Portrait

Rangefinder cameras.

2013, Favourite, Inspiration, Leica 50mm Summilux ASPH f/1.4, Leica M9(P)/M-E (CCD Lives!), Portrait, Teaching point

Rangefinder

Life is too short, to have never experienced a rangefinder camera.

If you’re a photography enthusiast, and you’ve never had the pleasure, do yourself a favour and shoot with a rangefinder (Leica, Zeiss, Mamiya, Voigtländer, Contax, Nikon, Epson, Fuji, Yashica, or whatever).

It will change you.

—Peter.

36 x 24.

Inspiration, Leica 24mm Summilux ASPH f/1.4, Leica 50mm Noctilux f/0.95, Portrait, Q&A, Teaching point

How large a print can you make from an M9 file?

Well, the largest I’ve printed for clients is 36 x 24 inches:

24 x 36 M9 50 Summilux

Even at this large a size, the detail from the M9 and the 50mm Summilux combo used to create the image above is impressive.

However, yesterday I tried doing this for the first time with two other lenses:  the 24mm Summilux (f/1.4) and and the 50mm Noctilux (f/0.95).  Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting anything near as good as what I get from the technically brilliant 50 Summilux ASPH.

We’ll I’m happy to report that I was wrong.  They not only did well, they did exceptionally well — I was astounded to see how much detail the 24 Summilux and 50 Noctilux produce at their widest apertures.

But in the age of phone and tablet image viewing, most people will never encounter an actual print, let alone a 36 x 24 print.  So what does 36 x 24 actually look like?  I thought I’d show you with a little demonstration:

(please click on the image to view at MAXIMUM size and detail)

24 x 36 size demo

—Peter.