I can understand why one likes film. I find myself trying to "emulate" the feel of B&W film in PS far too often myself. Good to see some pros who haven't lost that magic despite their needs to publish fast. Really inspiring stuff on this web site, thanks for sharing your ideas.
Sep 04, 2008 2:22 PM
great stuff. xo ands & megs
Sep 03, 2008 9:21 AM
I love your page and photos :) join me please
Sep 02, 2008 8:44 AM
Hey that photo of the republican national convention is funny.
Aug 27, 2008 3:16 AM
thank you for coming the other night, it was great to see you!
xx
Aug 22, 2008 2:56 AM
Great photos! Really like the photos from the ioecho @ viper entry . Great stuff there!
Aug 19, 2008 4:46 AM
Hi Chris!! I'm finally back to Uber after my hard jobs far from home and the fast internet networks... I saw the street contest page and i hope i will be able to upload one of my "works"! in the last weeks I hanged out with my Yashica GSN with some Ilford rolls... now i'm waiting the prints delivery... and i hope to see some good stuff from them! Thank you very much for this contest! thanks to you and all the people that work in it! (sorry for my rude english)! Thanks!! Cheers!
Aug 12, 2008 10:21 PM
Either J has a twin or I ran into her in in downtown Boise Saturday night.
www.famefifteen.c om
Aug 05, 2008 3:42 PM
Hi Chris, just a little belated thanks for dropping by and commenting on my photos. Hope things are good in la-la land. ;)
Jul 31, 2008 2:08 AM
Hey Chris, I bumped into Mark when he was here in the Philippines. Handed him a couple tiny calling cards. Hope he gets to hand one to you. He said he'd probably see you next week. I might drop by December, maybe we can kick it then.
Jul 30, 2008 8:17 PM
i miss you!! i hope all's well. we just found out we'll be opening for Hot Chip Sept 21st in Los Angeles at the Wiltern. come!
xx
Jul 29, 2008 6:55 PM
hope everythings well and safe with you and yours, just caught the news about the quake.
Jul 29, 2008 3:15 PM
Hey bro, hope nothing too bad happened round yourself with the quake and shit.
Jul 24, 2008 11:10 PM
Thanks for stopping by my pages. Really means a lot to me. :)
Happy Friday Chris, It's Donato's foster daughter...he adopted her when she was 13 and now she's a bright 20 year old interning with Tarina. Really wonderful.
Hope you and the lovely lady are well! x
Jul 04, 2008 10:07 AM
Thanks for the informative and entertaining posts And well... oh yeah.. pictures too!
And for reviving the word "wanker".
desmond
Jun 26, 2008 7:01 AM
some of your photos really inspires me, & i appreciate what you do.
whilst others are responding to a shrinking global economy with even higher prices, i think it's interesting when a company makes a perfectly viable lens for my leica m's ...
Nice lens! I love what it does... I mean what you did with it :) Lovely shots and for that price I think its totally worth it, then again I never shot with Leica glass and so I wouldn't understand the difference. I like what I see though... even in low light it seems great for the $$.
I'm totally freaking out over the 5d MarkII... I almost bought the 5d but after some discussion on the uber photography group posts, Nhat and others advised me to wait. Even if I don't get the MarkII I will save some money on the 5d. Now it looks like I want the Mark 2 :) I'm actually getting some offers to shoot, from people who have seen my stuff here on Uber... but I have no camera to work with.
I figure if I buy a decent camera I could get more work and eventually it'll pay itself... I'm just a little nervous about the $$... I shouldn't be but I am.
I enjoyed your post very much! So great to see some b&w living. Take care Chris!
Posted by on September 20, 2008 8:37 AM
i waited to this post. i'm a fan of 28mm and as you know, in my heart i already own a m6 ...just all just question of time :) i guess the Voigtländer 28/2 will be my first choice to start the m career. it looks promising
Posted by on September 20, 2008 4:39 AM
Greetings and all that... LOVED the the shot of b and M learning to ton "stuff"... the other day we had firetrucks run nearby and joshu howled... Pursed his puppy lips and softly sang in tune with the trucks,,, Gotta love the breed(English,Japanese no matter) Every else being said about the" Bluff City", the Firetrucks and the Men whom them are truly the first rate of their kind,,, when I get the camera worthy of the task I'll do a documentary of their efforts.,, Give our warmest to the "Crew" GFG
Posted by on September 19, 2008 8:17 PM
My goal in life right now is to get the Mark II.......... full sensor, and 1080i Video!??! they just came out of nowhere!! I always wondered why SLR didn't have video, but 1080!!! I just really need this. I can't imagine putting any lens on the body and taking a video. It blows me away. Thanks for sharing those links!!
Perhaps the only thing its missing is the silent shutter of a rangefinder, I bet they are working on it ;)
BTW I love that photo of the man in the bus station. I think its one of those photos that people will use to describe your work, a great C-Weeks photo.
Posted by Nhat Nguye... on September 18, 2008 4:24 PM
hmmm, i've always meant to get a Bessa from Gandy, maybe I should call him ip and order one with this 28mm.
Sweet! I love the contrast... I love even more how far the dynamic range reaches in some of these shots. Allow me a moment of geekiness, but you've got some PERFECT exposures going on...
...yeah, the art-donkey in me peaks its ugly head.
As long as it is an excuse to go aorund and shoot film, Voigt is good too. I am considering too 28mm voigt: my 35mm asph leica is excellent, but 28mm is a lens I would use less, but sometimes I missed not having it.
I always loved vignetting, had to fake in PS that on my Oly's as they don't show light falloff at all (Four Thirds has some advantages... if only the low-light capabilities were better). With my Nikkor... no need to fake, just wide open and there it is, beautiful.
Lovely photos Chris, I really enjoy reading when someone likes his gear and can handle the stuff as well.
The Cosina Voigtländer business is definitely an interesting plant in this world. A short a while ago, I got the 2,5/35 (Color Skopar?) for one of my Ms. A small lens, even with the hood, and I just love it! Have almost disregarded the 1,4/35, but then there´s the speed, of course. My other M is married to their 4/21. Great bunch of pics, btw.
excellent stuff as usual, mate. and you get stuck on those country club rep bastards for me, k?
Posted by on September 17, 2008 11:58 PM
love this series of photos... especially the woman in the grocery store and the wine dude!
Posted by on September 17, 2008 11:18 PM
Hi Mr Weeks!
Nice review, was waiting for someone to write one and you are the first (from what I know/read so far ...)
looks like it makes a good b'day present for myself ... *grin*
Posted by on September 17, 2008 11:14 PM
I'm an RFF member, but i've always loved your posts (especially the politico and sailor mouth. I should know, I've got just as bad of one). Keep in mind, a big majority of rangefinderforum are completely out of touch with reality and their 'culmination' of photography consists of photographs of a random beer glass and corners of their household.
thanks, mate. i appreciate that. the thing is ... when i bag on rff you'd have to hear my voice with the sardonic intonation. i'm being sarcastic. most there have zero in terms of a sense of humor.
then again, when some idiot said something to me directly ... i critiqued their gallery for them ...
and that pissed them off.
to me ... unless you have a stellar gallery of work and piles and piles of tearsheets ... for the most part ... if you're going to try and critique someone else ... you really don't have a leg to stand on.
much less a collection of photos of beer glasses or corners of said households.
when i/we don't see photos in reviews we can generally conclude that the writer of the review is a shitty photographer (e.g., onlinephotographer, ken rockwell, etc.). ;)
i curse at them in italian. i tell them i'm a tourist. ;)
Now i know what to get for Christmas! Awesome "gear review".
Great photos by the way. Your street photos are really something! I really need to muster up some courage already when shooting in public. Missing lots of great moments in the streets.
And I saw the preview of the new 5d. Damn! Something to look forward too this Christmas too.
it's kind of wierd putting a video function on modern SLRs. it's an interesting feature, but still kind of wierd. I guess you could be a photographer and a videographer at the same time.
Great review mate. Im looking into this one as well, hopefully Santa comes early. I particularly enjoyed the shot of the pitbull puppy... shots like those really make me wonder how you shoot street...
Happy that I finally got to see more photos from you, and less political stuff, as much as I try to be connected to the world, like many other people that don't live in America, we really don't want to know who's gonna screw us over the next time :P
hope santa comes early as well, mate! glad it was useful to you.
someday ... when a certain friend gets to l.a. i'll try and illustrate how i personally do street photography.
sorry to have been so political lately but ... seriously ... it's so fucking sad to think our country could have another 4 years of a monstrous administration.
Sweet lens for sure, I really like the 28mm I have for my G2, It is a supurb performer. The photos all look fantastic, Especially the trees, you can always tell a pro by how they photograph the trees. :) Very nice vigenetting on that lens too. I have often thought about getting Voightlander Rangefinder, and one day I may, My G2 is a fantastic camera but a little too loud and automated.
Oh yeah the new Canon 5d mark II what a sweet piece of kit that is, I may just have to sell some blood to get that when it comes out.
B is growing up, and what a look she gave too :) M adorable as ever. Say hello to J for me.
I do have a range finder, I have the G2, my 1949 Leica C3 that takes awesome photos, even though I don't use it to much any more.
Well lets just say if I bought the new Canon 5d mk II my girlfriend would probably drain it all from my vains, ha ha ha! I should be paying off bills you know ;)
yeah, i'm very stoked on the new 5d too. it gives the 1ds3 a real run for its money. still... having shot a lot this year with 1d, 1ds and now my battered but lovely 1ds2, going back from the 1-series would be very hard.
i'm not a guy that uses 5% of 1ds2 capabilities. i'm often using various af points, not only the center one and i often find myself using all 45 for some fast-changing action. i do use many of the personal functions that are not available on 5d - i switched off modes that i never use, i changed the behaviour of the camera so it better suits my shooting style. i even used that personal function when you switch to mf, set your focus and compose the image and press the shutter button, but the photo only is taken when an object comes into a selected af spot (animals, sports, etc.) and i always thought that metering on the 1-series bodies is dead-on most of the time, unlike the one in 5d or xxd bodies.
but oh well, that's mere details... i enjoy the fact that full hd movies can now be shot with a full frame dslr... you may not believe me but this has long been my dream which i considered unreal until recently. i know i can take the canon xl and get the ef lens converter and use any ef lens i want, but the cost is just sick. i always craved for making movies with really shallow depth of focus. this was unavailable as all small cameras and video-enabled compacts had that everything-is-sharp look. i don't like everything sharp. i like bokeh. i like the bad bokeh of some russian m42 lenses that i have. i like modified bokeh when you leave the lens cap on but it has a star or a heart shape cut out of it. i love the idea of custom shaped apertures. so far i had it with photos, stills. now i will be able to have it with video.
it's not that i haven't shot some video with my 1ds ;) i did some time lapses out of my window, overnight. cool stuff.
anyway... i'm only interested in two things i haven't yet learned about the new 5d's video mode: 1) is there a rolling shutter or a global shutter? nikon d90 has a rolling shutter in its video mode and if you wobble it sideways people in the video bend sideways too ;) 2) is the any AF in video mode? again, the nikon d90 does not offer any AF in video mode.
one thing i'm also afraid of is that people will queue up for the new 5d as if it was the original iphone or something 100x better. canon might have a problem with production ;)
cheers from very cold poland where flu hit me and many other people, a freaking epidemic or something. gotta get back to bed...
sorry to hear about the flu. there's something going around everywhere from what i hear.
it's mccain's fault. ;)
and as much as it will indeed give the 1dsm3 a run, like you said, there are things it won't do. what i'm looking forward to is not having to carry the 1dsm3 as much.
dunno about the video capabilities as ... i'll never use them. :(
chris, when you will have that video capabilities, you will find yourself using it on more than one occasion (say, seeing something that would be better off on video than on stills and putting it up on youtube and then sharing it with us here on uber :-D )
looks fucking good! i love seeing these lens reviews from you!
and i'm really thinking of buying a 20-pack of that rollei 25asa film ... i've never shot at 25 asa but i love how it looks on your apx and if it's similar i would love to have a few rolls! i'm really really thinking of getting a range finder too - carrying around an f5 is such a pain in the ass sometimes ... but i'm waiting to see who will get the zeiss ikon from the contest! whooo knows, right?
your daughter is looking so much older from the last photo i saw of her! crazy!
damn- i wanna shoot after seeing these! amazing! i think i will!
you know, i took a photography class and they tought us about aperture and shutter speed and i still don't know what to use when...it confuses the hell out of me!
Looks like a winner... but then again, not that i would know what a loser is. I think my 35 years old 40 1.7 is a winner :) (shameless plug for my latest post to see how good it can work in the dark!)
For someone who doesnt make 6 figures and this is just a hobby, i cant see anyone spending 4k on a lens... then again.. maybe some are more passionate than i am. But 600$... now we re talking. And dont tell me its somewhat less sharp, not 3.5k$ less sharp! (as you have pointed out).
As for the photos themselves... the "i think they call that coma." is my favorite. I love how you can see one eye of the guy. Seems like hes looking straight at you too.
$600! exactly. even if you're making six figures ... doesn't mean you can make a decent photo and ... well ...
the 28 in my bag is not a us$4k lens; it's us$600.
i don't think he was actually looking at me, though.
flagging is ... it's like shading the lens when one of the light sources is at some crazy angle to the lens. you can use anything but i prefer something you'd find at matthews studio equipment. look at light modification under flags.
flags on stands are nice but they're usually held by an assistant.
Provided I learn how to use them, I plan on absolutely getting one of those, or something as close as I can get. Really sweet stuff, man. That pit bull shot is really cool, and your neighbor, Dan... he looks like my neighbor's neighbor (a neighbor-once-removed?). Weird.
Maybe M learns better eye-to-eye with the trainer? Ha!
I hate that my camera is so fucking loud! Obviously you're right about trying to snipe a frame without someone hearing the thunderclap in my digital body.
I just saw the information about the new 5D, too. Sounds like they put the right thought into pushing that body back among the top of that crowd. I didn't see if it had a way for audio-notations though. I've been so lax in carrying shit around with me for notes lately. Gotta get better... all the time!
28mm my fav focal length. Vignetting is good...and corner sharpness...nice if its sharp but not really a big deal.
One question for you, now that the 5d2 is out, do you expect a drop in the price of the 5d? I wonder if they will just go out of stock before its price goes down.
Amazing post, with some fantastic shots. I love the way you do all these amazing gear tests and reviews in such an honest way. I really want a rangefinder now! And a toy camera, and a 5d Mk II. Wow. It's even better than I thought on paper. Shame it's not fully weather sealed though... Still... looks like it should stop people from converting and give the D700 a real run for its (slightly less) money!
i just tell it like it is/was. a lot of analytical types want all the data and, yeah, there's a place for it ... there's a market for it ...
but ... that shit has never helped me. i like seeing what a PHOTOGRAPHER can do with it ... not some glorified wanna-be has-been writer/editor who's now trying to "have a go at it online" ... or ... some frustrated landscape wank. ;)
don't care about the converting from one platform to another. really ... people should learn how to shoot what they have. i could change golf clubs and i'm still gonna shoot what i shoot.
one platform or another will not make anyone any better.
great to see how that lens performs. Soon as i can find the capital to spend on an M mount camera, ill be looking at that lens, since it seems to be affordable ;)
Am i the only one who thinks palm trees are fucking ugly?
I'm happy to see 'kind-of-a-review' that shows what a lens can do in actual shooting circumstances instead of seeing some pictures of some garbage bin. the 28mm looks like a keeper. the voigtlander lenses make leica m affordable :)
that's my problem with most of the reviews out there besides sean reid or the luminous landscape guys (besides the guy who does theonlinephotographer.com). most of these people can write but can't make a photo to save their lives or TO HAVE EVER REALLY MADE IT AS A PHOTOGRAPHER.
there are those who can ...
and those who can't end up doing bullshit advice-related websites.
the 28's a keeper for sure.
they really do make a leica affordable! you hit that right on!
I'm totally freaking out over the 5d MarkII... I almost bought the 5d but after some discussion on the uber photography group posts, Nhat and others advised me to wait. Even if I don't get the MarkII I will save some money on the 5d. Now it looks like I want the Mark 2 :) I'm actually getting some offers to shoot, from people who have seen my stuff here on Uber... but I have no camera to work with.
I figure if I buy a decent camera I could get more work and eventually it'll pay itself... I'm just a little nervous about the $$... I shouldn't be but I am.
I enjoyed your post very much! So great to see some b&w living.
Take care Chris!