Looks like bad news for hopes on CL2

[aksclix]

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50 minutes ago, ramarren said:

It is irrelevant what kind of "hit rate" any photographer might have, for any reason. Some photographers try to make every exposure count, others shoot lots looking for just the one ... neither practice is good, bad, or better than the other.

I wrote something similar to this and deleted it few hours ago.. I agree with this point!
I personally don't think it makes any sense to count hit rates unless we're talking about high speed action like BIF or sports etc where a photographer might end up liking and keeping only one of the 30 images he/she shot with his/her fancy 30fps camera  in this it's better if all the 30 images are spot on as you then get to choose any of the 30 you want for a magazine cover for example..  
for street photography, am not sure how many times hit rates matter.. of course if something happens on the street only for a fraction of a second and the photographer missed it then it either didn't print or was printed with supporting text around it on the newspapers..

with Leica CL or SL2.. I've never gotten 10/10 spot on images in focus shooting in high speed burst mode... the hit rate here is average at best and maybe above average in better lighting conditions suited for CDAF.. 

Also, nobody learns without mistakes.. mistakes are an essential part of the process.. if someone's not making enough mistakes, then they're not trying enough 

Edited January 23, 2022 by aksclix

[LocalHero1953]

51 minutes ago, ramarren said:

It is irrelevant what kind of "hit rate" any photographer might have, for any reason. Some photographers try to make every exposure count, others shoot lots looking for just the one ... neither practice is good, bad, or better than the other. The only thing that matters is that a photographer capture the vision in their mind, and, if on assignment, the results the client is paying for within the budget and time prescribed. 

G

The question was not whether getting every shot in focus is good, bad or indifferent practice - it was whether Cartier-Bresson, as a street photographer, relied on fast focus for his successful shots. As I wrote earlier, I suspect fast focus was not one of his absolute requirements, compared to timing and composition. IIRC he said that with the small boy with wine bottles he prefocused and was ready when the boy came round the corner; the man jumping over the puddle was a matter of timing, not focus; looking at many of his other shots you get a similar impression, that he saw the shot well in advance and was ready for it, waiting for a person to get into the right position. Oddly enough, the famous video of him 'dancing' through the Paris crowds does look as though fast focus would have been critical, but I don't think I've seen any of the shots he actually took that day - I wonder how well focused they were!

I agree that there is no right or wrong here; but it is difficult to hold Cartier-Bresson up as a street photographer who relied on manual fast focus. 

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[aksclix]

44 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

the man jumping over the puddle was a matter of timing

did he intend to get that image the way it came out? no doubt it's a future proof picture.. he and others could take a very similar picture today with more precision tbh.. of course street photography and other genres of photography were possible to do with manual focusing in those days and even today it's possible to do it and get compelling images.. BUT with "reliable" AF one can get even better images "sometimes" not always.. because someone with a MF camera alongside someone else with an AF camera could both end up with similar shots.. but the AF guy has more to choose from.. that is all  
on the flip side though, with shitty AF.. worst case scenario is your camera keeps hunting forever and you won't even get the picture  its possible with CDAF in Leicas  

Edited January 23, 2022 by aksclix

[LocalHero1953]

12 minutes ago, aksclix said:

did he intend to get that image the way it came out? no doubt it's a future proof picture.. he and others could take a very similar picture today with more precision tbh.. of course street photography and other genres of photography were possible to do with manual focusing in those days and even today it's possible to do it and get compelling images.. BUT with "reliable" AF one can get even better images "sometimes" not always.. because someone with a MF camera alongside someone else with an AF camera could both end up with similar shots.. but the AF guy has more to choose from.. that is all  
on the flip side though, with shitty AF.. worst case scenario is your camera keeps hunting forever and you won't even get the picture  its possible with CDAF in Leicas  

IIRC he explained how he took that shot looking through a gap in the fence. He saw the man, and timed his shot exactly. I will try to find it later.

[aksclix]

5 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

IIRC he explained how he took that shot looking through a gap in the fence. He saw the man, and timed his shot exactly. I will try to find it later.

He might as well have.. just saying with MF, he had one chance and manual focus to get the shot he envisioned.. am just wondering if he wanted a shot of the man jumping in mid air or if he wanted it precisely in that position where his landing foot is cm away from the water..  was there continuous shooting in those days? I don’t know.. just saying that with continuous AF most of your pics would’ve been in focus and rather than feeling sorry or managing with what you have, you’d have choices to pick your best from a series of shots.. just quoting the natural evolution of that tech based on the limitations posed by older cameras.. given a choice today, would he pick the same manual focus camera or an AF camera to get his work done is my question.. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by aksclix

[frame-it]

“He had his little Leica,” [fashion photographer Helmut] Newton remembers, “and he simply would point and shoot.” Since Cartier-Bresson’s hand isn’t as steady as it used to be, some of the pictures were a bit fuzzy. “Sharpness,” he told Newton, “is a bourgeois concept.” Newton sits back and laughs: “I thought that was just divine.”

– Dana Thomas, Newsweek, 6/1/03

That hardly means he saw softness as a virtue — he simply did not value clarity for clarity’s sake. If I might put words in his mouth, I suspect he might say: “an image needs the clarity it needs, and no more.” The title of his famed photographic collection, The Decisive Moment, is Cartier-Bresson’s statement that for him, photographic resolution was about capturing a moment in time. The moment and composition trumped photographic clarity. -Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers

[Louis]

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22 minutes ago, aksclix said:

He might as well have.. just saying with MF, he had one chance and manual focus to get the shot he envisioned.. am just wondering if he wanted a shot of the man jumping in mid air or if he wanted it precisely in that position where his landing foot is cm away from the water..  was there continuous shooting in those days? I don’t know.. just saying that with continuous AF most of your pics would’ve been in focus and rather than feeling sorry or managing with what you have, you’d have choices to pick your best from a series of shots.. just quoting the natural evolution of that tech based on the limitations posed by older cameras.. given a choice today, would he pick the same manual focus camera or an AF camera to get his work done is my question.. 

Aksclix, you are making some interesting points. I always wondered if he knew that person was going to jump and prepared his shot in advance! My camera is always set on continuous focus and I try to follow people that I find, somehow, interesting. Of course, the focus is not always perfect, but it would have been much harder for me to use MF, unless I knew in advance what I was going to shoot and had time to set the camera.

In those days, they used whatever they had and the technology allowed them to do. Today, we can choose our gear that we feel more comfortable with.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Louis

[frame-it]

9 minutes ago, Louis said:

Aksclix, you are making some interesting points. I always wondered if he knew that person was going to jump and prepared his shot in advance! My camera is always set on continuous focus and I try to follow people that I find, somehow, interesting. Of course, the focus is not always perfect, but it would have been much harder for me to use MF, unless I knew in advance what I was going to shoot and had time to set the camera.

yes.

I cant find it now..but on this forum someone had posted a link last year [i think], it mentioned that Bresson saw a person jumping, then waited for the next person to jump and timed the shot

Edited January 23, 2022 by frame-it

[aksclix]

7 minutes ago, Louis said:

Aksclix, you are making some interesting points. I always wondered if he knew that person was going to jump and prepared his shot in advance! My camera is always set on continuous focus and I try to follow people that I find, somehow, interesting. Of course, the focus is not always perfect, but it would have been much harder for me to use MF, unless I knew in advance what I was going to shoot and had time to set the camera.

I also rely on continuous AF.. I am fine with giving my camera some power to help me get what I want.. that is why I love and welcome the face detect, eye detect, body detect and more recently Canon R3’s eye “control” AF.. it’s all so good! Humans can’t work in the same speed as a machine so I have no issues in letting a camera help me as long as it is reliable 😀

[aksclix]

Just now, frame-it said:

yes.

I cant find it now..but on this forum someone had posted a link last year [i think], it mentioned that Bresson saw a person jumping, then waited for the next person to jump and timed the shot

Not trying to question whether it’s genuine.. 

I don’t see signs of a jumper ahead of him.. the water is quite still and ripple-free in that image.. maybe the puddle settled down before this man jumped? Anyway, am not going to further scrutinize an iconic image of the past.. it might be perceived as me trying to be too judgmental which is not what I am trying to do here.. 

36 minutes ago, frame-it said:

photographic resolution was about capturing a moment in time. The moment and composition trumped photographic clarity.

I agree with that statement, BUT, with today’s tech, this line would be an excuse as it IS possible to nail the shot and yet have a non-blurry subject with far more detail.. 

[geoffreyg]

While we're off topic, it seems we're onto something really quite interesting here. And that is the difference is approach and in technique between a world where there is only MF, and a different one where there is both AF and MF. In the former, there is only the option of working the gear and situation to get either the image you want, or the subject in focus - its not necessary that the two be the same. That is, its ok in some cases to slightly miss focus, if you capture the image. 

In our new world, AF gives the chance to "nail" the focus - and we think that's important. It probably is, but perhaps we are overly attentive to that - how fast is it, how accurate, how much is or is not in focus... and miss something along the way. I can't believe that the experience of the shooter who bangs off 30 shots in a couple of seconds is the same as someone previsualizing a shot, setting up for it, and waiting for the boy to jump over the water. 

In this AF world, I sometimes prefer using MF, as it makes me set up and think about what I want, and also accepts a bit less precision as OK. Then there are the times of quick or tired, and the AF is a delight. My point is they aren't the same. 

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, frame-it said:

yes.

I cant find it now..but on this forum someone had posted a link last year [i think], it mentioned that Bresson saw a person jumping, then waited for the next person to jump and timed the shot

I can't find it now either. I can find a few comments that he only had one go to get the shot (and got it right), and that it is one of the few he took that were cropped (the fence blocked part of the image).

But it is badly out of focus anyway, so it is certainly not an argument for Cartier-Bresson's focusing skills😁.

Edited January 23, 2022 by LocalHero1953

[aksclix]

8 minutes ago, geoffreyg said:

While we're off topic, it seems we're onto something really quite interesting here. And that is the difference is approach and in technique between a world where there is only MF, and a different one where there is both AF and MF. In the former, there is only the option of working the gear and situation to get either the image you want, or the subject in focus - its not necessary that the two be the same. That is, its ok in some cases to slightly miss focus, if you capture the image. 

In our new world, AF gives the chance to "nail" the focus - and we think that's important. It probably is, but perhaps we are overly attentive to that - how fast is it, how accurate, how much is or is not in focus... and miss something along the way. I can't believe that the experience of the shooter who bangs off 30 shots in a couple of seconds is the same as someone previsualizing a shot, setting up for it, and waiting for the boy to jump over the water. 

In this AF world, I sometimes prefer using MF, as it makes me set up and think about what I want, and also accepts a bit less precision as OK. Then there are the times of quick or tired, and the AF is a delight. My point is they aren't the same. 

Trust me, the experience of the shooter is “amazing” because a photographer discovers this whole new dimension where those in-between images tell you more about the frozen time than what a single image would.. 

having a high speed camera doesn’t mean that is how they shoot everything… there are times when AFs mode is used with single shot and there are times when a manual focus lens is used shooting with all the time in the world.. it’s about choosing the right tool for the right job! 

[LeicaS2]

 Back on topic,

this article suggests APC is basically dead across all camera makers other than Fuji.

https://luminous-landscape.com/looking-back-at-2021-looking-forward-to-2022-the-big-trends/
 

 

[robgo2]

10 hours ago, ramarren said:

It is irrelevant what kind of "hit rate" any photographer might have, for any reason. Some photographers try to make every exposure count, others shoot lots looking for just the one ... neither practice is good, bad, or better than the other. The only thing that matters is that a photographer capture the vision in their mind, and, if on assignment, the results the client is paying for within the budget and time prescribed. 

G

Godfrey, you can be a such grouch. The point that I was trying to make is that even the greatest photographers have their share of stinkers, just like the rest of us. But I would be willing to bet that HCB had a lower percentage of them than you or I. Let us not get into a debate about low vs high volume shooting.

[Le Chef]

8 minutes ago, robgo2 said:

Godfrey, you can be a such grouch. The point that I was trying to make is that even the greatest photographers have their share of stinkers, just like the rest of us. But I would be willing to bet that HCB had a lower percentage of them than you or I. Let us not get into a debate about low vs high volume shooting.

It becomes subjective: one person’s exhibition-worthy shot is another person’s stinker. It’s up to the individual as to where you set the bar for keepers and rejects.

[robgo2]

1 minute ago, Le Chef said:

It becomes subjective: one person’s exhibition-worthy shot is another person’s stinker. It’s up to the individual as to where you set the bar for keepers and rejects.

Of course subjectivity is a huge part of the evaluation process, but my point stands. HCB and many other great photographers, in general, have a higher hit rate than most other photographers. Some years ago, I read an article about the photo selection process for National Geographic Magazine. This was back in the film days. The author talked about how many great images never made it into the magazine for one reason or another and specifically mentioned how few really "bad" shots there were on a roll of film. Don't ask me for the reference, because it was a long time ago and far, far away. 😊

[pocholin]

@ramarren, as mentioned by others, the purpose of the comment was to prove that AF has many advantages on getting a greater number of clear shots, whether they

are good or not, that's a different story. HCB proved that an out of focus image can become iconic, like the man jumping already mentioned, but it still remains that MF has downsides and that even HCB took out of focus photos. Perhaps there are very skilled people in the world that are able to take moving objects in perfect focus (kudos to them) but most of us, mere mortals, rely on the "modernities" of AF and image stabilisation (when available)...otherwise AF wouldn't be as popular nowadays.

[pocholin]

2 hours ago, LeicaS2 said:

 Back on topic,

this article suggests APC is basically dead across all camera makers other than Fuji.

https://luminous-landscape.com/looking-back-at-2021-looking-forward-to-2022-the-big-trends/
 

 

Well, then I'll be very happy with a FF CL2, which will also mean AF...and, hopefully, IBIS 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[Alberti]

On 1/18/2022 at 2:50 PM, Simone_DF said:

Most Sigma DG DN lenses are small and light. The 45mm is 215g, the 35mm f/2 is 325g, the 90mm is 295g. Panasonic prime lenses are bulkier but very light, they are all about 300g.

For comparison, most Leica fast lenses in M mount are heavier than these. The 35 and 50 Summilux M are 325g, just like the 35mm above. The 90 Summicron M is 500g.

If you can use M lenses (+ the weight of the adapter) on your CL, you can definitely use Sigma or Panasonic FF lenses too.

The problem is only with the zooms, and even there Sigma came up with the 28-70 f/2.8 at 470g

Yes, the 35 Summicrons have the same weight as the Sigma lenses, but add the adapter, and it is more. But the L-lenses are BIG. Because of the AF.

Nevertheless my S5 serves its purpose.  i use LTM lenses for instance.

An M-version of the S2S could incorporate only an M-mount. Then you have the EVF M-camera. But imho the ibis could fly away. And leave the body slim. And smart.

The S5 taught me there is much that Leica adds by sticking to the adagium of the ‘das Wesentliche’, and “Less is More”.