LFILEICA FOTOGRAFIE INTERNATIONAL

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MATHIAS HENGUPHOLDING DIGNITYWHEN ALL IS LOST:LIFE AFTER DISASTER

LEICA M8INFRARED AND OTHERHITCHES: SEVERAL FIXESARE NECESSARY

TRI-ELMAR-M16-18-21MM F/4 ASPH:THE SUPER WIDE-ANGLEVARIO FOR THE LEICA M

Visit our website WWW.LFI-ONLINE.COM

1/2007 LFI 3

CONTENT

Andreas Feininger: Elevated railway at 9th Ave., NYC, 1940 (page 20) Leica M8: with small imperfections (page 26)

Lake Newton: Gwanju, South Corea, 2003 (page 62)

PORTFOLIOS

DIGNITY IN FOCUS 6

Life between dust and wreckage: Australian photojournalistMathias Heng documents life after disaster with pictures that are both sensitive and powerful

THAT’S PHOTOGRAPHY 20

To celebrate Andreas Feininger’s 100th birthday, the ‘Stiftung Moritzburg’ art museum in Halle, Germany, has dedicated an exhibition to this legendary photographer

LAKE NEWTON 62

This American photographer supported himself as an Englishteacher in South Korea. His forays through the streets of Gwanjuspeak of the exotic allure of timeless femininity

TECHNOLOGY

LEICA M8 26

How Leica plans to fix the infrared problem

CONSTANTINE MANOS 40

A Magnum photographer hits the road with an M8

ELMARIT-M 28 MM F/2.8 ASPH 45

The most compact of all M lenses

TRI-ELMAR-M 16-18-21 MM F/4 ASPH 46

The super-wide-angle vario lens for the Leica M

FINE ART INKJET PRINTING 56

Hahnemühle Digital FineArt Collection

LEICA D-LUX 3 58

The youngest of the compact models put to the test

SECTIONS

EDITORIAL 4

PHOTO NEWS 4

EXHIBITIONS 24

PREVIEW / IMPRINT 74 Cover photo: Mathias Heng, Muzzaffarabad, Pakistan, 2006

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26 LFI 1/2007

TECHNOLOGY LEICA M8: TROUBLE IN PARADISE?

NOT AS DARK AS IT SEEMS

For countless followers of rangefinder photography the M8 is adream come true. Less than a few years ago, the commonunderstanding was that the M simply could not be made into adigital camera. This has changed. Every aspect for which the Msystem stands – the factors that made it so popular amongst itsusers – has found its digital equivalence. In order for the M8 toblend seamlessly into the continuity of the tradition-laden Msystem, Leica frequently ventured into uncharted technicalterritory. Those who were fortunate enough to have not onlyheld an M8 but also seen the magnificent pictures on thecomputer screen will have borne witness to the success of whatwas an exceptionally ambitious project.

However, the celebration was soon to be interrupted, with complaints homing in from every angle of the World WideWeb. “A system error like this is just unacceptable, consideringthe claims and price of an M8,” exclaimed one member of the German-language Leica user forum at www.leica-camera-user.com. Others, in this case at the Leica section ofwww.dpreview.com, debated whether or not a 500-Eurocompact camera were to be a more reliable apparatus than an M8. One individual suggested that it were time for the Leica boss to step down, while others decided to take it all witha pinch of salt and look on the bright side: “think pink – weLeica photographers don’t see all black.” From the controversyraging in photographic cyberspace these past few days

you would be forgiven for thinking that Leica was headed forrack and ruin.

So what happened? After experimenting with the camera, several customers posted onto the Internet theirdiscovery of peculiar magenta tinges in the reproduction ofblack synthetic material. Soon the problem was identified;evidently the M8 was reacting overly sensitively to infraredlight. But then there was more: other M8 owners wereuploading images showing highlights, mostly light sources,barred with bright stripes. This effect is known as banding andtends to occur at higher ISO settings. As if that weren’t enough,rumours were spreading that the camera was only capable of 8-bit colour depth, while other users were unhappy with theautomatic white balance.

Ten years ago, issues like these would have merely heated up the hotline at customer service – something Leica would have cooled down with a level-headed response.Now, thanks to the Internet, we have witnessed how the complaints quickly transformed into an uncontrollablewave of outrage. M8 owners were animating each other to photograph black fabrics and halogen lamps, and suddenly these became the only two subjects worth talkingabout. As is so often the case in the online world, thediscussions were not always based on fact. Words occasionallyhit below the belt.

Black fabrics with magenta tinge, high-ISO pictures showing horizontal stripes – early M8 owners are experiencing the camera’s two teething problems. Leica now promises to put an end to this nuisance by offering some explanation – and relief.

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BY HOLGER SPARR

1/2007 LFI 27

40 LFI 1/2007

TECHNOLOGY M8 PORTFOLIO

CONSTANTINE MANOS

If Constantine Manos were to name a favourite colour, it would have to be red. Red for danger, excitement, passion, even violence – a broad sweep of the human experience. Manosis not the only one; the poet Charles Baudelaire was also attractedto red. With a quote from Baudelaire (which he admittedlyattributes to Rimbaud), Manos begins an essay on himself andhis well-known cycle ‘American Color’, which can be seen andheard at http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essays/color.aspx:‘Le beau est toujours bizarre’; in everything beautiful there issomething strange. Constantine Manos, born in 1934 in SouthCarolina, has been a member of the Magnum Agency since 1963. In 1972 he published ‘A Greek Portfolio’, a book onGreece, home of his ancestors, which won an award in Arles.After his countless commissions for ‘Esquire’, ‘Look’, ‘Life’ and his hometown of Boston, he eventually experienced whathe himself describes as a midlife crisis; having spent his entire photographic career working in black and white, hesuddenly had the feeling that he would never again producesomething meaningful. One day then he ventured off with his Leicas and a few Kodachromes to places full of people, and toplaces that could almost be called remote. Something graduallybegan to take shape, a surreal moment which captivated himand which he then began to look for systematically. The resultwas the book ‘American Color’, for which he was awarded the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2003. The book contained 80 pictures, all taken at about 1/250 second. In this aspect alone lies a certain magic: peculiar images of American life, fleeting yet charged with colour and complexity, all sum upto less than a second in time. These captured moments,

long gone but preserved for the viewer, reveal the absurd,touching, trashy kaleidoscope of American daily life. Thesearch takes time and patience until the right moment shines through the perpetual panorama of events. A good picture, explains Manos, always comes as a surprise,and a great one is in fact almost impossible. You have a certainidea of what you hope to find, but it takes chance to turn it intoa reality. Using the Leica M8, a camera “that has everything Ihad hoped for,” Constantine Manos explored Provincetown,Massachusetts, Cape Cod and several provincial fun fairs insearch of pictures, of which some would perhaps end up in his ongoing ‘American Color II’ project. We have had thefortune to present a small selection; more of his work can be seen at the web address mentioned above. OS

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Magnum photographer Constantine Manos distils pictures of contemplative power and preternatural colour from the casual constellations of chance. Whilst he used to take photographs with the MP, he now places the M8 at the centre of his work;this is what brings us the photos on the following pages.

1/2007 LFI 41

Manos focuses on the kind of scene that no one is likely to take notice of. His eye for the power of colour results in complex compositions in which the ephemeral exudes a timeless charm

46 LFI 1/2007

TECHNOLOGY M LENSES, PART 6

FIVE IN ONE

When you choose the Leica rangefindersystem you choose a compact cameratogether with a wealth of compact, high-performance lenses, but you also have to put up with certain focal lengthrestrictions. Genuine zoom lenses arevirtually incompatible with the principleof the viewfinder frame; the givenmeasurement basis will allow you to focus no more than a 135 mm focal length; at the wide-angle end, which is in fact one of the domains of the Msystem, from a certain focal length Mphotographers are forced to draw uponadditional optical tools.

Leica M cameras up until the M7 areknown to support a maximum field angle of a 28 mm focal length with arespective bright-line frame inside the M rangefinder (up until the 0.72xviewfinder magnification). For thisreason, the Elmarit-M 21 mm f/2.8 Asphand Elmarit-M 24 mm f/2.8 Asph arecommonly used in combination with a 21/24/28 mm universal wide-angleviewfinder, which is what ultimatelyallows for accurate control over the

composition. Some might consider thissolution to be unnecessarily complicated– however, wide-angles yield a great depthof field and can therefore be employedeffectively with hyperfocal distances(LFI 5/2004). This enables you to composethe picture through the universal wide-angle viewfinder without having to dealwith the rangefinder mechanism.

The M8 has a 1.33 crop factor and a 0.68xviewfinder. Consequently, the 135 mmfocal length is no longer recommendable;in fact, the corresponding frame has beenomitted. Instead, the M8 has a frame fora 24 mm – the pairs are 24/35, 50/75 and28/90 mm – corresponding to the fieldangle of a 32 mm focal length. A 21 mm,in turn, would require the universalwide-angle viewfinder to be set to 28 mm.As a result, what used to be extra-wideangles are no longer so extra-wide whenrun digitally.

Apart from an early 1970s’ experimentconducted with the very limited editionof the Hologon 15 mm f/8, Leica neveroffered an M lens smaller than 21 mm.For a long time, devotees of the extremeangle had to plump for the comparativelyinexpensive Super Wide Heliar 15 mmf/4.5 from Cosina-Voigtländer. This usedto be the only solution, and a fairlypopular one at that. Mounted on an M8,it behaves like a 20 mm focal length. Theabsent rangefinder coupling is a slightdisadvantage, which in this area of focallengths – see hyperfocal distance – is

Between the analogue and the digital M the new Tri-Elmar-M 16-18-21mm f/4 Asph covers the field angles of focal lengths 16, 18, 21, 24 and 28 mm. The maximumview angle of 107 degrees is a compositional challenge for rangefinder photographers.

1/2007 LFI 47

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All pictures on this page: Leica M7, Tri-Elmar-M 16-18-21mm f/4 Asph, 16 mm setting, f/5.6

58 LFI 1/2007

TECHNOLOGY LEICA D-LUX 3

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

The D-Lux 3 was the only model notincluded in LFI 8/2006, where wecompared Leica’s youngest generation ofdigital cameras in an extensive analysis.Maybe this was a good thing. Being themodest little camera that it is, it may havebeen overshadowed by the latest wave ofcutting-edge Leica products. The D-Lux 3is no technological juggernaut à la M8. Itis no match for the performance stats ofa Digilux 3, and it falls short of the superzoom range of a V-Lux 1. The camera isnot quite as pocket-friendly as its littlebrother, the minute C-Lux 1, nor is it muchbigger; the lens does not retract entirelyinto the body and, together with the lens

cap, the resultant lump in the trouserpocket is unmistakeable. Yet the D-Lux 3has its fortes: the 16:9 sensor, for one.

Leica’s D-Lux series stands for sleek andcompact digital cameras, designed foreveryday use and bag-free daytrips. Thedifference between the fully automatedC-Lux 1 and the D-Lux 3 lies in thelatter’s ability to focus and exposemanually, and also to store pictures inRaw format and at a superior resolution.Compared with the preceding model the changes were kept to a minimum: the resolution climbs from 8 to 10megapixels; the new Venus III engineprocesses the photographic data with a

BY HOLGER SPARR

It might not be a show-stopper, but the D-Lux 3 packs a practical set of functions into an eye-pleasing, compact design. In our trial run, the latest of the 16:9 D-Lux series – now with 10 megapixels resolution – put on a performance worthy of applause.

more effective grip on noise; and thedisplay on the back now measures aslightly larger 2.8 inches, and comes in16:9 format. With the sensor set to 16:9,the image displayed is obviously muchlarger than before. Switching to 3:2 or 4:3crops the picture on the left and right, onthe display as well as the final picture,simultaneously reducing resolution andnarrowing the angle of the DC VarioElmarit 6.3–25.2 mm f/2.8–4.9 Asph. In16:9 format the zoom range measures aconvenient 35 mm equivalent of 28 to 112 millimetres. The integrated imagestabiliser works wonders when using thelongest focal length in bad lighting.

1/2007 LFI 59

Those primarily looking for technicalspecifications will spot the biggestchange not in the enhanced display, butrather in the higher resolution. Now that 10-megapixel sensors have enteredthe compact market, manufacturers are discovering that a leap from 8 to 10 megapixels does not necessarilyentail a measurably higher resolution.Resolutions as such soon represent an upper limit within the technicalconstraints of unchanged sensor sizesand lens capacities. In the lab, the D-Lux 3 produced a resolution of 1514lines/image height. Not exactly a jaw-dropping advance from the D-Lux 2,

which already gave 1450 lines. Yet the D-Lux 3 knows what it’s doing; if theresolution were converted into the more conventional 4:3 format of othercameras, the result would be a solid 1749lines/image height.

The new sensor and its higherresolution come with a few nominal sideeffects. Compact cameras use theirimage sensors instead of designated AFsensors to regulate autofocus, whichmeans in the case of D-Lux 3 that itsautofocus is a little slower than itsprecursor, taking 0.6 to 1.1 seconds tofocus fully. Once focused, the cameraexposes with a minimal 0.01-second delay,

and due to the larger amount of data the serial mode is a little more restrained.In our lab test the D-Lux 3 exposed asequence at 2.25 pictures per second,which was faster than what we’d come toexpect from the data sheet. The internalstorage, however, is now only enough forthree instead of five shots in sequence.

The D-Lux 3 knows how to handlenoise. As with the V-Lux 1, the internalnoise suppressor runs at full tilt startingwith ISO 400, producing excellent valuesbut also unfortunate traces of imagemanipulation. Colour recognition andwhite balance, on the other hand, leaveno room for criticism. With the lens set

Unlike its predecessor, the D-Lux 3 isalso available in black and features awidescreen display. The control elementshave now been relocated to the very right of the camera back, but this has no significant effect on the camera’smanual functionality