Improving performances. (Patreon)

Photographers are underestimating most of their lenses, but maybe because they have never used them properly.On film cameras there was only so much you could do, because it was the organic nature of the support that was a limit in performances, an manual focus methods had to rely on the ability of the photographer, still the brands were pushing out great lenses even at that time.When autofocus came out, you had to rely on the camera to perform the most important operation for you, and it frequently got it wrong.DSLR ended up making manual focusing impossible, because the focusing screen had no focusing aids, as the whole camera was optimized for AF functions.Mirrorless cameras of today are probably the cameras where classic lenses can deliver the best performances ever.Focusing manually on a mirrorless camera with the aid of magnification and focus peaking can extract the best performances ever possible from every lens, and the growing mega pixels are still not enough to embarrass most classic lenses.

The Leica Summicron-M 50mm that took this photo is a good example.It was launched on 1979, in the film era, but it is still sold by Leica today.When I was using it on the Leica M240 I was kind of seeing its limitations, but I was actually looking at a lens approximately focused with an inherently badly tuned rangefinder, and recording on a 24MP sensor from 2012.When the Lumix S1 and the SL2-S came about, still on 24MP sensors, the lens was performing better, because sensors were more modern and both cameras allowed for better manual focus.But the real revelation was the Leica M10 Monochrom, with 40MP, further boosted in performances by the BW only sensor, and here is where I really understood what this lens is capable of!On today's photo, unfortunately the cross on the rosary is turned the wrong way, but this is giving us the opportunity to see the writing on the back.Notwithstanding the picture was shot at 12,500 ISO, making the digital grain very visible, if you enlarge the image to 100 or 200 % you can still read the word "ROMA" very clearly, you can even see the metal reflecting light at different angles because of the engraving.There are not many technical details in my pictures, and frequently they are in the background and out of focus, so we rarely notice such sharpness on the organic models features, but it is still reassuring to know it is there.Not bad for a 47 years old lens, and I suspect it can do even better on higher MP count sensors in the future.

Speaking about Miss Blondt, judging from her IG, she is currently pregnant, and her belly is looking slightly different...

If you want to learn more about the Bramley Apple Project or Archives, or DA subscriptions, ask me on bramleyapple@yahoo.com