WARREN CONNECTICUT – Finally, some cold weather. Actually really bad weather. We had planned on going out to dinner but the roads were terrible so I pulled together dinner out of what was available. This is what it looked like outside, taken with my Leica Monochrom and a Leica 18mm Super Elmar lens. A 16 second exposure on a tripod. Sixteen seconds was too long to be outside – the wind was howling.
On this day one year ago: Sundial.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I took a walk today, Christmas day, with our friend Gianni Ferrari from Milan. We passed by a spot on a neighbor’s property where he keeps old disused farm equipment. Taken with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm f.95 Noctilux lens.
On this day one year ago: Winter landscape.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – So I spent the day close to home in Warren, shooting with my Leica Monochrom and f.95 Noctilux lens. This lens is an outstanding performer in all conditions and has a lovely look, but is a major pain in the butt to carry because of its size and weight. It also blocks about a third of the rangefinder frame with it sheer bulk. But really nice results. Here it is:
On this day one year ago: the Washington CT Congregational Church. I seem to be in the habit of shooting churches in this Holiday season.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’ve become obsessed with a lens that I bought for a song on eBay, the lens that I wrote about in my December 19 and December 20 posts. Further research indicates that work started on the optical cell (the optical workings of the lens) at the Karl Zeiss works in Jena in December 1945. So it actually is a Zeiss Jena 5cm f1.5 Sonnar. The lens cell was subsequently fitted to a Leica screw mount body by an unknown third party, probably in Germany, the UK or US, for sale in the UK or US. The distance scale is denominated in feet and Zeiss itself didn’t make any lenses in Leica mounts as Leica was a competitor (Zeiss and Leica were the equivalent of Nikon and Canon today). I can see why it would have been worth the trouble to convert this lens to a Leica mount: it is actually the equivalent of an modern lens in most respects at f4 and beyond – its performance is simply breathtaking and it has a lovely signature. I’ll be continuing to shoot with it over the next few weeks. Here are two images from today taken with the Sonnar on my Leica Monochrom.
This is what the lens looks like.
On this day last year: more fun with my iPhone.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve taken a break from shooting with my new old lens. Here we are at a small Holiday dinner with some old friends, shot with my Leica Monchrom and 50 Summilux Asph. lens.
On this day last year: Messing around with my iPhone.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve spent some time digging around on the subject of Zeiss Jena lenses in the WW II and immediate post-war era. Jena was originally occupied by the Americans but was turned over to the Soviets and ultimately became part of East Germany. The Americans relocated some senior Zeiss managers and engineers and their families to the west; they went on to build what became the modern Carl Zeiss. When the Russians arrived in Jena they packed up the Zeiss equipment, drawings and records and most of the people and moved them to Kiev where they were set up to manufacture the same optics that had been made in Jena. The Contax factory and people were similarly moved to Kiev from Dresden. The Russians were acting within their legal rights – they had taken the Zeiss Jena and Contax business as part of the reparations from Germany. See this link for an interesting history: history of Kiev cameras. Ultimately after long Cold-War legal battles it was determined that the Kiev products couldn’t call themselves Zeiss in the United States so they became “Jenoptic” here. Here are some more images with my new old lens which is from this period.
Here’s the Seagrams building more or less wide open – the lens shows some aberration in the upper left corner.
Two frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: Bloomberg’s Christmas tree.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve got another new old lens to fuss with. The Zeiss Jena all time favorite from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s is the 5.0 cm f1.5 Sonnar (5 cm equals 50mm). It’s a classic design with a classic look that had a very long run (primarily on Contax rangefinder cameras). I found one at a reasonable price on e-bay in a Leica screw mount which can be easily adapted to a modern Leica (and many other contemporary digital cameras). The Contax mount is much less useful because it doesn’t include a focusing capability – the focus control was part of the camera body on Contax rangefinder cameras.
When the lens arrived I noted a couple of odd things about it: it has no depth of field scale and the distance scale is denominated in feet, not meters, an oddity given that its serial number suggested a wartime provenance (the Germans weren’t making lenses to send to the UK and US at that point in history). In the course of some research I learned a lot more about the lens, which I’ll describe in a future post.
So here is an example shot with my Leica Monochrom. Note the beautiful character of the out-of-focus portion of the images – one of the real charms of this lens.
On this day last year: iPhone riot.
