Leica 50/1.4 summilux Asph.

These are wonderful images: thoughtful, well executed, and evocative. They invite the viewer (at least me!) to go back and look at them again, which is what I’m doing right now.

That said, I’m not sure their success is related to the lens. Aperture values aren’t listed (understandably, there’s no metadata), but the apertures seem small. Not convinced that the pictures wouldn’t have been the same if taken with a Summicron, a Noctilux, or a Summarit. In other words, I find it hard to discern the contribution the Lux makes to the images. There’s no bokeh or vignetting that would illustrate the lens signature and the grain doesn’t allow the sharpness of the Lux to come through. Of course, the pictures don’t need any of these creative crutches and succeed just fine on their own. But there’s nothing that tells me that I need the Lux to take these pictures.

I’d very much welcome Brendan’s view on this topic, namely whether the Lux contributed in any way.
 
raid said:
Beautiful images, B. Toews,
Click to expand...

Thanks Raid!

IdealCamera said:
These are wonderful images: thoughtful, well executed, and evocative. They invite the viewer (at least me!) to go back and look at them again, which is what I’m doing right now.

That said, I’m not sure their success is related to the lens. Aperture values aren’t listed (understandably, there’s no metadata), but the apertures seem small. Not convinced that the pictures wouldn’t have been the same if taken with a Summicron, a Noctilux, or a Summarit. In other words, I find it hard to discern the contribution the Lux makes to the images. There’s no bokeh or vignetting that would illustrate the lens signature and the grain doesn’t allow the sharpness of the Lux to come through. Of course, the pictures don’t need any of these creative crutches and succeed just fine on their own. But there’s nothing that tells me that I need the Lux to take these pictures.

I’d very much welcome Brendan’s view on this topic, namely whether the Lux contributed in any way.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the comment, I appreciate hearing your thoughts on the photos!

Of the photos that I've posted to this thread, the lightbulb, the door with the light and the lady walking along the beach were shot wide-open, and all of the others were taken between f8-f16. In that sense I suppose the f1.4 images couldn't have been taken in quite the same way with the slower lenses mentioned, but overall I agree with your point. On the topic of sharpness I would say that it comes through more in my darkroom prints, but the Flickr uploads seem to get fairly compressed and they don't show it very well. Overall though sharpness isn't that important to any of these photos, and you are probably right that you wouldn't really need the Lux to make these photos.

I've only been using the Lux since mid-February, but I like it because it has good resolution, fairly high contrast, it can shoot at f1.4 and it has close to no distortion which is rather important to me. I also appreciate the look of the out of focus rendering, I just haven't posted anything that really gives a good example of this yet. Generally I prefer that the camera and lens be as transparent as possible in the photo taking process, and at the moment I find that my 0.85 M7 and the 50 Lux are the best combination for that, and I think perhaps that is the main way that the Lux contributed to these photos.

Thanks for the question, it was interesting to spend some time thinking it over!

M7, 50/1.4 ASPH, HP5:


Untitled by Brendan | Toews, on Flickr
 
Nice work, Brendan and William. Not sure it has anything to do with the lens, per se, but it’s nice to see good examples of “writing with light” as opposed to photos that are just documentary.
 
I have really enjoyied look at the pictures in this thread... I yes, I really like the way you, Brendan and William paint with light... thank you for sharing.
 
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