That warm glow imbuing every element in this scene is courtesy of the rising sun.
When photographing, it’s all about the light — you have to work to find it, and you can’t fake or photoshop it. In this scene, it’s permeating everything: his face, the tractor, the clouds… like dabbles of fluorescent paint.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
There’s a story going on here.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be posting more images taken with the wonderful Konica Hexanon 60mm f/1.2 – a lens I’ve used extensively in the past and more so lately.
If you’re interested in viewing all of my posted work with this lens, please see here.
—Peter.
Taken during the 2011 Santa Claus Parade, in Toronto, Canada.
The Konica Hexanon 60mm f/1.2, when shot wide open on the M9, yields a unique visual imprint that I find quite interesting. It is, for example, quite different from what I get with the Noctilux f/1.0.
If anybody out there can articulate the differences, I’d be happy to read your thoughts. To view a small (and not-so-rigorous) comparison between these two lenses, please see here.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
Slowly, under the spell of a good book, falling, falling…
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↑Leica M3, Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2, and Kodak Tri-X 400.
Catching spangles of light.
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↑Leica M3 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
This post is meant to serve as a little bit of an interlude from the Sunrise at Oxtongue Lake series…
DISCLAIMER: This is not intended to be an analysis of these two lenses. Not even close! I shot these for my own curiosity and am simply posting the results for your viewing pleasure and/or interest. You may choose to draw you own conclusions, and that’s fine (in fact, I’m interested in reading your comments). But please, please, don’t write that “this is not a valid comparison, because…“. I know it’s not a valid comparison.
Below, the Konica Hexanon 60/1.2 and Leica Noctilux 50/1.0 (E60) were shot wide open on the M9 (the reason one buys these exotic lenses is to shoot them wide open, so that’s the comparison that interested me).
The M9 was set to manual mode. Focus bracketing was used and the sharpest images from each lens were taken for the comparison (NOTE: despite doing this to ensure that the images were in focus, sharpness was not the only thing I was interested in).
Finally, the original DNG files were converted to JPG in Aperture. No post-processing whatsoever was used, other than the conversion.
So, here is the overall scene… focus was on the word “TATiRi” on the guitar head (the differences in the field of view are attributable to the 50mm and 60mm focal lengths).
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↑Konica Hexanon 60/1.2 @ f/1.2.
↑Leica Noctilux 50/1.0 @ f/1.0.
That famous peripheral “swirly” pattern of the Noctilux f/1.0 is certainly evident above (as an aside, the Nikkor Noct 58/1.2 is also famous for this).
And now I’m including several 100% crops from the above scenes. The first pair of crops are meant to demonstrate central sharpness.
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↑Konica Hexanon 60/1.2 @ f/1.2 (centre 100% crop)
↑Leica Noctilux 50/1.0 @ f/1.0 (centre 100% crop)
The next several pairs of crops are meant to demonstrate the character of the bokeh, as seen in two different regions from the main scene.
↑Konica Hexanon 60/1.2 @ f/1.2 (bottom left 100% crop)
↑Leica Noctilux 50/1.0 @ f/1.0 (bottom left 100% crop)
↑Konica Hexanon 60/1.2 @ f/1.2 (top centre 100% crop)
↑Leica Noctilux 50/1.0 @ f/1.0 (top centre 100% crop)
As I wrote above, I’d be interested in reading any commentary generated from this.
Glances flicker at Nuit Blanche, Toronto.
This photo was chosen as a Leica Fotografie International (LFI) Master Shot.
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↑Leica M3 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
Toppled on the couch.
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↑Leica M3 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
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↑Leica M3 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
And darling when we’re old
We’ll close the gates and lock the door
– Lenyy Kravitz, I build this garden for us.
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↑Leica M3 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
Nuit Blanche, Toronto.
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↑Leica M3 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
Time flies.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
And of course, later:
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↑Leica M2 and Voigtländer Nokton 35mm @ f/1.2.
I know it too well. She’s wondering if she’s ever going to get her coffee.
The lighting was tricky here… mixed natural and incandescent. On the other hand, the blinds shielded against the harshest of the outside light and things balanced nicely.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
I love how the girl furthest back, by adjusting her hair the moment the shutter was released, has filled out the composition: her posture creates an inverted triangle that fits like a puzzle piece between the triangles formed by the postures of the two figures closest to us. It is difficult to explain so here is a visual of what I mean:
She did get her coffee, eventually.
A candid shot.
This photo was chosen as a Leica Fotografie International (LFI) Master Shot.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm 1.2 @ f/1.4.
Immortalizing this moment, in the click of a shutter.
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↑Leica M9 and Konica Hexanon 60mm @ f/1.2.
Prosophos 