about a month ago and have been pleased with how it renders people and landscape pictures.

Its a wonderful walk around lens as its so small.

Its much sharper than i thought it would be considering its based on a 1955 design,i would say it has medium contrast which is fine for me.

[Dennis]

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3 hours ago, Steven said:

After shooting wide open for 15 years and being a sucker of depth of field all my life, I discovered last week that other apertures worked too. 

hallelujah.. that's a terrific news. Congrats! If you don't mind the suggestion, try to shoot at f/4 only, for a while. You set the your own challenge: one day, one week, one month. It's a fun exercise and a good method to really understand apertures and DoF. I did last year the challenges, and it was very useful. You will be surprise how f/4 ( to say one) is capable of, and to be honest with you, I didn't expect that. At MFD, for example on a 35mm, it can still get sometimes a lovely and always welcome 3d pop 🙂 Because I expose for the highlights, my daily personal Sunny 16 ( on a 35mm) is f/4 - 1/4000 - 200 iso ...   

[Jeff S]

1 minute ago, Steven said:

Nice tip, will definitely try at some point. For the month of June, I went to the extreme opposite. Trying all my lenses at F16. I imagine they will all look the same, but I cant wait to be wrong. 

f8/11 and avoid diffraction.  There are still myriad ways to render an image.
 

Much more interesting for me to fill a frame compositionally,  side to side and front to back.  Picture content, not easy lens effects and blurred backgrounds (or worse, partially blurred subjects).

Jeff

[Guest Nowhereman]

^ Yes, at f/16: you can find the physics of it through a search. Interestingly, Ralph Gibson shot his Quadrants series with a DR Summicron at f/16 in bright sunlight, before he knew about diffraction — all at 1m distance, so that the 16x20 inch prints that he made showed subject at its actual size as reality.
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Frog Leaping photobook

[Jeff S]

23 minutes ago, Steven said:

Can you develop a little ? What's diffraction ? Does it happen at F16? Thank you. 

As Mitch says.  f16 or faster would be fine using a large format camera/lens, but I would avoid with ‘full frame’ unless it’s required to get the pic.  Closing down too much can cause IQ to suffer.  Tons of info available.

Jeff

[Guest]

I shoot my grand kids all the time as i am compiling an archive of their lives growing up and staying at mine but i also shoot landscape and night harbours etc and have already used the summaron for these things with pleasing results to my eyes.

There is a lovely clarity  with this lens if you take a picture of a child in say a woodland setting but also a photographer called james bell used this lens for lake district landscape pictures in the UK and the images are stunning ,,youtube,,, james bell-landscape photographer].

With the modest maximum aperture its easy to focus accurately or simply zone focus.

Lastly of course its a beautifully made optical instrument.

the lens surprised me to be honest but its impossible to say that you would feel the same about it if you bought it.

 

ps this is for steven but somehow i messed up the quote thing!!

Edited May 28, 2021 by steve 1959

[Dennis]

11 hours ago, Steven said:

my daily personal Sunny 16 ( on a 35mm (w/ an M10 (just added)) is f/4 - 1/4000 - 200 iso ...   

Nice tip, will definitely try at some point.

If you try, awesome. But be aware of what you expose for. Maybe something more coherent with your style and taste (like your post #60). I would underexpose three stops under my version of the Sunny 16 to get your proper exposure in the shadows. I would say for you f/4 - 1/1000 - 400 iso for a film. I guess. 
I'm on the dark side. I like to expose for the highlights, not for the shadows. My photos always look darker 😅 , Like the one below by Gueorgui Pinkhassov ... I never shoot after f/8 cause I learned here last year what the diffraction is.

Let's see if a particular member appreciates the subject of the photo below. 😆

Good luck, Steven. I'm happy for you to embrace the full apertures range. But wait. You told us you used wide-open-only for many years. So, you never tried to shoot with an M camera (film or digital) at f/8 w/ zone focusing? If not, well, it's where for many people here, the magic is. Be careful; it can be a shock, a good one.     
Coming back on the topic question, exposing for the highlight w/ my sunny 16, using an M10 w/ any 35mm, it's my (probably) favorite and most inspiring combination to get what I'm seeing.

 

 

[Capuccino-Muffin]

I’m glad you’re moving from shooting wide open all the time.

To me, there’s something very amateurish about the wide open look on someone’s work when that person’s work is relying on it almost exclusively. It’s almost aggressing. 
 

As for diffraction, it is a fuzzy concept, really. You will notice it fully only when viewed at 100% and even then, it can/might/will look just fine. What are we talking about, a softer glow overall at f16. Sounds good to me. Well, it’s certainly not bad or wrong.

[Dennis]

7 hours ago, Steven said:

Hey, the good thing is that now I’ve learned the hardest. I can nail focus with a 50 noctilux wide open on moving kids while I’m moving myself 90% of the time. At f16? With my eyes closed 😂 

It makes sense! 🤣 

The other side of the coin. With great power comes great responsibility. When stopping down, easier to nail focus, but more difficult to arrange elements in context, w/ a proper composition.  

My inspiration, Alex Webb

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by jaapv
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[jaques]

i guess for me the subject dictates the lens. When I have shot music concerts I always take 135, 90 and a 50. This set up is dictated by where I am positioned in regards to the subject.

 

 

 

 

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[capo di tutti capi]

Knowledge and skills dictate the choice. The lens or object doesn't dictate anything

Using a telephoto lens, you remove the viewer from the scene. With a wide-angle lens, you put the viewer in the atmosphere of a concert.

When photographing with a wide-angle lens. The person who looks at the photo is in the crowd. Among the audience. A part of the scene and the scenery fall into the frame. And not just frozen figures of people as when shooting on a telephoto lens. It is not understood at all what is happening

Edited May 29, 2021 by capo di tutti capi

[capo di tutti capi]

You all realized that bokeh is not always good. Perhaps someday you will understand that the tele lens is only good for " football" 

[capo di tutti capi]

1 minute ago, Steven said:

You're quite the teacher. You keep giving us lessons on how to take photos 😇👌🏼

learning from Martin Charles Scorsese films

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[capo di tutti capi]

There are 10 rules in the film industry. There are 10 rules in art. Very simple. They are easy to understand. All of them are available on the Internet. I don't know why you've been studying lenses for decades.

Edited May 29, 2021 by capo di tutti capi

[Narsuitus]

On 5/24/2021 at 9:58 PM, rcusick said:

I've tended to favor lenses that inspire me to take photos. 

Lenses do not inspire me to take photos. For inspiration, I am usually inspired when ...

1. I have an assignment.

2. I have a paying customer.

3. I see something that captures my eye.

4. I purchase a new piece of photographic equipment and want to test it.

Lenses may not inspire me; however, lenses do impress me.

 

Here are the lenses I use my Leica rangefinders that have impressed me:

1. Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 have impressed me as great lenses for general subjects.

2. The Leitz 21mm f/1.4 has impressed me as a great lens for the times when I need something wider than my 35mm.

3. The Leitz 90mm f/2 has impressed me as a great lens for portraits and reportage.