my photo blog

just before sunset. leica m4p with summicron 35.

M4P, with either a Summicron 35/2 or a Zeiss 28/2.8, uncropped, but adjusted for sepia in Picasa.

This was taken a few days ago in the first heavy rains of fall with Fuji 400 film, and cropped slightly, and converted from color to b&w in Picasa. The camera was a Zorki 4K which has a huge clear life-size viewfinder, with built in diopter adjustment, and the Leica Screw Mount Jupter 8 50mm lens that usually came with this camera kit.

Unfortunately, this camera only has framelines for 50mm lenses, so using any other focal length requires guessing or using an external viewfinder in the hot shoe. On my M mount cameras I usually use the Hexanon 50mm, although I do have an adapter to use this fast sharp f2 lens on an M body. The J8 also uses the same filter and hood diameter as the Rokkor 40/2 lenses (40.5mm) which is convenient. I think I paid less than $100 for both the Zorki 4K, and the Jupiter 8 lens combination a couple of years ago. Quite a bargain, compared to German and Japanese stuff from the same era - I think late '70s, or early '80s.

Leica M4P with 35/2 Cron ASPH, Fuji 200 film. F8 @ 1/125.

Taken with Leica M6, Kodak 800 film, and Summicron 35/2 v4 pre-asph "king of bokeh" lens. Film is OK for budget drugstore 800 film, with Walgreens processing, but the grain and over-saturation of the film shows when enlarged. For this image, I used Picasa to slightly de-saturate. The bokeh probably looks fine on-screen, but when enlarged on an 8x10 print, the out of focus trees in the center almost start to have a fish scale type effect, similar to the reference here: http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=004LWx although less dramatic and highlighted than what I've seen with other lenses.