Leica LTM B&W Wedding with 1939 Summitar - LOVELY RESULTS

Leica M39 screw mount bodies/lenses
I recently shot a wedding on NeoPan 1600 as well and loved the results. I haven't shown them to the bride and groom yet, and may not ever, but I certainly enjoyed doing it for myself.

Great job.
 
visiondr said:
There are some very nice shots here, Yaron. How much post processing Sharpening did you use here?
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My general sharpening procedure is as follows: I scan at around 3600 dpi and end up with a file around 5100 x 2400 pixels in size. Then I clone out dust, and do some grain removal if necessary with Neatimage. Then I do a very light sharpening with Focalblade just to reverse the slight softening that results from digitizing. Then I do whatever Levels, Curves, Dodging/Burning I'm going to do. That's the final TIFF file.

Then I resize the file to whatever size is appropriate for the Output intended (web or print of whateversize). Then I use Focalblade again to get the appropriate amount of sharpening for that output, and save the file as a JPG.

By the way, I feel that some of the web-sized pictures that I posted in this thread are a bit over-sharpened.

And I agree with a previous poster that they would look better with a bit more grain. The pritn-sized JPGs show the grain more.
 
Yaron, you certainly WERE having an ON day!!! These are magnificent. And your success rate in something to be joyful about.

Looking at these have given me more inspiration. I have a 1946 coated Summitar with the curved blades sitting on my IIIf RD right now, with the serial #627xxx. You've encouraged me to give it a try on my MP.
 
fdigital said:
Congrats on doing a great job with the photos. My only suggestion - rescan them without that noise reduction. Grain is beautiful.
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I agree.

Beautiful images but the texture is mixing.

Shooting film and then removing the grain is like shooting digital and adding grain. 🙂
 
lovely shots especially that Bridesmaids shot, very classics! Indeed the Summitar is excellent when pairing with B&W film. Wonder how it will look with color slides.
 
These absolutely show the "look" of the Summitar in B&W. That wonderful creamy tonality is typical.

First coated Summitars were the serial number block 586001 to 589000, allocated in 1942. They were sold only to "war photographers". (So says Puts in Leica Lens Compendium.) I have one, wonderful blue and amber coatings.

Serial number 600000 is the beginning of "everything coated".

Challenge with coated Summitars is finding one where the coating hasn't been butchered, it is extraordinarily soft. The front glass is also soft flint glass, easily scratched once you get through the coating.
 
Nice photographs. The Summitar is an excellent choice for a wedding.

I took my M3 and Summitar to my cousin's wedding a couple of years ago and it worked beautifully. I think I used Illford XP2. Unfortunately after about 12 glasses of wine, my understanding of the aperture-shutterspeed-iso relationship flew out the window. The only shots that turned out was the ones I took before dinner. I can't remember much but from the look of the photos, I must have been using Sunny 16 rule even though we were in a dark banquet hall.
 
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It's funny. Elsewhere on RFF a debate rages about the value of frankness on the forum. The chief complaint seems to be that we don't tell one another often enough that our photographs are terrible. And then these wonderful pix show up. They are GREAT! I am sure your friends will be thrilled. It seems like one of those occasions where the gear, the film, and the technique came together perfectly. While I'm sure your friends will be happy, only those who realize how many wrong turns are available to a photographer will be properly impressed with results like these from two 36-exposure rolls of film. It's like watching a gymnast "stick" a landing. Bravo!

Ben Marks
 
Observer or participant?

Observer or participant?

Sleepyhead - lovely pictures!

I am interested in how you approached being both an observer and a participant (with 3 kids to boot!) at the wedding. Recently the son of some of my friends got married in China. A few months later, his parents invited us to a wedding reception here in the US along with about 40 other guests.

I brought my camera to the party so that I could take some pictures to offer as a gift to the hosts as I figured they wouldn't have a professional photographer. So about an hour into the party, I committed myself to covering the party by taking pictures of the couple, the parents, and the guests as they were conversing one-on-one or in small groups. An hour later, everybody was featured in 1 or 2 pictures so I put away the camera and went back to "participant" mode. In other words, at a given point, I chose to act entirely as either an observer or a participant, not both at the same time.

Did you manage to enjoy the party as a guest while you were taking these great pics? If so, how did you do it?
 
Hey, thanks for your kind words All!

Daneinbalto, regarding your question: First a bit more details - my wife was there as well, so she could also help with the kids. Second, two of my kids were old enough to pretty much run around with the other kids at the wedding during the reception and take care of themselves, whilst the ypoungest was only about one year old at the time (August 2008), so she (luckily) slept for a good 2-3 hours and freed us up.

But to answer your question - NO - I didn't participate in the wedding to the same extent as if I were not photographing - I didn't drink very much, I wandered the rooms alot rather than sit chatting, I floated on the periphery of things. That was during the reception.

During the preceeding church ceremony - the shots with the Bride and her father coming down the aisle, etc. - I was stuck in my Pew with my 4 year old son on my lap. Once or twice I stood up and plopped him down. All the church ceremony photos were taken from one spot, with one lens (50mm), but yet they were varied enough somehow (miracle).

All-in-all, it was a fun and satisfying experience photographically, but I wish I had my hands a little more free and could move around abit in the church, and perhaps have had my 75mm Summilux with me.
 
Question

Question

The pix are stunning. Congrats!

But I have a question: Is the M4-P not a bayonet mount Leica? So how did you use a 1939 screw mount Summitar?

A few years back, I used a IIIF as a backup camera at a wedding with an F2 Summitar. Fortunately, I had other cameras and did not have to reload it.

Anyone who has ever loaded a Barnack will know what I mean.

Congrats again on the pix.
 
Easyrider, all the screw-mount lenses can be used with full rangefinder coupling on any M-bayonet by means of a cheap adapter, designed specifically for that purpose when the M cameras were originally produced. The only exceptions might be with deep lenses on some of the M bodies having metering cells in unusual places.

During the design of the bayonet mount cameras, Leica realised that continuing to be able to use "old" lenses would help the take-up rate of the M3 (and it's descendants) amongst existing users.

After the first half-a-dozen times the bottom-loaders are not really so tricky - by then, the loader learns to make the film bulge as it is eased over the drive shaft teeth.
😉

EDIT: And I nearly forgot to congratulate sleepyhead on the quality of his craftsmanship. Very nicely done.
 
Heh, no, besides mine's not mint, and not coated 😉

I was one of two 'hired' photographers at a wedding last Friday. I carried my IIIa with a 90mm Elmar, yellow filter and a FIKUS hood for portraits and my Epson R-D1 with 35mm Ultron and a SB-24 flash for all inside photography and the park photoshoot. In the end, I think most of my Leica pictures were better then the Epson shots... *shrugs*
 
MartinP said:
Easyrider, all the screw-mount lenses can be used with full rangefinder coupling on any M-bayonet by means of a cheap adapter, designed specifically for that purpose when the M cameras were originally produced. The only exceptions might be with deep lenses on some of the M bodies having metering cells in unusual places.

During the design of the bayonet mount cameras, Leica realised that continuing to be able to use "old" lenses would help the take-up rate of the M3 (and it's descendants) amongst existing users.

After the first half-a-dozen times the bottom-loaders are not really so tricky - by then, the loader learns to make the film bulge as it is eased over the drive shaft teeth.
😉

EDIT: And I nearly forgot to congratulate sleepyhead on the quality of his craftsmanship. Very nicely done.
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Thank you. One never stops learning. I have been around for a loong time but didn't realize that. I have two Leica IIIs -- a B and an F -- but never bought any M series. I mainly used a Rolleiflex for many years.


I am quite good at the bottom loading. Tnx. But I always tremble until I see that the rewind knob is moving . . .hehehe. Don't want to reloading in the middle of a wedding.

Tnx again.
 
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