30 Years of Leica Fotografie International

I have been a subscriber of Leica Fotografie International magazine since issue 5/1988. The above photo shows the evolution of the magazine over the past 30 years. On the far left is the 5/1988 issue from the summer of 1988. The M6 was the hot camera that everyone wanted. It wasn’t the first M camera with a built-in light meter, that was the M5, but it raised the Leica brand to heights that it hadn’t seen in many years. The next issue is the 5/1998 issue. Leica was doing well with the M and R line. Second from the right is the 5/2008 issue. Leica came close to bankruptcy just a few years earlier and the M8 was released 2 years ago. The last issue is the 5/2018 issue. Leica is doing well thanks to some good products and an even stronger management team.

The first issue of Leica Fotografie International was published in 1949. It was only available in the German language. My oldest issue is the 2/1950 issue. I have about 30 assorted issues from before I started subscribing in 1988. Some issue are certainly older than me. It’s interesting how the magazine has changed over the years. Up until the mid 90’s it mostly featured the work of Leica photographers. The last 20 years there have been a lot more emphasis on the gear and less on technique.  

Before the internet photography magazines was the most popular way to learn photography. I know a number of people who have been professional photographers and their only schooling was a few night classes at the local college and the rest from photography magazines. It has been a time honored tradition to say that you were self taught. 

Vi Vante Strap

I have never had a rope strap before so I decided to give the Vi Vante Luxury Sheetline Black Rope Camera Strap with Leather Napa ends a try. Most rope straps are stiff and brittle and I don’t like the feeling of the rope as it slides through the hand. The Vi Vante Sheetline is soft to the touch and quite pliable which is a bonus because I like to wrap the strap around my wrist while walking around so that the camera is always at the ready for a shot. 

Vi Vante has a complete line of straps and camera bags as well as soft release buttons and half cases. Camera straps come in both a soft rope as well as many different leather braided styles. The leather straps come in different color combinations and really add a bit of flash to your camera. The strap is 47 inches long so it can be slung across the chest if you like that style.

Vi Vante has attention to detail that makes their straps better than most mass market straps. In the above and below photos look at how well the camera ends that protect the camera are finished on the front and back side. Most companies leave the back side unfinished, allowing the leather to wear faster. It is workmanship like this that I really appreciate.

The only downside to the soft rope that is used in the strap is that it can fray when rubbed against an abrasive surface. I don’t drag my cameras over rocks so I’m not concerned about that.

I must admit I really like my Vi Vante Sheetline Rope Strap. I was considering trying a wrist strap but decided that it would be to limiting for long days of shooting. Since this strap can be tied into a not it works as a full size strap and as a wrist strap as needed. Current price is $79 which I feel is reasonable for the excellent quality of the strap. Their products are available at Amazon and at the Vi Vante website.

Here is the Vi Vante Luxury Sheetline Blue Rope Camera Strap

Photography Composition Quiz

Take a good look at the above image. It is the popular minimalist style. We see them on Instagram all day long. They are popular because they are so easy to do because of the few shapes and limited color palette. I don’t like them but I take them when I see them because you never know, I might need a throwaway image for a blog post. 

Here is a dissection of the image. Three bold colors and black. The roof is a diagonal that points to the pole. The orange and yellow stripes repeat the angle of the roof. Also the orange and yellow strips are on the opposite side of the color wheel from the blue sky, convenient right. The pole meets at the corner of the roof stopping your eye and redirects it upward towards the circular frame where the sign was. The circle stands in contrast to all of the square geometry in the rest of the image. These are the roof edge, the black area that is the underside of the roof, and the solid blue sky. The white cloud looks like the contrail of a plane and is at a contrasting angle to the roof. Since it is on the opposite half it is nice that it is semi-transparent. Inside the oval is a single light bulb that becomes the focal point of the image. Rule of thirds, leading lines, contrasting colors, all the basics. 

Now for the quiz. Look at the image again and hold your left thumb out and cover the white cloud on the left side. Move your thumb away then back over the image. Question, does the cloud belong in the image? Should it be cloned out of the image? 

There is no right or wrong answer but this is a lesson on how to evaluate your images. Does the cloud fit into the geometry of the image or compete with it? If your using a mobile device rotate the device 180 degrees to flip the image upside down, is the image balanced?  If on a computer you have my permission to download image and rotate it in your software of choice ( please delete image from computer when finished, thanks ). When evaluating an image you look for what works but try looking for what doesn’t work. Go look at some images from a year ago and see if the compositions as as strong as you remember them. 

Remember, 2 hours of shooting for every 1 hour reading about cameras. 

Adobe Photography Plan - Bad Decision Coming

Don’t do it Adobe. Your making a very bad decision.  

It looks like Adobe is dumping the $9.99 a month Photography Plan. This plan gives you access to Lightroom and Photoshop and 20gb of storage. The replacement gives you 1tb of storage and the apps for $20 a month. I recently did a survey for Adobe that hinted at price increases and have been worried ever since.  

I’m not going to tiptoe around this issue. This is wrong and is a mistake. Never mind the storage increase, this is a 100% price increase to keep Lightroom and Photoshop. Double your price because they have a virtual monopoly is just wrong. I’m not going to stand for it and I suspect most users won’t accept it either. The timing for this is especially strange given all of the signs that there is currently a significant slowing of camera sales.  

I am still not happy about Adobe’s change to a subscription plan for their apps. So now that they have us locked in they are going to price gouge their users. I can understand a $2-3 price increase but this is behavior that is usually reserved for the pharmaceutical companies. 

Word has it that the old plan is still available but you have to contact the company directly. I suspect many will use that contact information to tell them what the think of their plan. Even if Adobe does back down, which I think they won’t, it is going to happen. I recommend we start looking at other products.  

It’s not about Equipment - Leica Noctilux

You hear it all the time. It’s not about equipment. It’s the 12 inches behind the viewfinder that makes the image. What matters is vision. Equipment will not make you a better photographer. True.

But.  

Having the gear that you need to make an image is just as important as finding the image. Both parts of the puzzle are needed. So many boring images have been taken with the best cameras on the market. A Leica rep many years ago asked me what I thought what was the most photographed subject was with a Noctilux. I quickly answered head and shoulder portraits. He said nope. He said cats are the most photographed subjects with a Noctilux. Many people have the equipment but don’t know what to shoot. At the same time a Noctilux in the hands of the right person will produce images that are not possible with any other lens. The reason to buy a Noctilux is not for the one stop benefits in low light situations. It is because of the unique images that it creates. Another example is the studio strobes that I shoot with. I use Broncolor lights for two main reasons. First they have modifiers that give images a unique look with the Para umbrellas. Also they have a very short flash duration that can stop any motion for fashion or product work. I could buy cheap lights that don’t have these capabilities but I wouldn’t be able to do they work that makes my images stand out. 

Having equipment and not using it’s capabilities is what all of that gear isn’t the answer talk is all about. Saying you can shoot everything with one camera and one lens can be liberating in some aspects but is no good when your inside a church and you need an ultra wide lens.  

Its just that you have to have a story to tell and have the right equipment to tell that story. I shoot with Leica’s because they mesh with my shooting style. I like looking through a rangefinder. I like that I can carry 2 cameras and lenses in less space than I need for one of my Nikons and lens. Also the look that Leica lenses produce is what my mind sees.  

Too much equipment gets a bad rap because people buy equipment as a crutch to cover up the fact that their images are boring. If that new lens will enable you to do something that you can’t do now it might be worth adding it to your bag. But only if you use it.  

Leica Q2 Manual

This isn’t an issue for most people yet but just letting you know how to get a printed manual for your Leica Q2. The camera doesn’t come with a printed manual but one can be ordered at the Leica support page for the Q2. It comes from Germany and is free for users with a serial number from the camera. 

This is probably going to be the new normal for most camera companies. Electronic manufacturers have been requiring users to download manuals for years. It makes sense but it is nice to have a printed manual. The manuals might even become collector items in the future because of their scarcity. Seems like anything with the Leica or Leitz name on it has some value to it.  

I have been saying for years that Leica should have a dedicated section on their site on detailed instructions on how to use their equipment. Especially for the rangefinder cameras. They are so different than other cameras that new users are not aware of the hidden features of the cameras. I have always wanted to do a training class for Leica products but have been talked out of doing this because of the small user base that Leica currently has. The Leica stores are a great place to learn the basics but I would like to help the Leica community with more in-depth instruction. If I got interest maybe someday.  

Some perspective needed - Leica Q2

Leica 1 California Museum of Photography 

Over at the Leica Forum there is a lengthy thread about people waiting for the Leica Q2 which is on backorder. People have been saying bad things about Leica, Leica stores, camera stores, and Jews ( B and H Photo ). Most of it revolves around not enough cameras being available for the demand. I was told by a manager that backorders will not be completely filled until late fall. Not uncommon for a popular camera to be hard to get. I remember when the first commercial autofocus camera the Minolta Maxxum was introduced and it was impossible to get. Also when the Nikon F4 was introduced in 1988 I witnessed a movie producer and a housewife pay a camera store salesman to be put at the front of the list to get the first cameras from a camera store. In the mid 1980’s when the M6 was released my wait for a camera was 7 months after it was announced.

The desire to get the latest is not limited to the photography world but I am amazed at the anger from people who want to part with $5000 for a camera. Many of the posters had only recently registered for the forum ID just so they could complain on the forum. Some think the lack of cameras is a deliberate attempt by Leica to increase demand. Others say Leica should have had a warehouse full of cameras ready to ship upon release date. 

It was not that many years ago that I was told that Leica was only making 100 of a certain flagship camera a month. People don’t realize how small Leica is as a company. I have heard that there are only about 200 workers at the Wetzlar plant. Leica equipment is sold all over the world, not just at your local camera store. This craftsmanship that we love so much about our cameras is made possible by a very small but dedicated group of workers. And just because Leica doesn’t announce how many cameras are going to be shipped each week doesn’t mean that they don’t care about the desire of customers to buy their product. 

First let’s get some perspective. This is not a cure for cancer. It is a great camera, I have one, but waiting for YOUR camera to ship is not the end of the world. Leica, like Apple, is one of the few companies that I think really feel that what they do is meaningful to people’s lives. Leica invented 35mm photography and they take that responsibility serious. So sign out from the forum and go take photos, that is what cameras are for. 

Alfred Stieglitz Inspired Image

The time honored tradition for beginning painters was to copy work by the masters. A student gained experience on how to use their tools and at the same time learned how the greats created works of art that are inspiring and beautiful. 

The above image was taken near the beginning of the photography program that I had started in college. It was taken with an 8X10 view camera with a 300mm lens that would be equivalent to a 50mm on a 35mm camera. At the time I was studying the work of Alfred Stieglitz ( 1864-1946 ). He was an early champion of photography as a work of Art. He was married to the artist Georgia O’Keeffe and was friends with many of the early greats of photography including Paul Strand, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams to just name a few. He also introduced many painters to America like Matisse, Picasso, and of course Georgia O’Keeffe. Stieglitz was also a great photographer who excelled in many different genres such as nature, landscape, cityscapes, portraits and nudes. He was the first photographers photographer. One of his projects was called “ Equivalents “ which were photographs of clouds. He described the work as:

I wanted to photograph clouds to find out what I had learned in forty years about photography. Through clouds to put down my philosophy of life – to show that (the success of) my photographs (was) not due to subject matter – not to special trees or faces, or interiors, to special privileges – clouds were there for everyone…

A quick Google search will show more of his work.  

The above image was taken after setting my camera up and pointing it skyward and waiting. It was a long time ago but I know that I waited more than 4 hours. I had only one sheet of film so I had to make it count. It was hand processed in a tray and this is a scan of the image. 

This image is one of the defining images of my photography career. It was the first time that I visualized what kind of image that I wanted and obtained the desired results. Many people these days say that they shoot more deliberately with a film camera or with a Leica rangefinder. Creating an image that is in my minds eye is just the way that I operate. With digital cameras my shooting style is the same as when shooting a View Camera. I’m trying to express my vision. Sometimes it works and others the end result is not what is what I’m after. But the journey can be as fulfilling as the end result.  

Leica LFI Magazine - 3/2019

The new issue of Leica Fotografie International is now available. The articles include an interview with the first Director of the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar, coverage of Photo London, New work at the  Leica galleries in Istanbul and Los Angeles, and an update to the LFI online gallery. The online gallery will soon feature individual photographers as well as its current mission of showcasing photography from around the world. On the new hardware there are articles on the Leica Q2, the Summicron 35 for the SL, and the limited edition M10-P “ASC 100” camera marking the 100th anniversary of the American Society of Cinematographers. 

As always the best part is the work of the featured Leica photographers from around the world. I have been a subscriber of the LFI Magazine since the mid 1980’s. It is fun to look back at how the camera world has changed but at the same time good work always is always appreciated.  

Web Site Update - Thank You

I would just like to take a moment to thank the visitors to my web site. I have seen a large growth in the amount of people visiting my home on the Internet in the last 6 months. There has been a 5 fold increase in the number of visitors. This has encouraged me and I plan on increasing the how to posts and having more detailed reviews. Thanks for visiting and please tell your friends, the more the merrier. 

Jeff