Just enjoying the images I captured on my day with Paul.
One more roll to scan. I’m about to go on a business trip to Seattle, so I won’t be able to scan anything until I return.
Tag: HP5
Leica M6 TTL
Posted by – August 28, 2010
HP5, Xtol, and a 50mm Summicron . . .
Before you start reading, just take a look at this image for a sec.
Look some more.
Ok.
Now we can start the post.
This past Sunday I spent with Paul Lester in Akron, Ohio, and we swapped cameras; he shot with my Bessa R2a mounting my 35mm Zeiss Biogon and I used his Leica M6 TTL with the accompanying 50mm Summicron. As we were parting, Paul said “I can’t wait for your write-up on the Leica, you don’t miss details and I want to know what you think.” So as to not make him wait, I summarized my off-the-cuff thoughts, then drove home, thought a lot more and have ruminated every day since then. Some of those ruminations made their way into my last post, about Brand Loyalty. I finally developed the rolls of HP5 last night, looked at the negs, scanned some, and wanted to share the impressions I have gathered.
Rangefinders in General
I’ve wanted a Rangefinder camera for the longest time, even going back to my FTb days. I had my aim on a Canon Canonet back around 1975. I remember shopping for one in the 47th Street Photo catalog. I can’t remember when I first came across the description of a rangefinder and the sense of “seeing beyond the framelines” when shooting with one but I had always wanted to try that idea. I never got one back then.
When I got back into photography, and realized that, in addition to shooting with my new Canon digital cameras, I would also continue to shoot film, I started to research rangefinders and finally realized what “Leica” meant. In 2004 or so I didn’t even know Leica had an SLR line, and when I read about the idea that one could buy a Leica lens and mount it on their Canon body with an adapter, I thought that *any* Leica lens could do that. When I found out the author was talking about an ‘R’ version of a Leica lens, not the “M” version, I was crestfallen. But I knew I still wanted to audition some of that Leica magic.
But, oh the cost. So, I bought a combo I could afford: a Bessa body and a Zeiss lens. The rangefinder experience is as great as I thought, and there is no doubt in my mind that I’ve captured some very nice images with that combo. But I had always wanted to try the real deal. Especially after I discovered Steve Huff’s web site. His write-ups of Leica gear got my blood boiling again, his passion for the gear comes leaping off the page. So, when Paul let me know we would get together in Akron, I couldn’t resist asking him if I could use his M6 that day. He agreed. I shot two rolls of HP5. So, what did I think?
The M6 TTL body
Solid is as solid does. There is absolutely no doubt that as a piece of camera hardware, the Leica M6 TTL is in a class by itself. The construction and the feel is better than anything I have ever handled. The only camera that even comes close is a Canon F1n, a lone copy of which I owned for a couple weeks a year-and-a-half ago. I had bought a used copy from Adorama, there was a problem with the AE finder, so I returned it for repair. But they took forever to fix it, and I eventually canceled the order. The F1n was as close as anything has ever been to the Leica, but not really. The Leica’s fit and finish is wonderful. It handled great, and it was invisible in my hands. Interestingly, however, the Bessa has one advantage. On the back of the body, where you would rest your thumb, the Bessa has a hump of sorts which allows you to grip the back of the body with your thumb and this does give you a sense of security when you hold the camera. The Leica does not have this hump, and I immediately missed it. So did Paul after he shot with the Bessa for a while and then returned to the Leica. One could buy a grip, of course, to make up for this slight difficiency.
The Leica’s shutter is indeed quieter than the Bessa’s, and noticeably so.
Bottom Plate/film loading
The Leica famously has a bottom plate which must come off to load film. Much has been written about how clunky and weird this is. There is also a back door which opens so you can position the sprocket holes after you’ve dropped the film canister in the body. As soon as Paul showed me how to set this up, I could see how it would be easy to load film time after time after time. Paul mentioned a story about Annie Leibowitz where she can apparently load film in a Leica M while running full-out, and with the set up of the back and lower plate I can absolutely believe it. Why anyone would complain about this admittedly quirky way to load film I cannot imagine, because it is absolutely easier than opening the door, threading the take up reel, etc. The only weird thing I can think of is that there have to have been cases where people dropped the bottom plate and lost it. That was my big fear. But the process was extremely easy.
Exposure guides
The Bessa has more exposure info in the frame window than the Leica, but I liked the Leica’s simple right and left arrow much better. The Bessa shows you the proper shutter speed it wants by flashing the speed if the proper one is not currently selected, and it’s kind of annoying, actually. The Bessa has Aperture priority exposure if you want it, which is nice when you DO want it. But I wish they had chosen a more elegant way to display the exposure info.
Overall, while I did truly enjoy the picture taking experience with the M6 TTL, on a pure cost point of view, the price difference between the Bessa and the M6 is large enough that I would stay with the Bessa. You could buy three Bessas for the cost of one used M6 TTL, and while the M6 is a better-made camera, it’s not THAT much better. Do I want to own an M6 TTL some day? Yes I do. But that purchase is not at the top of my list.
The Summicron
Well, here is the deal, eh? I LOVED LOVED LOVED the lens. The lens is as special as I have heard. One reader of the blog confided in me that the 50mm Summicron was his favorite lens ever, and my-oh-my do I see what he means. While the low-res JPEGS in this post are nice enough, they don’t compare to the look of the full-res images on my screen. While I truly love the look of HP5 and Xtol, I have never seen that combo look as beautiful as it does when combined with the Summicron.
Remember, I just developed rolls of HP5 in Xtol from my Disney Hall shoot, shot with the Canon 17-40L, and I can say without any doubt in my mind that I had to tweak those scans much, much more to get the images to look the way I like as compared to the images captured with the Summicron. When I tried the default settings for contrast and clarity I had just used with the Canon images, the Summicron images were too harsh by quite a bit.
The black & white film I shot with the Summicron looked just wonderful to my eye, not too contrasty but plenty sharp enough. I wish I had shot some color chrome or negative film while I had the lens, because the color rendering with the lens is supposed to be stunning, and the lens’ reputation with black&white film was certainly borne out by my experience. I just wished I had some Delta 100 with me that day, because the HP5 is just amazing. Why, Tri-X might even look good! (grin)
I have been looking for a 50mm lens to use on my Bessa for a while, and the search is officially over. I have now begun saving for a 50mm Summicron in an M mount, and I am thinking of somehow auditioning a 50mm Summicron R lens with an adapter on my 5D.
For me, this is a case where the ‘cult’ of the hardware has been borne out by experience. At least in my case.
Thanks so much to Paul for lending me the camera for the day.
Brand Loyalty
Posted by – August 26, 2010
Disney Concert Hall. EOS-3, 17-40L, HP5, Xtol
“We all have, deep within us, a desire to be part of a Tribe. Not just any Tribe, but a successful Tribe. Because only successful Tribes continue on. This desire can be traced all the way back to those early campfires, where we would tell stories about how we succeeded at the hunt that day. We’d sit around, eat that day’s capture, and revel in the shared nature of the Tribe’s success, as personified by our tribe’s best hunter. If our tribe wasn’t so good at hunting, our tribe wouldn’t last very long. So much of our ‘modern’ social interactions are simply echoes of our desire to be part of a tribe that ate well, and survived.” — David Mamet, American playwright
Marketers use the term ‘brand identification’ when they talk about how consumers decide whether a product is one we wish to purchase. While it is sometimes true that we buy products for the product itself, we all-too-often buy the product in an attempt, on a subconscious emotional level, to acquire some of the attributes of the product in addition to the product itself. Attributes that the marketing team have ‘connected’ to the product through their ads. Ads for dish-washing liquid don’t just talk about how well the soap itself works, but imply (through the actors chosen as spokespersons, and the way those characters’ homes look, and what their kids look like) that happiness, well-behaved children, and financial success all come from choosing the correct dish-washing liquid (which their liquid personifies, of course).
The message deep beneath the ad is ‘people who buy our dish-washing liquid gain all these qualities,’ or, put another way, ‘members of OUR tribe all buy this dish-washing liquid, and see how happy we are?’
Tribal behavior includes outward displays of identification, such as wearing logo t-shirts or camera straps, using similar vocabulary and body language (“Acronyms for $20, Alex”), and unique shared activities. Families are the smallest tribal unit, and racial groups are the largest. Individuals identify with their tribe, and view people inside the tribe as ‘same’ and people outside the tribe as ‘other.’ This tends to happen to us without us being aware of it all the time, and influences a great deal of what we think and know and feel about ‘same’ and ‘other.’ It also infuses those discussions with a degree of emotion that often exceeds common sense. Example #1 that we are all familiar with is: Apple and Microsoft. All you need to do is bring up their names in a room of tech geeks and someone is bound to make a comment.
And think also about how Apple is a master at communicating to their customers that ‘our tribe is cool.’ I’ve always liked their products, mind, but I am also aware that they are selling the illusion of cool, and MS has struggled for a long time to find an answer to the Apple cult of cool. Vide the many different directions the MS marketing has tried in an effort to deflect the ‘cool’ tag Apple has adopted. Whether Apple deserves the tag or not is irrelevant, actually.
While I am aware of the desire we all share to be part of a successful ‘tribe’ (defining success in our current shared universe as ‘mastering photography’ in some form), and I am just as much a victim of this effect as the next blogger, My next post (currently in draft form, awaiting a scan of an image) is about my experiences recently using a Leica M6, and perhaps no other camera brand is as driven by the cult of ‘Tribe’ as Leica. In that post I will talk about my struggle to separate what I truly experienced in the moment with the camera in my hand while shooting as distinct from what I had bouncing around in my head about what I ‘should’ feel, as had been described to me by card-carrying members of the Leica tribe.
The point of all this? When you react or choose in an arena where there are Tribal forces at work, keep your head! Pick up the camera or shoot with the lens, try it for yourself. And then when you have the object in your hands, be CONSCIOUS. Try to be neutral. Observe your breathing. Be here now. It is just too easy to be fooled into this tribal thinking, too easy to convince yourself you see things that aren’t actually there because you want them to be there so that you can belong.
One example from recent events for me personally
However, as I said, I am just as vulnerable as the rest of us. I just went through a very similar thing, and I almost succumbed. As you know, I was weaned on Canon FD gear. The tribal influence at that time was very pro-Nikon, as my teacher was a Nikon geek. I didn’t have the cash to buy Nikon, but I could buy Canon, so I did. I resisted the tribal pull, and found that Canon gear worked just fine for me. Even today, the feel of a Canon FTb just feels right in my hand. I have never regretted it back then or now.
I read the forums of APUG to learn more about film and film processing, and I follow a particular poster and his discussions, because I have found him to be knowledgeable. He happens to shoot Canon FD gear (amongst many other film cameras). He recently made a statement in a post that the one of his favorite lenses was a Canon 50mm 1.4 FD S.S.C. lens. I own the later version of the lens, the 50mm 1.4 FD (not S.S.C.). This poster mentioned he liked the way the lens ‘drew.’ Now, with all the Canon old FD gear increasing in value these days (you can buy adapters for Micro 4/3 cameras that take the FD lenses) I looked at prices for the S.S.C. version on eBay. I came very close to buying a copy. I came close on multiple listings to buying a copy. But WHY was I doing this? Had I ever actually shot with the S.S.C. version of the lens? No. Did I know whether it was actually different than the non-S.S.C. version? No. Even if there WAS a difference, did I know whether I LIKED that difference? No. But I WANTED THE LENS ANYWAY. Now, the lens isn’t really all that expensive (they used to go for around $40, and with the recent inflation, they are now going for $60-$70, with the occasional poster looking to make a killing at $100+. When I sat back and carefully examined my longing for the lens, I realized that it was in part to be part of the Tribe that APUG poster belonged to, ’cause, after all, given what he knows, how could he be wrong about the lens? Yikes!
Now, maybe I will eventually get myself a copy of the lens to audition. And, if I don’t like it, I’ll sell it off. But I’ll be conscious about what I am doing (hopefully). When you read my soon-to-be-posted Leica thoughts, use this post as a filter for that post.
Be Here Now.
A walk towards the light
Posted by – July 23, 2010
Toned in PS, HP5 pulled in Xtol
So, these are really my first posted images on my journey towards a film ‘look’ that is ‘me.’ First off, I’m
- Developing in a way that tries to not just use the film in a normal way
- Play to film’s strengths (emphasizing the shadow tones)
- Uses a lens that draws in a certain way
- Processing the image in LR and PS in a way that appeals to me.
I’ll expound a little bit about all those elements below.
When I exposed/developed this roll (all these images are from one roll of HP5) I pulled it. Instead of exposing the film at 400, I exposed it at 200 and then reduced development by about 20% or so. What this does is emphasize the shadows through exposure and control the highlights by lessening development. These images weren’t an ideal test, because their contrast range was not very broad. But it was a look I wanted to experiment with. The one thing it did do for me was control the ‘sky through trees’ issue than can bedevil work captured in forests in daytime. The image below is a decent example, where the places in the image the sky poked through were not any trouble to scan in.
Toned in PS
So, the lens is a 35 year old Canon FD, and it was used in these images as wide open as I could (it helped that it was dark in the woods that day). Thus, the flaws of the lens are emphasized. Check out the falloff in the lower corners of the image above. That’s not done in LR, that was in the original image. I emphasized it in PS, but it is not as if the exposure is linear all the way to the corner (the top of the image was cropped a bit here).
I also used a yellow filter, which has a subtle effect.
It increased the contrast between this leaf and the surrounding leaves.
Tried to get the bug
Here is was trying to get the bug in focus. He kept moving around the leaf. I had three images of him, but none of them captured him quite right. And after this last one, he was gone. The perils of f/2.
The last part of this formula was to scan and process the film differently than I used to, and leverage the increase in shadow detail and compensate for the decrease in contrast that pulling tends to bring.
So, really, all these images are the first steps towards a look using film that I have in my mind’s eye.
Which way?
Posted by – July 21, 2010
A real intersection in Pittsburgh
So this post isn’t about the image, rather the image serves as a humorous counterpoint to this discussion.
After publishing the second experiment, where I compared Tri-X developed in Xtol to digital converted in Nik, a reader of the blog began an off-line discussion with me. This reader had engaged in a similar series of tests a few years ago and, apparently, reached similar conclusions to those I stated in that post.
But the reader also gently pointed out some flaws in my process and thinking, and we began to discuss one of those, to wit:
Comparing the two mediums to a common denominator (metaphorically) is potentially flawed way of looking at the problem.
Specifically, in both of my tests, I used a common exposure (the first time, to the 5D’s exposure; the second time, to the Bessa’s exposure). Why not expose the two images to the strength of each medium (when using film, expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights, while, with digital, expose for the highlights – being careful not to clip them – and then get as much info into the shadows as possible).
And then, when both captures are at their optimal, compare them.
What I had done was, essentially, expose how they differ. Which, you know, is fine, but in the real world I wouldn’t shoot in either medium using that method (emphasis mine).
With film, I’d expose to the right without clipping and with film, I’d point my FTb’s meter at the shadows and expose at that reading.
So, that’s what I’m gonna do.
The other thing that I thought of as I developed this roll (image below) last night was this: yeah, okay, I started out seeing if the Nik HP5 conversion could emulate HP5. Well, that was the thought that spurred that process in the beginning. But that film isn’t really a great film to compare, say, sharpness to digital. I should be shooting PanF to do that comparison and make it worth anything at all.
HP5 Pulled to ISO 200 in Xtol
And one last thought. I started out to compare film to digital to see which was better. I didn’t mean to try that avenue or imply that’s what I was up to. But I think when I showed the detailed crops that’s what I implied. Instead, I always wanted to embrace the difference, and to find things film can do that digital can’t or shouldn’t even try. Mark Olwick does this with his brilliant Holga photography. I think older lenses ‘draw’ differently than modern lenses, not better perhaps, but different. And maybe the combination of those older technologies can help us. As we search for a style, for a look that we can call our own, for some it will be digital, for others it will be film; for others it will be wet plate collodion, for others HDR. Whatever floats your boat.
Xtol and HP5
Posted by – July 15, 2010
So, one of the big variables with film development is agitation. How often, how long. It affects contrast, sharpness, grain etc. I had suspected looking at the Tri-X images in the test that I might not have agitated enough, so I developed a couple rolls of HP5 last night, cut fresh off the 100ft bulk roll I had purchased. I agitated for longer at the beginning and more enthusiastically every time the clock came around than I had with Tri-X.
These two images are from the first six frames on that roll.
Its a different film, yeah, but a worse lens than the Zeiss (Canon FD 50mm 1.4, NOT the S.S.C. version) but the grain is really lovely, the best grain I’ve seen from HP5, and the images are certainly sharp enough.
FG7 is great, but it’s not very flexible. You can’t really push film too much, nor can you pull it. I really want to do both of those things after I narrow down my film choices. Xtol can pull and push, and depending on the dilution you can increase sharpness. It’s a very flexible developer, and because it came along in 1995 or thereabouts, I didn’t know about it when I learned film development.
I may be stocking up on Xtol.
Back to SF
Posted by – May 5, 2010
HP5, FG7
Well, no, I’m not back in SF, but just got around to scanning in more shots from that trip in the middle of March. I developed these at the same time as I developed that last roll from Rio. Man, the tones in this roll of HP5 (developed in FG7) are just wonderful, and I think really deliver the possibilities of the Zeiss glass. One thing I’ve discovered lately is that if I a number of images I like from one roll, I should just blog the bunch of them at once instead of breaking them up into separate posts. I think it shows a little more about what I was thinking that day and the images tend to work together better than they work alone.
Just love the guy with the headphones on towards the front. Yeah, that’s my shadow.
Right after this shot I sat down (next to the guy with the headphones, who was boppin’ to his tunes) and switched to a roll of FP4 and took this shot.
Just Plain Fun
Posted by – May 2, 2010
Posting some shots from one of the last rolls from my trip to Rio. Most of the images from the Hippie Market was captured on Tri-X; I had one roll of HP5 with me and all the images in this post were from that roll.
I think this is the last roll from Rio I had left to scan; it’s possible there might be one more. There is one roll of color negative film I shot there, which is going off to be processed this week. As I look at these images and compare them to the rolls of Tri-X, I think that HP5 comes out the winner for me overall. I am glad I loaded both films that day and could compare both in the same light and content.
Saturday evening I went out with Peg, armed with the Mamiya 645e, couple lenses, hand held meter and my tripod. For an hour I wandered around a nature walk near the house, capturing nothing special; a couple of bushes, some wildflowers, the clouds, and a fence post. I exposed a roll of Pan F, one roll of Velvia 50, and one roll of Portra. 45 frames, nothing special, playing around. Sloweed down, of course, because I used the tripod for every shot, had to reload three times. But my goodness what a wonderful time, what a great way to spend an hour on a warm spring day late in the afternoon. No agenda, nothing to ‘get’ a shot of, just capturing what I saw. So much fun, I can’t even begin to describe it.
I love photography.
Passing By
Posted by – April 27, 2010
HP5 in FG7
Been a bit busy at work, so for the time being I’m just going to try going through the archives and posting images I missed without much commentary. Even though I am aware that longer posts generate more comments, I also know that the images get viewed anyway. These will all be images that intrigue me in one way or ‘tother.
HP5 and a Moving Train
Posted by – April 22, 2010
This image is from a roll of HP5 I captured on a trip to Chicago in January. I just developed it last weekend, and after having worked so much lately with Tri-X, the difference in look and feel from the Ilford film was striking, and there is definitely a more punchy look to the HP5, which I admit I prefer overall. Developed in FG7.
