Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/17

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Subject: Re: [Leica] ........ disadvantage of a Leica .......
From: "claire" <clairetm@singnet.com.sg>
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 03:37:52 +0800

Dear Ted........
Thanks fo rthe reply..... I am glad you reminded me.......  I shall make a
concerted effort to use wide open and inject more feel into th epics....

Actually I was happy about the sharpness cos I just acquired the R100/2.8
and couldn't wait to see its excellence .

A lot of the holiday shots, being outdoorsy and landscpe etc ,.... were
already at infinity..... so the sharpness was unavoidable - so to speak.....

About the infocus and outfocus effects, yes..... now that you mentioned it,
especially the macro shots stood out..... but I also tried shooting wide
open at f2.8..... that of my 2 year old daughter...... the pics have a lot
more feel and 'depth' ..... tho' I struggled a lot at getting the eyes in
focus.......

I did the same with my R28/2.8 and the effect is even more pronounced.....
yes I like the pics at wide open..... I find taking pics of my kids
challenging...... very satisfying when it alll falls into place.........

I must confess I shot most pics in Program mode........




>Is this because you were stopped way down rather than using wider apertures
>and isolating scenes and sections to capture the mood of the scene?
>
>I've always found shooting holiday stuff, that if you shoot everything
>around the proverbial and recommended "f 8 - 11 and be there" you'll end up
>with an awful lot of "postcard images without feeling"  Sharp as hell and
>correctly exposed. But dead and dull and boring postcard images.
>
>Or you shoot by personal feelings illustrating your re-actions of the
>loction and not the post card shooters idea of "a perfect post card" photo.
>
>You know what some techies say,  "To get the maximum sharpness for your
>lens be sure to stop down to 8 or 11". With this method you have the
>potential of killing the mood and feeling of the location. Besides we're
>using Leica, so what's the big deal about not shooting wide open?
>
>Don't get me wrong, there are times you need to be stopped down to f22 for
>max. depth of field for a particular scene. However, I work as much in the
>same method as I do on paying assignments, "Using the widest possible
>aperture and highest possible shutter speed!"  Everywhere that I do not
>require a great depth of field for a given situation.
>
>If you haven't tried this, why not give it a go.  A few frames around the
>home town. Be sure to shoot both stopped down and as wide as possible on
>the same subject for comparison, then see how you capture a different mood.
>Besides, soft out of focus backrounds can be far more pleasing than the
>raggedy assed "everything must be sharp" which shows all the clutter in
>perfect sharpness!
>
>ted
>
>
>Ted Grant
>This is Our Work. The Legacy of Sir William Osler.
>http://www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant
>
>