Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/04/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Duane Birkey wrote: >Uranium toner??????? Never heard of such a toner. How would describe >it's effect and color on the print and where can you buy it? I'm not >sure I want to anyhow, I use a selenium for increasing D-max without >significant color changes . > >(I can't resist this one) Is this how you achieve the Leica "glow" >with your Contax TVS? > >Still chuckling, Jim Brick continued: >I think you get photographer "glow" with uranium toner. He may have meant >"unobtanium", the rarest of rare metal toners. Well, it is OK to ask if you don't know, but chuckling and using irony when you have no idea about what you are talking about, is a sign of weakness. The "Uranium" toner exists. It consists of what we call in French "Nitrat d'uranil", which is a natural, low radioactive substance. Darkroom alchemists, like myself, use it to obtain what we in French call "virage a l'urane", a warm, light brown tone, similar to brick. Yes, Jim Brick! Previously it was delivered in ordinary plastic containers, now there is a lot of security measures about storage and use of this product (it comes in steel containers and so on). The radioactivity is far below the legal standards of course, at the level of "natural" radioactivity. Anyway, the uranic toner (better translation?) gives a beautiful aspect. I am getting a bit tired of this talking about "glow", as something exclusively reserved for Leica cameras. I have seen how ridiculous this superstition may be. I have seen images made by simple, cheap non-Leica cameras being presented to "juries" of fundamentalist Leica users. They always went into the trap, pointing out the "beautiful Leica glow". It was simple cameras as Minox, Olympus, Lubitel 6x6 (!) and others... Chuckling over Contax T2/TVS is not very wise. You should remember that these cameras have excellent Carl Zeiss Sonnar lenses, designed by Zeiss Oberkochen and made from Schott optical glass. I have been using a lot of different cameras in my life, both M-Leicas, Contax Ts, Zeiss Ikons, Voigtlanders, Rolleis, Nikons, Hasselblads, Linhofs etc. Believe me, I have found the "glow" in all these cameras. MF and LF cameras have much of it, of course. I have heard Leica users in LF exhibitions talking about that great "Leica glow". Leica is very good, but it might leave you blind... The "glow" has always been important for me. I am mainly looking for what J. Tlumak, in the excellent revue "Rfinder", calls "the extra dimensional factor", the impression of life in an image. Some Leica lenses and the Rolleiflexes gave me that, and the Sonnar lenses also give me this impression of roundness and plasticity. More, or less, depending upon the light, of course. Some Nikkor lenses give me this, too, and I have seen images made with other rangefinder cameras such as the Contax, Zorki, Nikon and Canon rangefinders, (including screwmount Leicas). My Olympus mju-2 has the "glow" as well...with a 2.8/35mm lens, 2-zone light metering, switchable to spot metering, AE range from EV 1.0 to EV 17 (F2.8 at 4 sec. - F11 at 1/1000sec), weatherproof, normal price in France about $160-170. It is my 'always-in-the-pocket-camera', and it is so small that I sometimes have to look after if I still have it! My point is not that Leica make bad cameras and lenses! But I think that Leica products are overpriced and overestimated. And I know that you may obtain similar, sometimes better results with other cameras, much cheaper, as solid as, or more solid than the Leicas. Photography is more than a camera and a lens. First you need brain glow, heart glow and glow in the eyes. At the end comes the alchemy, where the circle once again joins the brain, the heart and the eyes. A good image is something very complex and mysterious. It has a universal message and is capable of making people anywhere laugh, cry, smile, or revolt. Oddmund