Posts tagged ‘Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar’
San Francisco Delta 400 Walkabout
Delta 400, Zeiss Sonnar, DD-X, Bessa R2a
On the first day I walked around San Francisco, before I started to shoot Tri-X, I had one last roll of Delta 400 in my bag. Today’s posts all came from that roll, captured in bright San Francisco sunshine on that Saturday in early March. Interesting how the film/lens combination co-operated on that day filled with etched sunlight. I don’t know if you can see it in this JPEG, but there’s an almost 3-D quality to the parking meter.
I had a meeting that morning about a mile from the hotel, and opted to walk. Just around the corner was a courtyard where people were hanging out, meditating, drinking coffee, whatever. The patterns the people created fascinated me, and this image was my favorite.
As usual, the people in SF are unique. This guy was tall and wide, made more so by his clothing.
All kinds of people inhabit the streets. This guy and his buddy were whipping down the sidewalk, and I saw them coming. I had the exposure pre-set for the shady side of the street, and quickly zone focussed and waited a sec for him to reach the focus point.
It was a Saturday, so my guess is that a water line had broken and absolutely needed to be fixed. The Sonnar/Delta 400 combination yields wonderful but different images than the Sonnar/Tri-X combo. I remain convinced that the Sonnar is the 50mm lens for me; the only question remains color film.
Retail worker in a furniture store.
The sun’s piercing clarity emphasized everything that day, generating wonderful reflections in windows.
Made me see all sorts of reflected images in new ways . . .
And emphasized old things in ways that made me reflect on where I was and where I had been and where I was going. These billboards were all over the city. Seeing the four of them, displayed so large on buildings, really brought me up short. First of all, just their influence on every aspect of our culture. While you could argue that if I wasn’t them, it would have ben someone else, it WAS them and how interesting what each of them brought to the situation and, in turn, affected all of us.
While I was always a ‘John’ guy, and admired his art and song in many ways, there is no doubt the one that had the most lasting affect on my life was George. I recently looked at my iTunes library and examined the song counts. Of the four of them, George’s music, specifically ‘All Things Must Pass,’ had the highest individual play counts of any of their combined solo work. But more than that, George’s exploration of Eastern mysticism began, for me, my own exploration into non-Western thought and philosophy that permeates every moment of my daily life.
But, regardless of their individual influence, I just thought I’d take this moment to say publicly ‘thanks’ for everything they must’ve put up with. As George once said (paraphrasing) “the world went crazy and blamed it on us.” Well, I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, Mr. Harrison. A more accurate statement might be “the Beatles illustrated what we could all experience if we looked at the world and the very nature of our existence through different glasses. And we said ‘let’s give that a try.’” And then yes, if things went wrong, we blamed them for opening the door.
Palace of Art
Tri-X, DD-X, Sonnar
I have only one more roll shot with the Zeiss Sonnar while I was in SF to develop. This roll was developed last weekend and scanned during the week. This was shot on Tri-X, while the last roll was Delta 400.
While these images are almost all more contrasty than any previous Tri-X/DD-X/Sonnar images, that was because, well, the day was pretty darn bright and contrasty. What this showed me was how that combo adapts to the conditions.
This image was intentionally shot to see how extreme contrast was handled by the lens and film. I used a standard exposure for the day and sunlight, didn’t vary the exposure based on the shot. This was also an experiment, and it can out really well, and it displayed the film’s versitility.
The ratio here is pretty extreme
As it is here. In all cases on this roll, I came away with a real sense of why Tri-X had won so many hearts over time.
The combo of the film, lens and developer just continued to impress as I scanned each successive image.
It handled every situation I threw at it.
Then I came across images I captured of the columns and architecture of the Palace. Take a moment to look at the textures on the columns themselves, both in direct sunlight as well as shadow.
Now, it’s certainly the lens at work here as well, but these images just really made me salivate to load some Tri-X into my Mamiya and work tones such as these in a larger negative size.
The subtle gradations, even in contrasty light such as this, really brought a smile to my face.
Have a great weekend!
Shooting with a 50mm Rangefinder
50mm Sonnar f/1.5
Since I had started shooting with my Bessa, I had only one lens: my 35mm Biogon. It has stood me well, and I like the lens a lot. Before this series of posts, all rangefinder shots had been with the Bessa/35mm Biogon combo, except for the one time Paul Lester lent me his Leica.
Powell and Market
But when I shot on the street with my FTb, I always liked the field of view I achieved with my 50mm f/1.4 FD lens.
Street Dancers
The 50mm got me slightly closer than the 35, and compressed the field of view enough to create more interesting compositions (for my taste, anyway). Other authors have discussed the 35mm field of view as being “a little too wide.” While I like that field of view, on the street I tend to agree.
Closer on the dancers
I try to achieve 1/125th of a second at f/8 on either lens while walking around, easy enough to do with Tri-X or HP5 in the daylight. I zone focus almost everything, so the added DOF of the 35mm lens is not really an issue.
Not a great day
So, I decided to rent the Sonnar to experiment with, to see how I liked using a 50mm on a rangefinder camera. The difference was really astounding in use, but for reasons I’ll explain in another post. This post is about the images.
The skylight at the Moscone center
The 50mm to me is not too close and not too far. For this kind of ‘carry around’ work, it’s almost perfect.
The line dividing two worlds
I don’t have to get so close to the subject to isolate it, and I can really choose a subject and yet keep the subject in its surroundings at the same time. I know some street shooters prefer a 28mm, but for me that is very tough to use.
Contemplating the crowd
This lens focal length worked very powerfully for me.
Who is that guy?
As the week wore on, I began to ‘see’ 50mm field of view images with more regularity and began to get more comfortable.
I've sat here before; last year, in fact
That comfort, combined with the way the finder worked, became more and more of a tool for me.
The line
I was very sad the day I had to return the Sonnar. That was BEFORE I saw the images it produced, as you have seen them. That reaction was just owing to working with that FOV.
Love the tones
I wish I could rent a Sonnar, a Summicron, and a Planar and shoot the three together to find the one I liked the best in terms of its’ look on film. But I most certainly am going to acquire a 50mm lens for my Bessa as soon as I can. Just don’t know which yet.
More to come . . .
Tri-X and Ilford DD-X
Tri-X, Ilford DD-X, Zeiss Sonnar, Bessa R2a
Along with the experiment using the Zeiss Sonnar, I chose to shoot with Tri-X, and develop with Ilford DD-X. This combination was part intent, part accident.
The intent came from reading on APUG that recently Kodak, for the first time, had their film business fall into the red. This surprised me because as much as the film business had suffered of late, I never thought it would get that bad. Heck, recently Ilford introduced a new b&w traditional darkroom paper, for cryin’ out loud. So I had been under the assumption that the film business had stopped contracting and, at worst, had stabilized.
So, in reaction to that, I choose to buy ten rolls of Tri-X and shoot with them on my trip to SF, just to see what I might be missing one more time (my previous experiments with Tri-X had left me cold). If I liked Tri-X, I might consider stocking up on it, as a preventative against it going dark.
Wall in Palo Alto
Those older rolls of Tri-X had most often been developed with Edwal FG-7. By the time I had made the switch to Xtol last spring/summer, I had started shooting HP5 almost exclusively. The last batch of Xtol I had mixed was in September ’10, and I just hadn’t developed many rolls over the winter. So I worried it had gone bad by beginning of March ’11, and it was currently out of stock at B&H. I had rolls of Delta 400 I shot in Paris sitting on the shelf that I didn’t want to screw up with out-of-date developer, so I thought I’d buy some liquid developer of a ‘standard’ kind, Ilford DD-X. Thus, I ended up with a bunch of rolls of Tri-X, shot using the Sonnar, that I souped in DD-X last week. I also developed the Paris rolls, which came out wonderfully, and they will be the subject of a post coming shortly.
Bicycle Rack in Palo Alto
I had developed a taste for HP5 because to me, it had more bite. More contrast. I found that quality very interesting. Tri-X always had looked too dull for me. Those people who liked it often described its quality as ‘creamier.’ Less contrasty. And, of course, in a hybrid workflow, you can always add contrast. I also knew Tri-X to be capable of more bite, depending on the developer, agitation, etc. So, lo and behold, I develop the rolls with DD-X, and images such as the one immediately above come out, full of wonderful tonality and plenty of lush dark tones as well. Well, shut my mouth. Edwal FG-7 and Tri-X must not get along very well.
Palo Alto at dusk
The combination of the shallow, shallow DOF of the Sonnar, its older design, and the softer rendering of Tri-X just seemed a great combination in many ways. I was hooked deeper and deeper as I scanned each and every neg.
Palace of Art, SF
How much DD-X played into this as opposed to Xtol or FG-7, I don’t know. I can say that I never saw these tones in Tri-X when I was using FG-7.
Bird on a Waterfall
I’m not saying that Tri-X rendered these shots ‘better’ than HP5, but they certainly were rendered differently. And with the way the Sonnar drew. it just seemed a great pairing.
Filming the Filmer
And, it could just be that my tastes have changed. But these rolls of Tri-X, shot with these combination of factors, left me wanting more.
Sea-Tac Airport Food Court
There is a beauty to my eye of these images and they way that combo drew them that I really, really like. The image above is a good example of something that I just don’t think my standard combo of HP5/Biogon/Xtol would have seen as delicately.
More to come.
Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f/1.5
Zeiss Sonnar f/1.5, Tri-X, DD-X, Bessa R2a
The next few posts are going to concern themselves with a conscious experiment I ran while on my SF trip a couple weeks ago. As regular readers of this blog know, I shoot mainly Ilford products (in b&w, that is; in color, I’m probably a Fuji man). HP5 and FP4 have been my mainstays ever since I began shooting b&w film in 1075.
Readers may also know my fascination with Zeiss lenses. My shooting experience has told me that there indeed is something special about glass manufactured by both Leica and Zeiss. I own a Zeiss 35mm Biogon for my Leica-mount Bessa R2a, and it has been the mainstay of my rangefinder work since I bought the lens back in 2008. I have rented a Zeiss 50mm 1.4 Planar for my Canon 5d, and shot with it for a week or so. Liked it quite a bit, image-wise, but focusing that manual-focus lens on a camera body not meant to really support manual focus (the 5D) left me a bit luke warm. I hope soon to visit Mike Peters in NJ where I can work a little more with those lenses.
Sonnar f/1.5
I borrowed Paul Lester’s 50mm Summicron when we met in Akron last fall, and loved it. Not only did I love shooting with it, focal-length wise, but I love its field of view on a rangefinder body (more about that later in a different post).
Now . . .
How do those two topics (film type and focal length) affect my experiment?
For the trip to SF, I chose to rent a Zeiss Sonnar 50mm lens (described as an ‘older design than the ‘newer’ f/2.0 50mm Planars, the Sonnar is f/1.5) from LensRentals.com and shoot with TRI-X. Yes, Tri-X, the film that I had come to the conclusion after my Rio trip that I just wasn’t a fan of.
Palo Alto at night
Why did I do this?
To marry, essentially, an older lens design, with (by reputation) exceptionally creamy bokeh with a film that, by reputation, had an ‘older’ look and which handled contrast transitions more gracefully than HP5. In other words, try and see if the two parts (lens and film) could work together to produce a ‘look’ that didn’t fight itself, but rather supported each other.
I’ll let the images speak for themselves.
Almost all of the night shots were exposed at 1/60th @ f/1.5
I was always on the lookout for images where the lens could strut its stuff.
A VERY narrow DOF at f/1.5
This shot is interesting. I was leaning my right shoulder against the wall, shooting down the length of the wall at f/1.5. The Sonnar’s minimum focussing distance is .9 meters. It also has a reputation for front focussing.
Similar shot.
This shot shows off (to me) the beauty both of the lens and Tri-X.
It’s probably hard to see in the JPEG, but the frayed rope in the foreground appears almost 3-D in the full-size image.
Overall, I’m in love with this combo film/lens/developer. I’m going to talk a little bit in a later post about shooting with a 50mm lens and a rangefinder, and I could honestly be happy with a Sonnar for quite a while. Great lens.
