Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/01/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Curse you Mr. Brown! I have the chance to buy a Noctilux and I had talked myself out of it. Too big , too heavy, too much vignetting, too much money! Now you go and post those wonderful images and it looks like my children will have no inheritance! John Collier > From: Chandos Michael Brown <cmbrow@mail.wm.edu> > Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 11:54:11 -0500 > Subject: Re: [Leica] Chandos xmas eve images > > Here some examples: > > Photo 1: full frame. Kodak T400CN. f1@1/30. > > http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown/photography/People/babybob2.htm > > Photo 1, detail 1: > > http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown/photography/People/detail1.jpg > > The child's face--eyes are my principle index of relative focus. > > Photo 1, detail 2: > > I actually focused the M3 on the plate and its contents, hard, clear > reference edges close to the plane of focus. I watched for the kid's > rocking back and forth and tried to shoot when he was within appropriate > depth of field. In the final image, he *is* slightly out of focus, > compared to the plate, but against the overall effect of the blurred candle > light in the foreground and the softened champagne bottles in the > background, to my mind, at least, his eyes are acceptably sharp and arresting. > > http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown/photography/People/detail2.jpg > > Photo 2: infant, full frame f1@1/15 > > Hard edge of napkin focus reference. > > http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/faculty/brown/photography/People/babybob1.htm > > Photo 2, detail 3: > > Again, Daddo's rocking the kid so I have to calculate the in-focus > zone. Using eyes and ruffle as an index, I believe that the image is > acceptably sharp--especially in an 6x9 print--against the very diffuse > background. > > All of this is to say--in the professor's typically effusive manner--that > these images represent what's on the film, well reproduced by the scanner > (Nikon LS 2000--5 pass--"clean"--white balance--VueScan 5.8). Are they > bench-test samples of the Noctilux's capabilities? Manifestly not. Do > they represent the 'real-world' capabilities of the lens? Again, to my > mind, absolutely. Could one accomplish this sort of thing (good or bad) > with another optic? Possibly, but I can't.