Nikkor 5cm f/1.4 Images

I've recently taken to shooting this lens on a Leica body using an Amedeo Nikon S to screwmount adapter.  Prior to that, the lens was used exclusively on a Nikon S2 - another interesting camera body that I'll review soon (having used it for 3 years now, it's due for some comments).  

The adapter itself has the build quality you'd expect if you were going to use it on a Leica - pure metal and impeccably finished.  Since the 5cm f/1.4 is basically just an optical unit, the Amedeo adapter provides a mount plus a focusing helicoid.  It also has the outer bayonet (used by the 35mm f/2.5 & 85mm f/2 PC, among others).  My current plans are to use this on a screwmount Leica IIIF along with my M bodies, so I bought the screwmount version which I then couple with a LTM-M adapter (he also sells adapters that are native M mount).

My overall feeling on this lens is that it runs loops around the 50mm f/1.5 Summarit (another comparable lens from the same time period).  Of course, my Summarit has a good amount of haze and some cleaning marks - a mint copy might be a better lens.  Wide open, images are rendered with a pleasing "roundness" - stop it down and it becomes as sharp as any other lens.  This is a low contrast lens - great for using with the Monochrom sensor as the RAW files give you a great palette to start postprocessing with.  

I'll continue to update this post as I continue to use this lens:

Nikon S2 - Fuji Acros 100

Nikkor 5cm f/1.4 on Monochrom

Nikon S2 - Fuji Acros 100

Nikon S2 - Centuria 400 converted to B&W

Leica M4

This is the Leica M4 along with two Summicrons. The monster is a 90mm cron, known as the v2. It's a hefty lens and simply towers over 90mm rangefinder lenses. All this heft has a purpose - even though its about 50 years old the optics are still stunning (when it focuses correctly). Which brings me to the problem. The rangefinder mechanism in general is pretty inaccurate and prone to errors. For a wide angle lens a bit of focusing slop isn't necessarily a deal killer - any slop will probably be covered up by increased DOF at with a wider focal length and with the lens stopped down. At telephoto lengths the slop becomes harder and harder to ignore - on a 90mm lens at f/2 the DOF is razor thin.  Unfortunately my lens has a pretty big front focusing problem, about 30mm or so by my measurements.  As soon as I saw the test chart I immediately boxed up the lens and sent it to DAG Camera.

This is a shot with the 35mm Summicron, shot wide open on an M9 (see original here).  This particular version won't win any beauty contests, it has a rather large blob on an interior lens element that was attacked by fungus.  The fungus was cleaned out but the coating on that section is completely gone.  This is at the edge of the lens, so there's a slight loss of contrast wide open.  Stopped down to f/2.8 and it's razor (I mean razor) sharp.  And by f/5.6 it's game over - the amount of micro-contrast is nothing short of spectacular.

And the 90mm Summicron, here on Acros 100 and an M3 (original found here).  It was very sunny out, so I stopped down to probably f/11 here which explains why everything was in focus.

The Faces of Occupy Chicago

I recently processed a roll of film from a trip to LaSalle Street in Chicago, which is where the Occupy Chicago folks have set up camp.  I've been shooting events like that with a wide angle (either a 17-35 zoom or a 21mm prime) - it gives me enough depth of field where I don't have to worry about shutter speed or focusing accuracy and allows me to focus more on the content of the shot rather than the mechanics behind it.  Shutter speed - constant. Aperture - constant. Focusing distance - constant at 5-6 ft.  Then it's all a matter of positioning yourself where you want to be and closing the shutter.

I'm out there and for some reason I decide to take out the 90mm Elmarit. It's a great portrait lens (low contrast, kind of flare-y if stray light hits, but a great looking "glow"), but not really your first choice for a cramped-quarters street lens.  It turns out that putting a 90mm lens on naturally turns you into a street portrait guy as opposed to a pure street photographer.  I was mostly setting up in a corner, waiting for someone to come into my field of view and notice me, then hitting the shutter the split second after the deer-in-the-headlights look went away (there's a microsecond where befuddlement turns to puzzlement turns to slight anger turns to acceptance turns to resigned acceptance - it's a great moment to hit).  And that's the moment I think I caught here.  And it planted the idea of a future project (hopefully something I can get done before the Big Cold One hits Chicago) - The Faces of Occupy Chicago.

One of the faces of Occupy Chicago.

Sloping

This is from a recent photowalk with the Chi-togs Facebook group.  This is a group of individuals I met through the Eric Kim street photography workshop.  Eric was back in town for a day so a few of us decided to get together and walk the streets.  This is a great group of guys, I'm reserving some time to blog about them later when I get a chance.

I think we ended up doing more talking than shooting though, as I only ended up with 30-40 shots out of which only a few were good enough to post.  This is one of them, taken during the Halloween festivities in Daley Plaza.  I'm not going to pretend this is a great shot or anything, I do like the angles and slopes of the metal sculpture - I've noticed that I tend to gravitate towards triangles.  Purely unintentional as a matter of fact.

One other notable thing about the photowalk is that I finally shot with all film.  I've tried to balance my film shooting with digital by carrying a Leica along with my D700, this time I took an M3 (w/ Tri-X @ 800) along with an F6 (Acros 100).  The Acros 100 (this shot was taken with it) was a particularly bad choice on an afternoon that was partially cloudy day made worse by the shadows from the Chicago skyline.  Shutter speeds were pretty slow even with a 17-35 2.8, I ended up switching to a 50/1.2.