Chapter Eleven: Wetzlar, Germany, Leica One Challenge, October 2013
The first Leica prototypes were built by Oskar Barnack at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, in Wetzlar, in 1913 (wikipedia). At the time, Barnack’s intention was to build a small, compact camera that could be carried by landscape photographer to enable them to take photos without having to carry the heavy cameras of the day. The camera was designed to use standard 35mm film, but, instead of transporting the film vertically as was normal with cinema cameras, giving an 18x24mm frame size, the film was transported horizontally past the shutter, giving the now common format of 24x36mm. (As a side note, the reason that a standard roll of 35mm film had 36 exposures is said to be due to the fact that, at the time, since all film had to be rolled into the canister by hand, Oskar would pull a length of film to his arm span, and cut it off to roll. That gave 36 exposures. Whether that is completely true, I am not sure!)
- Leica Camera AG, Solms
Since 2013 was the 100 year anniversary of the build date of those prototypes, the Leica Camera Forum decided to hold their annual Leica One challenge in Wetzlar. The One Challenge is a weekend event which has been held for the past ten years, and each year takes in a different location.
- Comparing the old Leica IIIF with the new Leica M
- Leica Camera AG, Solms
We started the weekend off by meeting for dinner on the Thursday evening, and then on Friday all got up early to head off to Solms for a Leica factory tour. We were one of the last groups to get a factory tour in Solms, since Leica has built a new custom facility back in Wetzlar, and in February 2014 relocated all manufacturing operations to the new factory. Unfortunately we were strictly instructed that no cameras could be used inside, but nevertheless it was a fascinating opportunity to hear the story of the brand, and see first hand how the cameras and lenses are manufactured. Everything is manually performed by specially trained engineers, and it does, at least in part, give some explanation as to why the Leica products are so expensive. Everyone has a special task – for example we saw one employee whose role was to hold and focus each lens back and forwards for 8 minutes, to ensure the focusing movement is sitting well in the barrel. Due to the very precise manual operations that are involved in constructing such a piece of optical engineering, it will be interesting to see if the new state of the art factory will automate any of these processes, but my guess is not, with the exception of some of the simpler tasks, for example transporting parts from one workstation to another.
- A prototype of the one off Leica-R 1600mm f/5.6 lens. This lens was a special order for a Sheikh from Qatar, who reportedly paid $2 million to Leica to build such a lens…..
It was nice to see in the lobby in Solms a showcase with one example of each Leica camera that has been made to date. Although our tour guide did explain to us that the Leica 0, one of the first prototypes, that was on display was just a replica – after the recent auction where a Leica 0 Series was sold for over 2 million Euros, Leica decided to move their copy to a more secure location!
- Open the window!
After the factory trip, we took a short drive to Schloss Assenheim, and found the old castle and the village around it to be a good location for some photography, although it was fairly rainy at the time…….
- Schloss Assenheim
- Assenheim
One of the highlights of the weekend is the Challenge itself, which takes place over a two hour period during the Saturday afternoon. The idea is that each participating photographer is given two hours to go out and get the best shot he can – the only limitations he has is that he must use a one focal length, one film speed, and no more than one roll of film (or, for digital cameras, 36 exposures). After the weekend is over, each entrant has an amount of time to choose and submit his or her favourite image to the forum, and other members are invited to vote for their favourite images. I chose to use my Summicron 28mm lens, with an ISO of 200.
- Wetzlar Subway Street Art
Photographically speaking, Wetzlar is a nice little German town, with cobbled streets and fairly old architecture. However the weather on the day of the challenge was fairly grey and overcast. Although I had spent much of the morning before the challenge looking for a unique location to take a shot, when all the participants were let loose at 1pm, I didn’t have much idea of where I was going to go to take my images. I wandered around for a while, taking a few shots in the old town, before venturing out a little bit further. I found one location that I found interesting in a subway. Wetzlar city council have turned the subways into works of art by inviting local artists to create murals to decorate the walls. One subway I was walking through had an interesting mural with a picture of a girl and a speech bubble saying ‘I can’t believe he’s doing this to me’. I thought it might be a successful image if I could catch a shot of a couple walking buy, hand in hand, but although I waited around for 15-20 minutes, no one suitable arrived.
- Cyclist, my entry into the contest
Just as I was planning to leave, I noticed a young child approaching on a bike. I’d already seen that one of the other murals was of a sports cyclist, so I quickly got into position and grabbed a shot as she passed by the picture of the cyclist. I didn’t really have time to adjust my settings, but as luck would have it I was still on a fairly low shutter speed from my previous shots, so I got a nice blurred image of the child cyclist.
At the end of the two hours, I hadn’t taken more than 12 or 14 images, but I was happy with what I had got. Once I had processed my images I decided to enter the cyclist into the competition, and, a few weeks later after some heavy voting on the forum, I heard that I had received more votes than the other 40 entrants, and had won the competition!
- Wetzlar Bridge, my Night Challenge Entry
Also, after the dinner on Saturday evening, there is an optional One Night Challenge. Same rules apply, although a little less stringently applied, and I decided to enter that as well. During the daytime shooting I had already noticed Wetzlar bridge, and thought this might make for some nice nighttime shots. I was again lucky here, as the image I entered ended the Night Challenge in third position.
All in all, we had a great weekend, discovering Wetzlar, visiting the factory in Solms, and meeting old and new friends. Looking forwards to the 2014 challenge, which is due to take place this year in Istanbul…..
- John, Dan, and Ritsuko
- Lars
- Steve
- Ferd
- Dan
- John explaining why he loves his Noctilux 🙂
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Chapter Ten: Kinderdijk September 2013
In September I visited the famous village of Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk is a village in the Netherlands, belonging to the municipality of Molenwaard, in the province South Holland, about 15 km east of Rotterdam. Kinderdijk is situated in a polder in the Alblasserwaard at the confluence of the Lek andNoord rivers. To drain the polder, a system of 19 windmills was built around 1740. This group of mills is the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands. The windmills of Kinderdijk are one of the best-known Dutch tourist sites. They have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. (from wikipedia)
Kinderdijk Windmill
Each year, for a week during September, the windmills are lit by floodlight, and the aim of my visit was to take some pictures of the windmills around dusk time, to hopefully get the sunset and then see the effect of flood lights on the windmills. I arrived around 7pm so that I could take some photos during good light, and then stayed around until after sunset. I decided to shoot with the Leica M-E and my Summicron 28mm, mounted on a tripod. In retrospect, that wasn’t the best choice of equipment, and I would have been better taking my SLR along with a zoom lens, or at least a wider range of primes, as a lot of the windmills would have worked better with tighter framing.
Kinderdijk Windmill
I only ended up with a couple of photos that I was happy with, and most of these were after using HDR Efex Pro in post processing. The results might not look completely natural, but I felt the light on the day was a bit flat, and the unprocessed images just weren’t working for me. I don’t like to overuse HDR as a technique, and I don’t like the overly fake HDRs that some photographers create, but at the end of the day, the photography should be an artistic expression, and not necessarily an accurate recording of the scene ‘as was’. One of my favourite aspects of HDR is the effect that it has on the sky – it can turn a relatively flat or boring sky into something quite dramatic by finding cloud structures that aren’t to be seen in a single correctly exposed image.
Kinderdijk Windmill
You’ll see from the images here that I didn’t end up with many of the floodlit windmills 🙂 I wasn’t that impressed and just wasn’t able to shoot anything that I liked. Maybe down to the choice of equipment, maybe just an off day. But nevertheless, it was a fun evening using the M-E on a tripod, something that I don’t do that often.
Incidentally, I use a Markins ball head with an Arca-Swiss clamp. I looked around for a suitable base plate for the Leica M-E, but was unable to find one, so instead I went for the Really Right Stuff BM9-B replacement base plate. It has the Arca-Swiss plate built into the base plate, and looks good on the M-E.
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Chapter Nine: Amsterdam Street Photography September 2013
It’s always nice to take a wander around the streets and canals in Amsterdam, and recently during a break from work I had a chance to do so on a couple of occasions during the week, when the city is a little less crowded. I moved to the Netherlands 16 or 17 years ago now, and although I no longer live in Amsterdam, having moved to Amstelveen a couple of years ago, I still consider Amsterdam my ‘home from home’ – it’s a great place to wander around and explore, and there is always something new to discover.
The images in this post were taken in Amsterdam in September 2013 using the Leica M-E together with the 28mm Summicron lens. There is a common belief in the rangefinder community that the perfect trio of lenses to use with a rangefinder is a combination of the 28, 50, and 90mm focal lengths. I started off with a 35mm lens, and found it a very good choice for a lot of street photography, but sometimes I found myself wanting something slightly wider – the 35mm was just a bit too similar to the 50mm, and especially in cities with narrow streets I found myself wanting to take an additional (impossible) step backwards in order to get what I wanted framed in the shot.
Building art, Jordaan, Amsterdam
For me, the 28mm is a very good compromise. It’s wide enough to put the viewer right into the image, but it’s not so wide as to cause any distortion. The Summicron in particular is an extremely sharp lens, even wide open, and due to the wide focal length gives adequate depth of field when used wide open – at a focus of around 4m at f/2 for example, the depth of field ranges from 3m to 6m.
I’ve found that the 28mm Summicron provides an ideal one lens solution, and works equally as well as part of the afore mentioned trio. Initially I was discouraged when reading reviews on the internet, as a lot of photographers are very negative about the size of the lens hood, claiming it blocks out too much of the rangefinder viewfinder to be useful, however having used it for a while I hardly notice the blockage – sure it is there, but not enough to be irritating.
When I return from a session shooting street, I tend to find that I prefer my images once converted to black and white. I shoot in DNG (RAW) format, so this is very easy to do, and I use the Silver Efex Pro plugin from Nik Software (now part of Google) to do my black and white conversions.
Hipster, Leidseplein, Amsterdam
There is a community chess board on the Max Euweplein in Amsterdam, just near to the Hard Rock Cafe. During good weather there is always someone playing there…..
Chess on the Max Euweplein, Amsterdam
Frens Haringhandel has been serving fresh herring to passers by for over 25 years. Tasty with chopped onions and gherkins!
Frens Haringhandel, Koningsplein, Amsterdam
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Chapter Eight: Leica User Forum Photo Walk in Antwerp, July 2013
The Leica community has a popular online forum which boasts 5600 active users and 133000 members in total. The forum contains a wealth of information around the Leica product family, and members also organise informal get-togethers, or photo walks, around the world. In July 2013 I joined a group of 10 photographers in Antwerp. We spent the day wandering the streets and chatting cameras, with inevitable breaks for (liquid) refreshments.
Central Station, Antwerp
Door at the Puppet Theatre
Antwerp is a friendly city, and on a summer Saturday is alive with a mixture of tourists discovering what the city has to offer, and locals going about their business. We started off at Central Station, and then meandered through the back streets, finally ending up in the dock area at the MAS, or Museum aan de Stroom.
Camera salesman, Grote markt, Antwerp
Looking at the city of Antwerp from the MAS, Museum aan de Stroom
I spent most of the walk around using the 35mm Summarit lens, but during a cafe stop I switched to the 50mm Summicron to focus on some candids of the rest of the group. I find the Leica very unobtrusive for taking candids, as people don’t seem to notice the camera in the same way as they would do with a larger SLR, and even when they do see the camera, they tend to react in a different way
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Chapter Seven: Amsterdamse Bos, Spring 2013
There is a Japanese garden in the Amsterdamse Bos, a wooded area in-between Amsterdam and Amstelveen. Every spring time, the cherry blossoms bloom, and the garden is a popular weekend trip for many families in the neighbourhood. In April 2013 I went along to see if I could pick up some nice shots of the trees.
Cherry Blossoms
Due to the design of a rangefinder system, the photographer is fairly limited when it comes to focusing close up. The Leica rangefinder system has a close focusing distance of between 0.7m and 1.0m, depending on the lens used. Compare a 50mm f/2 Summicron lens, such as the one used in this post, which has a minimum focusing distance of 0.7m, with an equivalent Nikon or Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens which can focus up to around 0.45m, and the differences for close up photography are easily recognisable. Add to this the fact that a Canikon lens can also be used together with extension tubes or a close up filter to get even closer due to the design of the SLR through-the-lens system, and it can be a very easy decision to shoot with an SLR when you want to go close. However to see how flexible the Leica would be under these circumstances, I went along with the M-E matched with the 50mm Summicron.
Cherry Blossoms
I quickly realised that the sort of shots I would be able to get would be very different to an SLR system, so I concentrated on maintaining a wide aperture and differing planes of focus in order to have selective focus on specific flower buds in the shot. Due to the attractive bokeh (out of focus areas) that the Summicron exhibits, I was able to shoot all the images in this post at f/2, giving me some nice shots of the trees and blossoms.
Cherry blossoms
There are some possibilities for macro with the Leica rangefinder system, but this involves purchasing a fairly expensive Macro-Elmar 90mm lens, and a pair of ‘goggles’ that fit over the normal rangefinder windows to enable the camera to focus a lot closer. But it’s also a pretty expensive solution, so I will stick with using my Nikon and matching macro lenses when I want to get in real close. But for situations such as the Japanese cherry blossoms, I am quite happy to travel light and come back with these sort of results.
Japanese Garden in the Amsterdamsebos
Tabatha and Kyoko
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Chapter Six: Istanbul, April 2013
I had a busy couple of weeks travel in April, hitting Dubai, Istanbul, and Slovakia in a 10 day period. As with any business trip, photography has to take a back seat, but shooting with the rangefinder means it is a lot easy to carry my gear with me when I am traveling around. Of the few images I managed to take on this trip, I liked the juxtaposition of the shot of the lady next to the street vendor. I think it’s pretty clear whether it is the sports bag or the pretzels that she enjoys more 🙂
Sports Bag
Food is one of the aspects I enjoy with any Middle Eastern travel, and this shot shows a typical shop on the edge of the Grand Bazar – House of Spices, selling nuts, spices, and turkish delight…..
House of Spices
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Chapter Five: Dubai, April 2013
I have been lucky enough to visit Dubai a number of times through my career. My first trips were back around the Millennium, at which point I found the city to be developing fast, but still under control. However my journeys over the past 5 or 6 years have really shown the city to be growing at a faster pace than it can manage. To my eyes it looks like many of the new residences and office buildings are remaining empty, and the only ‘new’ developments that are really showing success are the hotels – in fact a colleague told me last year that Dubai intends to build 500 more in the run up to the World Expo, which will be held in Dubai in 2020.
Chocolate
I stayed at the Hilton at Jumeirah Beach, which was just next door to a new development, The Beach. It seemed the workers on site were working 24 hours a day to meet their deadlines – I could certainly hear them each night as I was going to sleep, and again once I woke up. Not much time for photography on this trip, but I was happy with a couple of shots that I did manage to take.
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Chapter Four: Prague, March, and Long Exposures
In March 2013 I visited Prague twice for business. On the second occasion I took along a tripod as well, and used this to take a number of long exposures on the Charles Bridge in Prague.
Walking the dog
From wikipedia: The Charles Bridge (Czech: Karlův most) is a famous historic bridge that crosses the Vltava river in Prague, Czech Republic. Its construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the beginning of the 15th century. The bridge was originally called the Stone Bridge (Kamenný most) or the Prague Bridge (Pražský most) but has been the “Charles Bridge” since 1870. As the only means of crossing the river Vltava (Moldau) until 1841, the Charles Bridge was the most important connection between Prague Castle and the city’s Old Town and adjacent areas. This “solid-land” connection made Prague important as a trade route between Eastern and Western Europe.
Locks on Charles Bridge, Prague. Placing locks on bridges in European cities has become a recent craze – couples place a lock on a metal structure to show the strength of their relationship
The bridge is 621 m long and nearly 10 m wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. It is protected by three bridge towers, two of them on the Lesser Quarter side and the third one on the Old Town side. The Old Town bridge tower is often considered to be one of the most astonishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them baroque-style, originally erected around 1700 but now all replaced by replicas.
Charles Bridge at night
It was an ideal opportunity to try out long exposures, especially due to the characteristics that the Leica lenses show when they are stopped down – as you can see from some of the images on the bridge, lights display a nice star characteristic. The exposures were mostly between 4 and 15 seconds, and this enabled me to maintain a low ISO so that I could take shots that were able to deal with the low light conditions without contributing to any noise in the final image.
Charles Bridge, looking towards Prague Castle
My tripods all use Markins ball heads, with an Arca Swiss style clamp. To allow me to fix the M-E to the ball head securely, I have replaced the stock Leica bottom plate with a Really Right Stuff bottom plate.
Charles Bridge, looking towards Prague Castle
Charles Bridge Tower
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Chapter Three: San Francisco, February 2013, and the Leica M-E
If you read my post from earlier in the year, you’ll see I made the decision to try out a Leica M6 in an effort to find a system camera that was more suitable for taking along with me when I travelled. After putting a bunch of films through the camera, I was quickly convinced that the Leica rangefinder was an ideal travel companion – legendary lenses, and a no nonsense camera body, which, whilst fully manual, offered enough flexibility to be able to shoot quickly and reliably. The size of the kit meant that I could slip the body and a couple of lenses into a bag, along with my laptop, in a fraction of the space that I would have required should I have chosen to travel with my Nikon gear. There was only one problem with the M6 – despite the fun of waiting for the films to be returned from the processor, and scanning the images in – it wasn’t satisfying the immediate need to see my images that I have become accustomed to whilst shooting digitally over the past 15 or so years.
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Restaurant in Chinatown, San Francisco
So, as my interest in the Leica camera system ‘developed’, I heard that a local Leica dealer, Henny Hoogeveen in Lisse, had a Leica M-E ex-demo body in stock at a very attractive price. To cut a long story short, I was able to purchase the body in time to take with me on a trip to San Francisco for the RSA conference.
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With a huge marketing budget, you would have thought RSA would have employed a proof reader. Or at least someone who knows how to spell February……
I had timed my travel so that I would have the weekend before the conference to recover from any jet lag, and spend a bit of time walking around the city. An ideal opportunity to see what the digital rangefinder would be able to do for me. The learning curve from the M6 was very slight – although the M-E is a digital body, feature wise it is very similar to the M6 in that it is very feature light – the only addition in terms of taking photos is the addition of aperture priority on the M-E in addition to the fully manual exposure mode that the M6 offers. Needless to say, both cameras are manual focus, which is quick and easy with the rangefinder.
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Sleeping Rough – if you look closely (click for a larger image) you’ll see a guy climbing out of the car’s trunk. He appeared to have spent the night inside….
Many street photographers choose to shoot with Leica, or other similar rangefinder cameras, as they are able to approach and photograph their subjects without getting in the way, and even if they are noticed the subject’s attention is hardly captured as the camera is very unobtrusive. Shooting with the M-E gives me a confidence that I never have with the Nikon in terms of the opportunities on the street where I will press the shutter release, rather than walking away when with a Nikon to avoid any unpleasant confrontations. With a bit of practice it’s possible to visualise what you will be seeing through the rangefinder, and prefocus and shoot from the hip if necessary. In the situations where you are noticed, a smile and a whispered thank you is normally enough to appease most people.
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Taking a break
I took my 35mm Summarit and a 50mm Summicron with me, and wandered through the streets of San Francisco looking for opportunities. In Chinatown the local community was celebrating the start of the Chinese New Year, providing a very photo rich environment, and as always a walk along Market Street offered a number of opportunities.
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Making a phone call
San Francisco is a beautiful city, and the mixture of cultures means there is something new to discover around every corner. I walked a fair distance during my days there, and carrying the Leica over my shoulder was no strain at all due to the lightweight construction. Since acquiring the M-E I have started to take my camera with me a lot more frequently, and ultimately taken many more photographs compared to previous years.
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Take my picture
Of course, the Leica comes at a price, and there is a lot of discussion in online forums as to whether or not the Leica is worth the money. After all, technology wise the camera is miles behind competition from the dSLR vendors such as Canon or Nikon. My Nikon D800 for example has excellent AF, and great low light capabilities – the Leica is manual focus, and starts to lose definition above around 1000 ISO. So ultimately, no, the Leica isn’t worth the price you pay if you are simply adding up features, but the Leica provides a different sort of emotion to the photographer, and a different way of shooting – after all Leica is celebrating 100 years of rangefinder cameras this year, and wouldn’t have been around for so long if they weren’t doing something right……
Stars and Stripes
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Chapter Two: With the M6 in Amsterdam, and Scanning the Results
After returning from Japan and seeing the quality of the images coming back from processing, I was happy to continue using the M6. There were a couple of issues that I needed to overcome – firstly processing, and secondly post processing, aka digitising the images…..
In Japan it had been fairly easy and inexpensive to get a roll of film processed. I had been shooting mainly with C41 process black and white films such as the Ilford XP2 and Kodak BW400CN emulsions. The advantage of these films is they use the same chemical process to develop as ‘normal’ colour films, and this means they can be developed anywhere that still provides the C41 process. In Japan, this is very common place – in a big city like Tokyo most photoshops can still develop and print a C41 within the hour, and I was even able to find hour processing in smaller towns as well. However once back in the Netherlands it was not so easy. Whilst there are a number of professional labs that are still willing to take vast amounts of money to give you a personal (and very high quality) service, one hour labs have pretty much disappeared. After a bit of research, I chose to go with Hema – for around 10 Euros they will process and print the film for you, although it does take 3-4 days.
Queuing up to take a break, M6 with Summicron 90mm
Whilst Hema do offer to scan the negatives in as well, it typically happens at a low resolution, and this would not provide the quality that I desired, so I chose to purchase my own scanner. After a lot of research, my options were clear – either I went very high end with Imagon, and would end up paying around 10k for the scanner (not going to happen), or I went high end with Nikon, and would pay around 2k for a second hand and discontinued scanner, or I would keep my spend under 300 Euros, and would buy one of the Plustek scanners. These have been getting good reviews on line, so I decided to go with the Plustek Opticfilm 8200i. I also purchased a copy of the excellent VueScan software, using this in preference to the delivered software, and have been very happy with the results. Scanning definitely has a learning curve, though, and in particular keeping the negatives dust free is a hassle (another use for the Giottos Rocket Blower….).
Nieuwmarkt Amsterdam, 90mm Summicron
In early January 2013 I joined a Meetup photo walk in Amsterdam center, and decided to take the M6 along. I had also just purchased a very old (1974) and heavy Summicron 90mm lens, so it was an ideal chance to try it out. Compared to digital, I realised I was taking my time with the photos, and shot a lot less than I usually would have done on such an occasion. All of the shots were taken on that day on 400iso film (of course it’s not possible to change the ISO ‘mid film’ in the same way as you can with digital), so I was particularly restricted once the light started to drop.
Waiting for a hot dog, 90mm Summicron
I was shooting on colour C41 film (Kodak Portra 400), and I find it quite hard to get the colour balance correct on scanning, hence a number of these images were converted to black and white. Although personally I tend to prefer the use of black and white for ‘street’ photography anyway.
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat, Amsterdam, 35mm Summarit
I realised once I got the film back that some of the results were less sharp than I had hoped, and after some later investigation I discovered that the 90mm lens suffered from some front focus. Hopefully something that will be fixed when the lens goes in for a CLA (Clean, Lubricate, and Adjust) with Wil van Manen at some point in the future, and then it will once more be a sharp lens.
Ice skating on Museumplein. Every year the Museumplein is covered over with an artificial ice rink. At this point of the day the light was dropping off pretty quickly
All the shots in this post were taken with the M6, using either the Summarit 35mm or the Summicron 90mm.
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