True Leica Look…!

[BWColor]

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Hasselblad jpg out of the camera, or raw imported into Phocus  have a “look”.  My M11M has a look, which is aided by a highly resolving sensor with amazing high iso performance.  I only own one Leica lens, so I usually get a Zeiss, or Voigtlander APO look.

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[Anthony MD]

1 hour ago, pippy said:

...and, therefore, we find ourselves in the situation where 'The Leica Look' changes with the times...

😺

Philip.

As for me, the best has already been made, MD262.

Not only does it shoot like a film camera, with the Rigid it looks filmic…!

Edited July 24, 2024 by Anthony MD

[Anthony MD]

1 hour ago, pippy said:

...and, therefore, we find ourselves in the situation where 'The Leica Look' changes with the times...

😺

Philip.

I agree, the Leica Look will change with time since new lenses like the APO 50mm Summicron are available.

But it’s still the Leica Look of great detail without the aggressive sharpness…!

[Anthony MD]

59 minutes ago, BWColor said:

Hasselblad jpg out of the camera, or raw imported into Phocus  have a “look”.  My M11M has a look, which is aided by a highly resolving sensor with amazing high iso performance.  I only own one Leica lens, so I usually get a Zeiss, or Voigtlander APO look.

Try the 50mm Summicron Rigid, it’s amazing.

I was using the Zeiss 50mm Planar f/2, which I replaced with the Rigid.  The Planar was too sharp whilst the Rigid was filmic in its rendering…!

[Anthony MD]

1 hour ago, a.noctilux said:

I remember I've read somewhere,

maybe here

quite interesting read

 

The main problem with the Leica Look is not knowing what it is!  Great detail minus the annoying sharpness…!

[pippy]

25 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

The main problem with the Leica Look is not knowing what it is!  Great detail minus the annoying sharpness…!

The main problem with 'The Leica Look' - as can be seen from-and-in the innumerable threads on the subject - is that it can mean different things to different photographers.

For you it means great detail without excessive sharpness (and the image should be captured on a digital sensor of Belgian manufacture). Other photographers will use the term to describe the faintly ridiculous(*) amount of 'Glow' which sometimes occurs where the lens in use was an early-ish 35mm Summilux when shot wide-open. To others it might be the appeal of the subtle shift from highlight into shadow; or else the extremely fine gradations of tonalities in the shadow-areas.

Nowadays, of course, it might refer to the extrordinary (excess of?) sharpness and detail which can be resolved using a 50 APO Summicron mounted onto an M which has a 60Mp sensor...etc...etc...etc...

There is not one simple and universally-accepted definition of 'The Leica Look'.

FWIW this matter was something I discussed with one of my lecturers when I was a student back in 1984. He noticed (first week, first term, first year) that I was shooting with an M2 and it transpired that we had a common interest in the marque's rangefinder cameras so, of course, we got to chatting about such stuff. It is, therefore, a subject which I have been giving some consideration for 40 years...

Philip.

* Just to be clear; I shoot like this, myself, with a lovely little '74 v2 Summilux and sometimes find the results to be aesthetically quite pleasing......😸......

Edited July 24, 2024 by pippy

[250swb]

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23 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

Try the 50mm Summicron Rigid, it’s amazing.

I was using the Zeiss 50mm Planar f/2, which I replaced with the Rigid.  The Planar was too sharp whilst the Rigid was filmic in its rendering…!

I think you are mistaking micro contrast with sharpness on the Zeiss, and it's the same with Contax lenses, they are more contrasty than Leica lenses. You can turn down the contrast in PP, or indeed boost the micro contrast of a Leica lens and make it match.

But for the 'Leica look' (if it exists and its not just a dream) it's most likely going to be found in the photographs made by great photographers who just happen to use Leica cameras. Anything less is a travesty because it assumes a photograph can be elevated in quality by the equipment alone, you know, they way people hope to buy improved photographs when they buy an APO or something similar.

[pippy]

2 hours ago, 250swb said:

I think you are mistaking micro contrast with sharpness on the Zeiss, and it's the same with Contax lenses, they are more contrasty than Leica lenses...

But for the 'Leica look' (if it exists and its not just a dream) it's most likely going to be found in the photographs made by great photographers who just happen to use Leica cameras.

As has been discussed in this Forum too many times to count there were different design philosophies at work back in the 1930's behind the lenses made by Leitz (for their Leica, obviously) and Zeiss (for their Contax).

As a camera-body is, essentially, nothing more than a light-tight box which holds film at the correct place and as every film can be used in any camera 'The Leica Look' has to be linked to the lens used in the capture of an image.

The following is a simplification of ENORMOUS magnitude but there's a truth at the heart of the matter...

Leitz designers favoured great overall sharpness whereas Ziess preferred to have maximum sharpness in the centre area and if the edges were a bit soft why would that be a problem? The important part of the majority of photographs is usually not to be found at the sides and corners of the image. Makes sense.

To obtain these results the two companies went down different routes as regards number of elements / groups and what sort of optical-aberration corrections would be given priority. Hence the Zeiss lenses - as a vast generalisation - tended to be more contrasty which was often the result of having fewer glass-to-air surfaces. Leitz' lenses tended to be more fully-corrected (more elements / groups / glass-to-air surfaces) with the result that photographs taken with these lenses had a 'softer' look with less-dense blacks but more detail in both the shadow-areas and the highlights.

Different photographers, understandably, might have a strong preference for one over the other. The well-known photographer from the Korean War days, David Douglas Duncan ditched his Leitz lenses for those made by Nippon-Kogaku specifically because they rendered sharper and with more contrast. Later on, of course, he was instrumental in the manufacture of the original Leica MP in Black-Paint finish which he used with a modified 50mm Summilux.

Many of the fast lenses designed by Walter Mandler seem to exemplify perfectly 'The Leica Look' when shot wide-open (35 and 75 Summiluxes to name just two) but he was just carrying on the same tradition Leitz had originated decades before he landed in Midland, Ontario.

Philip.

Edited July 24, 2024 by pippy

[otto.f]

On 6/5/2024 at 6:22 PM, loughtonsmith said:

I see your point, but to me, it’s the rendering of the Leica optics that really stands out, regardless of the film stock.  It’s the ability of the lenses to retain subtle shadow detail without blowing out the highlights that first drew me to Leica…before digital was available.

Can’t agree more. And for me this was especially the case when wet printing, the shadows can be clarified so well without losing ‘bite’ and gaining details. 

BTW, I find OP’s opinion of True Leica etc. starting only recently - and even worse: after the M9 ! - complete bullshit. How many times have LUF members remarked here that the colors of the M9 are most close to Kodachrome 25 compared to any other digital camera. Perhaps only recently the Hasselblad X2D is in that domain. 

[Anthony MD]

2 hours ago, otto.f said:

Can’t agree more. And for me this was especially the case when wet printing, the shadows can be clarified so well without losing ‘bite’ and gaining details. 

BTW, I find OP’s opinion of True Leica etc. starting only recently - and even worse: after the M9 ! - complete nonsense. How many times have LUF members remarked here that the colors of the M9 are most close to Kodachrome 25 compared to any other digital camera. Perhaps only recently the Hasselblad X2D is in that domain. 

Your use of words describing my opinions is rather a show of your intelligence in this matter.

Is Kodachrome a Leica Look…?

Edited July 24, 2024 by Anthony MD

[250swb]

21 minutes ago, Anthony MD said:

 

Is Kodachrome a Leica Look…?

How many photographs have you seen using Kodachrome? Nearly everybody has a family archive with Kodachome slides, but these are often compromised by the camera and/or the photographer or the storage, so what is a genuine Kodachrome 'look'? It's fair to say its either unknown or variable. National Geographic magazine did use a lot of Kodachrome (and Leica's) which adds to the Kodachrome look in the minds eye, but it was also printed in a certain way to boost the colour images from advertisers. Like anything else in understanding the look and intention of older film stock the 'Kodachrome look' is a dream image and something that can only rarely be reproduced accurately nowadays. 

[Anthony MD]

1 hour ago, 250swb said:

How many photographs have you seen using Kodachrome? Nearly everybody has a family archive with Kodachome slides, but these are often compromised by the camera and/or the photographer or the storage, so what is a genuine Kodachrome 'look'? It's fair to say its either unknown or variable. National Geographic magazine did use a lot of Kodachrome (and Leica's) which adds to the Kodachrome look in the minds eye, but it was also printed in a certain way to boost the colour images from advertisers. Like anything else in understanding the look and intention of older film stock the 'Kodachrome look' is a dream image and something that can only rarely be reproduced accurately nowadays. 

For me the look of Kodachrome is not a Leica Look but a Kodak look…!

[Anthony MD]

Just now, Anthony MD said:

For me the look of Kodachrome is not a Leica Look but a Kodak look…!

Again: A true Leica Look is;

A Leica digital camera with a sensor that has Leica’s specifications along with a Leica lens…!

[jdlaing]

2 hours ago, Anthony MD said:

Again: A true Leica Look is;

A Leica digital camera with a sensor that has Leica’s specifications along with a Leica lens…!

Nope. 

[Anthony MD]

14 minutes ago, jdlaing said:

Nope. 

Incredible answer…!

[jdlaing]

1 hour ago, Anthony MD said:

Incredible answer…!

True answer.