WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – So this was my day to put my 135mm APO-Telit on my Monchrom. I’m not great with long lenses, but the compression of perspective actually creates an attractive effect on a snowy day like today. I’m using it handheld, which means shooting at high ISO to get a short enough shutter speed to deliver the sharpness that this lens is capable of. Because of the flat perspective it is very easy and reliable to stitch frames, so in my hands it becomes effectively a 50 to 135mm zoom.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m keeping up the thread on old lenses. I went out today with my 1959 Leica Dual-Range Summicron. I’ve shot this lens extensively in the past two years, but almost always at f5.6 and higher, a range where this lens behaves like a modern Leica lens (its character is very similar to the current 35mm Summicron). Today I resolved to shoot it at f2.0, where it has a lower contrast, more dreamy quality. Here is one from the street:
I also resolved to try the 1937 Carl Zeiss Sonnar on my Monochrom relying on close focus and guessing at longer focus distances. Here you go.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – More experimenting with odd lenses. Today I attached a Leica 280mm lens designed for the dearly departed Leica reflex camera to my Leica M via an adapter and used the M’s electronic viewfinder to focus an frame. This lens has a sensational reputation, which based on this brick wall torture test, it deserves. But it’s a handful and the Leica M’s EVF isn’t very good so it is quite hard to work with.
Out my window
NEW YORK NEW YORK – On the street with my Monochrom and 5cm Nikkor from the mid-1950s. Later at a dinner at the Union League Club for Robin Dresser who received the Maxwell Perkins Award with my Leica Monochrom and 35mm Summicron lens.
HatMaria and Robin Dresser
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I went out today in midtown with my Leica M (which unlike my Monochrom actually takes color pictures) and the 1937 vintage 8.5cm Carl Zeiss Jena lens that I wrote about yesterday. It produces muscular results. Very nice. Here is a typical (for me) shot around Citicorp Center and a wreath that Maria is using as her office Christmas card image this year.
Then for the evening I moved back to my Monochrom and Luxochron lens for a visit to my friend Bill Beekman’s place for a tour of his Virginia Woolf first editions, letters and so on.
Christmas CardOld lensBill and TedTedMaria and Ted
