Summicron 50/2: Why a Leica ? part II

well its been almost a year since I bought the M8 and the cron 50 and I am still using it as much if not more , I didnt mean for my blog to merge from a vintage lens one to a Leica fanboy one, but c'est la vie :)

 The trouble I have is twofold

1: I really enjoy using manual lenses and the rangefinder camera is SO much easier to use for a few reasons , larger viewfinder for one, the almost 100% accuracy is another.

2; when I get the images from the memory card they still amaze me with their clarity and quality compared to almost all of my other glass , sometimes I feel like a photo opp has been for naught due to using my Helios 44 or Takumar lenses, then a shot like this one comes out

As you can see from my daughters hand this is a very slow shuter speed, i think perhaps 1/20th of a second , OK I checked, this is 1 FIFTEENTH of a second!!

ISO 640 F2.8 ( for a bit more depth of field)  1/15th of a second

Helios 44m6 58/2: Happy Valentines Day 2012

I really liked this card I bought for my wife, so I took some shots of it with my Helios 44 on my KX

placed in front of another card to get a pink background at f2


ISO 1600 f2 1/125th of a second



this one was split toned in Lightroom 3

shot at f2.8 ISO 400 1/100th of a second

and last but not least a macro shot using the pentax extension tubes 1+2 stacked together

f2 ISO 1600 1/160th of a second

Happy Valentines day

Super Takumar 200/4: 2x 2x teleconverters

This is taken at f5.6 and with 2 2x Vivitar teleconverters on the lens. The extra reach is nice ( I think that makes the lens a 1200mm equivalent)

Pentax crop of 1.5 x 200 x2 x2 .

 Unfortunately the adding of the extra glass makes the moon not as crisp as i would have liked :(

ISO 1600 F5.6 1/400th of a second

Super Takumar 200/4: Albedo 0.39

Driving home from a nice dinner with the family we noticed the moon looked fantastic in the crisp air, so I took a few shots of it, this is one of the last ones I took, using the ST 200

 I believe I stopped the lens down to f8 to get the clarity I wanted and did a little bit of curve adjustment in adobe lightroom, viola! a new desktop wallpaper

ISO 400 f8 1/640th of a second ( moon is a lot brighter than you think!)

Summicron 50/2: Two horse open sleigh!

we went to the winter carnival on the sunday after the fireworks, first order of business was go for a sleighride :)

 This shot came out very nice , and I dont even like horses!

 the 2 big sleigh horses shot at f5.6 ISO 160 and 1/750th of a second

Summicron 50/2: BADAAAAAAMMM!!

The winter carnival is here so I went out with my family and my trusty cron50/M8 combo:

 Best part was the fun we had, worst part was using a brass camera with bare hands in -14C  OW!
3 hours later and my knuckles and fingertips are still sore. Luckily I am off to take a hot bath

 I tripped the shutter perfectly on this one I think  , BADAAAMMMM ! indeed! ( apologies to 2000AD comics )

ISO 160 f2 1/30th of a second : Quick side note, I shot 2 or 3 on aperture priority and was worried that Iwould miss some , so when one of the red rockets was falling I set the camera to 1/30th of a second on a whim, turns out 1/30th is pretty decent for fireworks!