Film Homage to the Creator of Serious Compacts...

stillshunter

Super Moderator Emeritus
Location
Down Under
Name
Mark
I don't think many would dispute - well there's always one or two isn't there :rolleyes: - that the daddy of all Serious Compacts would be Oskar Barnack who created the original 35mm back at the turn of the 20th Century. Let us all give thanks to the Creator :hail: Well my photography has recently taken a turn back to its roots. Enter the Leica IIIf (red dial) with Summicron 50mm into my life. Some claim the IIIf is the pinnacle of the Barnack - with the IIIg being a departure from Oskar's original intent and design. So in my hands I hold the product of the Mind of the Creator…Some say, the Leica-M flies in the face of Oskar's Vision…I look forward to better understanding how and why.

It's too early for me to say whether this camera is the best thing ever, but what I will say at this early stage is that we are bonding and what many claim as shortfalls (squinty finder, painful bottom loading, etc.) are figuring as non-issues for me so far. I'll also add the IIIf is slowing me down and making me really think about exposure, framing, focus, etc., and for that I am glad….

I will add more, but here is the kit as she arrived a week or so ago.
12163609494_95d679beac_b.jpg

new old friend by stillshunter, on Flickr

…and here's some initial results from my test rolls.
12162010745_a9596b4095_z.jpg

portrait of Monarch by stillshunter, on Flickr

12161792275_1efc236f41_b.jpg

hmmm... by stillshunter, on Flickr

Meanwhile love to hear more about folks experiences with a Barnack
 
I wish someone would make a digital camera that looked like that. Not kinda like that....exactly like that. There this super cool kid that is a regular at the record store and he always has some sort of Leica III around his neck. We talked about it briefly the other day while I was buying some records from him so he could eat. He said the Leica may be the next casualty of being under-employed and dependent on food. He said he'll miss it, but it's replaceable. He said he'll never sell his Sumicron, though.
 
Mark,

I had already commented on that first photo on Flickr, but the second one is just as outstanding. Amazing sharpness and gorgeous tones. That Summicron is one sharp and contrasty lens, and the TMax and Perceptol combination looks great.

Nice work!

Antonio
 
Thanks all. Very humbled! It's funny how you click with this camera- I didn't think I would but….

Is there some sort of "line" through the center of the image?
Yeah it's from the scanner - normally down to a bit of dust in the calibration window. I could/should rescan the image…but this one will be wet printed one day very soon. But this goes to show this is how the image comes straight off the scanner…no PP wizardry.

I wish someone would make a digital camera that looked like that. Not kinda like that....exactly like that.
I recall someone saying that exact same thing a little while ago….either way I totally agree. It's form factor and function os great and so small….the photos dont do it justice.

There this super cool kid that is a regular at the record store and he always has some sort of Leica III around his neck. We talked about it briefly the other day while I was buying some records from him so he could eat. He said the Leica may be the next casualty of being under-employed and dependent on food. He said he'll miss it, but it's replaceable. He said he'll never sell his Sumicron, though.
Yeah that 'cron's got personality…I was lucky as the front glass of mine is very, very clean - a rare thing with that soft front objective. Also values are low because it doesn't collapse well on digital bodies :yahoo: great for us film shooters!
 
It looks like the weather is very bright where you are at the moment.
Is the LCD any good in that sort of light?

I know Paul, tell me about it.:shakehead: It's rumoured the next release will have a tilt screen and incorporate white light OLED technology. Meanwhile my other main gripes are with the uncustomisable knobs and buttons as well as the sticky ISO - mine's gotten locked for up to 36 shots. Just hope Leica addresses these in the next firmware!
 
It's rumoured the next release will have a tilt screen and incorporate white light OLED technology. Meanwhile my other main gripes are with the uncustomisable knobs and buttons as well as the sticky ISO - mine's gotten locked for up to 36 shots. Just hope Leica addresses these in the next firmware!

Mark, being Leica if they do it won't happen quickly, after all that model hasn't evolved for decades, and it won't come cheap.

Barrie
 
For all the fuss we make about Leicas these days, they were never on my radar at all when I was shooting 20 and 30 years ago - not once!

It was only when I started into the digital m43 world that they started to become visible to me, and curiously I've never particularly wanted one, whether Barnack stylee or M-stylee (although I perfectly see that a nice Barnack is a very pretty camera, and an M - perhaps especially the MP - is a handsome beast in a Bauhausy-cum-Form-Follows-Function sort of way).

(My Bessa is a very nice camera indeed, but I only bought it to properly employ the various M and LTM lenses I'd acquired for my E-P2.)

I always just wanted a really nice SLR (preferably an Olympus), and now I've got one :D
Well, more than one, actually :redface:
 
I know Paul, tell me about it.:shakehead: It's rumoured the next release will have a tilt screen and incorporate white light OLED technology. Meanwhile my other main gripes are with the uncustomisable knobs and buttons as well as the sticky ISO - mine's gotten locked for up to 36 shots. Just hope Leica addresses these in the next firmware!

-snicker- Looks just like my Minolta 35 Model II-- sounds like it too. But while you are having trouble with the uncustomizable knobs and sticky ISO (I have found ways around that btw ;), I have a format issue, it seems to be a manufacturer ...aberration, it's this odd 24 x 32 pixels or something :D
 
For all the fuss we make about Leicas these days, they were never on my radar at all when I was shooting 20 and 30 years ago - not once!

It was only when I started into the digital m43 world that they started to become visible to me, and curiously I've never particularly wanted one, whether Barnack stylee or M-stylee (although I perfectly see that a nice Barnack is a very pretty camera, and an M - perhaps especially the MP - is a handsome beast in a Bauhausy-cum-Form-Follows-Function sort of way).

(My Bessa is a very nice camera indeed, but I only bought it to properly employ the various M and LTM lenses I'd acquired for my E-P2.)

I always just wanted a really nice SLR (preferably an Olympus), and now I've got one :D
Well, more than one, actually :redface:

After I started with a little Olympus zone focus camera (35EC if I remember), all I wanted was an OM-1. Once I got one, it was my small format camera of choice for decades, and I still shoot with it. My taste for rangefinders is relatively recent, and I now probably shoot my un-Barnack Bessa more than any other, though I find the little clamshelled XA irresistable.

My Barnack -- the first and only I've ever owned -- is a IIIb from 1938. I confess I like having the rangefinder and viewfinder in the same window, especially as my glasses keep me from seeing the viewfinder very well, and I'm thrown back on using a Soviet made turrent finder (one of their many rip offs of Leica hardware). I honestly like the idea of the Barnacks more than I like shooting it.

The 50mm Summicron is another story, and it pretty much lives on the Bessa. Mine does have a slightly marked front element, but it is still quite sharp. I take the IIIb out for a spin three or four times a year -- for the experience and to maintain it as a working camera.
 
I don't think many would dispute - well there's always one or two isn't there :rolleyes: - that the daddy of all Serious Compacts would be Oskar Barnack who created the original 35mm back at the turn of the 20th Century. Let us all give thanks to the Creator :hail: Well my photography has recently taken a turn back to its roots. Enter the Leica IIIf (red dial) with Summicron 50mm into my life. Some claim the IIIf is the pinnacle of the Barnack - with the IIIg being a departure from Oskar's original intent and design. So in my hands I hold the product of the Mind of the Creator…Some say, the Leica-M flies in the face of Oskar's Vision…I look forward to better understanding how and why.

It's too early for me to say whether this camera is the best thing ever, but what I will say at this early stage is that we are bonding and what many claim as shortfalls (squinty finder, painful bottom loading, etc.) are figuring as non-issues for me so far. I'll also add the IIIf is slowing me down and making me really think about exposure, framing, focus, etc., and for that I am glad….

I will add more, but here is the kit as she arrived a week or so ago.
12163609494_95d679beac_b.jpg

new old friend by stillshunter, on Flickr

…and here's some initial results from my test rolls.
12162010745_a9596b4095_z.jpg

portrait of Monarch by stillshunter, on Flickr

12161792275_1efc236f41_b.jpg

hmmm... by stillshunter, on Flickr

Meanwhile love to hear more about folks experiences with a Barnack

If those shots are Tmax in perceptol, you have just convinced me to give Tmax another try. It looks like a wonderful combination; never liked it in Tmax developer and thereafter studiously avoided the T-grain emulsions, except the late, lamented 3200 in special circumstances, though I found HP5 could very usefully go to 1600.

Anyway the tmax/perceptol comb is one I'll have to try.
 
My Barnack -- the first and only I've ever owned -- is a IIIb from 1938. I confess I like having the rangefinder and viewfinder in the same window, especially as my glasses keep me from seeing the viewfinder very well, and I'm thrown back on using a Soviet made turrent finder (one of their many rip offs of Leica hardware). I honestly like the idea of the Barnacks more than I like shooting it.
Hey Larry,

Considering my first foray into Leica was with an M2 I thought the separate finder windows would figure as a issue, but they are affecting my approach to photography…and in a healthy way. I am now more mindful, esp. about the very separate act of focusing and composing. Often times with the M, I'd trip the shutter as soon as I found a nice crisp image at my eye. Now I am thinking more about my critical point of focus and then my depth of field. Hence, I am better understanding the role of hyper focal shooting and thinking in 'zones'. Once I have my zone (including metering figured out upstairs), I am free to focus (pardon the pun) on composition and simply watching. Now I confess to wanting an SBOOI (the Leica 1:1 hotshot finder) but not as an objection to the 'squinty' viewfinder but to augment the watching/composing experience. The idea of both eyes open observing a scene within your zone is an attractive one.

Again it is early days and just an early observation about something that's clicked for me. I imagine someone like yourself coming from zone-focus camera your mind was wired this way early. Mine is a road of undoing the laziness about fundamentals. Not blaming digital per se, but just like most mathematics can be done on a calculator, understanding basic arithmetic and your times tables can give you a better appreciation of how that numbers stuff works.
 
If those shots are Tmax in perceptol, you have just convinced me to give Tmax another try. It looks like a wonderful combination; never liked it in Tmax developer and thereafter studiously avoided the T-grain emulsions, except the late, lamented 3200 in special circumstances, though I found HP5 could very usefully go to 1600.

Anyway the tmax/perceptol comb is one I'll have to try.
Must say I like Perceptol, and it was a nice discovery; a bonus being development times are longer than usual - box speed TMax400 is over 17 minutes - so it is more forgiving of temperature and time hiccups :blush:. But I also very much like TMax in Xtol. It's a hassle to mix and to use within 6 months - Xtol has an awful shelf life and the two-part mix is only reliable in 5 litres - but the mid tones are so creamy…and it is the most environmentally friendly of developers :laugh1:
 
Back
Top