RE: [Leica] Guess the Lens, was PWIFLI: Portrait of Marianne

["Phong" <phong@metrowerks.com>]

Peter,

> Only one  person correctly identified one of the lenses, but he matched it to the 
> wrong picture.

That was me.  I knew you had a LTM 50 1.4 Nikkor, so I had a 50/50 
chance to guess right on that one.  I know nothing to be able to identify 
lenses from photos, especially B&W, especially on the web.  I did take 
the opportunity to take a closer look at the pictures to guess, and play
Leica lens connoisseur on the net.  Thanks for the [cheap :-)] thrill.   :-)

Re. Cirque du Soleil, how was the show (which ?), and much more importantly
would they allow flashless photography ?  I have tickets (Thu Quidam) for 
my son's birthday in a couple of weeks.  I am debating  M6 and/or Minilux
and  400 or 800 color negative film.  Anybody has any suggestions ?
I have a 35/1.4, 75/1.4, 90/2.0 for the M.  I don't want to bring more than 2 M lenses;
much prefer just one.   My inclination is M6 90/2 + Minilux, 800 color film.  
Thanks in advance,

- - Phong




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Peter Klein
> Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 1:03 AM
> To: leica-users-digest@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: [Leica] Guess the Lens, was PWIFLI: Portrait of Marianne 
> 
> 
> OK, folks, here's the results of the Guess The Lens contest.  Only one 
> person correctly identified one of the lenses, but he matched it to the 
> wrong picture.  The person who thought one picture was taken with a Summar 
> and one with a Summicron had the right idea, but the wrong lenses.
> 
> This picture was taken with an early-1950s 50/1.4 Nikkor, wide open at 1/60:
> http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/marianne-4.jpg
> 
> And this one was taken with a nearly-new 50/1.5 Voigtlander Aspheric 
> Nokton, wide open at 1/60:
> http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/marianne-5.jpg
> 
> The 1/3 stop difference in apertures is insignificant for black and white 
> film.  The reason why somebody thought the Nikkor picture was exposed less 
> is because the Nikkor has significantly less contrast.
> 
> As far as delivering detail to the negative, the Nokton is clearly the 
> better lens wide-open.  However, the Nikkor is kinder to women over 30.  My 
> wife strongly preferred all the Nikkor's "portraits" to the Nokton's, 
> having no idea which was which.
> 
> For those who thought that camera shake or focusing mistakes played a part 
> in which lens looked better, sorry, but I don't think so.  I shot several 
> pictures of two different people with each lens, and the differences 
> between the lenses are apparent in all of the shots.  One thing about the 
> Nikkor is that at this distance, wide open, it has a "hump" of decent focus 
> rather than a sharp "peak" of razor-sharp focus like the Nokton. I focused 
> very carefully on an eye in all cases.
> 
> Remember, neither picture has any sharpening applied.  And all lenses are 
> less than perfect at f/1.4, where abberrations abound and the depth of 
> field is a whopping two inches.
> 
> Perhaps a couple of more pictures will demonstrate things a little more 
> clearly.  Here's a Nikkor shot of another colleague.  This is a full frame, 
> shown for scale.  It's is a normal Web-JPEG with curve adjustments and 
> sharpening, reduced from my printing 
> file:  http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/susan.jpg
> 
> Now here's a detail of just the face with each lens. No size reduction, 
> *no* sharpening and *no* curve adjustments.  These pictures were both shot 
> at 1/30 and f/1.8.  Warning: These are approximately 140K files.
> 
> Nikkor:  http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/susan4-detail.jpg
> Nokton: http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/susan5-detail.jpg
> 
> Anyway, I hope this has been useful to somebody.  It's unscientific, may 
> not apply to your lenses,  and may have been influenced by the moon, swamp 
> gas, or the fact that I saw Cirque du Soleil last weekend.  BUT it does 
> show what these two lenses do, hand held, in available light 
> conditions.  The differences show up on a 2700 dpi scan, so they're not 
> academic.
> 
> --Peter Klein
> Seattle, WA
> 
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