Well, ball heads, to be exact.

Novoflex is a German company with a long and storied tradition of making camera gadgets. While their publicity machine in the US seems non-existent, the company for many years made a variety of adapters, bellows and follow focus mounts for Leica and other lenses which earned them a stellar reputation for quality and design. Indeed, for a while in the 1970s, you could buy the Leica 400mm and 500mm f/6.8 follow focus Telyt lenses from Leitz mounted either in the Leitz buttton release follow focus mount or in the Novoflex trigger release style.

The fact that their marketing in the US is lousy does not in any way minimize the quality of their products. Type in ‘Novoflex’ at the B&H site and you will be rewarded with no fewer than eleven pages of Novoflex products, from a $1,200 tilt bellows which can be adapted to just about any SLR made in the past fifty years, to a $19 plant holder clamp (no kidding) which can be affixed to a standard tripod screw.

Want an adapter to mount your Canon EOS lens backwards on the body for extreme close-up work? Novoflex has it. A nicely made, inexpensive, table top tripod? No problem. A forked joint, V-shaped tripod head to support the long barrel of an ultra-telephoto lens on a second tripod? You bet.

In other words, if specialty applications are your thing, there’s a good chance Novoflex makes it.

Having sold off a bunch of stuff left over from the old film camera days, I decided to reward myself with a toy. Something not essential, you understand, but nice to have. Now while I am not in any need of more cameras or lenses, having pretty much all I need, I do recall thinking that a really nice ball head for my Linhof tripod would be a good idea. Until now I have used a Leitz ball head which is very secure, the serrated ball locking firmly with very little force on the knob, but because I like to have both my tripod and monopod in the trunk of the car at all times, I concluded that one necessary luxury would be a second ball head. The Leitz could make its home premanently on the monopod, and the new head would live on the tripod. Like an old rather affluent friend who keeps mistresses in several of the world’s great cities. Luxury indeed!

Go to the Ball Heads section of the B&H site and you will find no fewer than nine pages’ worth. Phew! Sort in price order and the costliest, from Arca-Swiss, comes in at nearly $800. Now I like quality as much as the next man but I am not insane. Go down a few pages and you come across a truly funky one, suggesting that the folks at Apple are not the only ones who ‘Think Different’. It is, of course, from Novoflex, and is sold in three sizes (mine is the smallest – the ‘MiniMagic’). Here is how it compares with that inspired and ancient Leitz design:

The Novoflex MiniMagic ball head next to the full size Leitz one

In the above picture both heads are fitted with Manfrotto quick release tripod plates. The design of the Novoflex permits unobstructed rotation of the camera without having to locate the ’90 degree slot’ you can see on the Leitz design. Some inspired designer at Novoflex has basically flipped the design and made the base of the head accept the camera, mounting the ball on the tripod. Genius.

Electric blue adds a nice touch of fun to the inspired design

Novoflex states that the head will support 11 lbs, which means three Canon 5Ds with the standard zoom lens fitted. That’s a lot of weight.

Flipped 90 degrees the nylon friction pads are revealed. Cleaning the ball could not be easier.

The head is fastened by rotating the large serrated protruding handle.

Novoflex makes two larger variants, capable of supporting 15 and 22 lbs., respectively, but for 35mm and medium format work the smallest seems more than adequate, weighing in at all of 11.5 ozs. The larger ones come with friction control, but it’s not something I need; for that matter, gently tightening the handle confers an adequate level of friction control with this model, should you require that to level the camera with small incremental movements. Also, realize that you would have to add the Novoflex Universal Panorama plate if you want calibrated, level rotation, but for panoramas I think you are far better off with something like a proper panoramic head with nodal point offset.

A toy, you say? Think again!

In practice the head is wonderfully easy to use, nothing ever gets in the way, and you can rotate the camera well past 90 degrees for those occasions where your tripod is not especially level. It looks just super on my old Linhof tripod. Recommended without reservations; even the price of $240 seems reasonable for something you will use the rest of your life. And that old Leitz head? Happy as a clam on the Manfrotto monopod, one of the best tools I know of to make your lens deliver its best.

The answer to yesterday’s puzzle.

At the conclusion of the previous journal entry, I asked readers to determine whether film or digital was used to record the eight images included.

Here are the technical data for the pictures:

Image #1: Canon 350D, 17-85 Canon at 75mm (120mm equivalent), 1/50, f/7.1, ISO 100
Image #2: Canon 5D, 200mm Canon, 1/2000, f/4.5, ISO 200
Image #3: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 58mm, 1/500, f/4, ISO 400
Image #4: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 35mm, 1/250, f/5.6, ISO 250
Image #5: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 73mm, 1/350, f/6.7, ISO 200
Image #6: Canon 5D, 24-105 Canon at 28mm, 1/6 (hand held and IS used big time!), f/4, ISO 800
Image #7: Canon 5D, 15mm Canon fisheye with ImageAlign used to ‘defish’ the picture (12mm equivalent), 1/750, f/8, ISO 400
Image #8: Panasonic Lumix LX-1, 6.3-25.2 Leica at 14mm (63mm equivalent), 1/1250, f/4, ISO 100

In other words, not a roll of film in sight. Properly exposed and processed digital is indistinguishable from properly exposed and processed film until the ISO gets over 200, in which case the Canon 5D beats film hands down every time.

All pictures processed (very little) in Apple’s Aperture.

How did you do?

There is no such thing as a ‘film look’ – only bad processing.

I confess to finding all the talk about the classical ‘look’ of printed images taken on film to be so much rot.

(Please note: The pictures in this journal entry are purposefully large to enhance screen quality, so they make take a while to load on slower connections.)

Unless you make prints from film using an enlarger – an all analog chain if you like – every image we see is to a greater or lesser extent digital. Film has to be scanned to be shown on your computer. That’s digital. The scanned image has to be printed on some sort of printer, be it ink jet, dye sublimation, laser, using pigment inks or dyes. All digital. And, obviously, everything seen on the computer screen, where, let’s face it, 99.9% of photographs are now viewed, is digital.

This journal entry was prompted when I read a piece on a chat board written by a fellow extolling the ‘Leica glow’ in images which, he claimed, only his film based Leica camera and lenses could deliver. No indication of the basis for this judgement or, indeed, anything about how he makes prints. The thrust of his poorly reasoned argument seems to be that digital looks ‘plastic’ (the English I learned suggests that plasticity is a good thing in an image, but I’ll let it go) whereas film looks real.

It’s unclear to me why some, like this person, still fight digital imaging. It might be that people who write on chat boards are like visitors to a hospital. They only go there because they have a problem, even if the disease is hypochondria. Part of it is, I suspect, that some practitioners have given digital a bad name through excessive sharpening, contrast, saturation and so on. That hardly exonerates poor practitioners of analog printing who loved garish excess, like Ansel Adams. The reality is that you will get lousy results with any process if you have a lack of skill, taste or both.

Another reason for proclaiming the superiority of film may well be that its defenders have invested such huge amounts in now largely worthless equipment that some sort of justification is called for. They are, of course, Label Drinkers. You buy a Rolls Royce and it has to be good, even if the thing breaks down constantly. How could you admit otherwise? Everyone knows it’s the best. Clearly, the resale value of gear is irrelevant, and all that matters is whether it helps you take good pictures. The only problem for these fellas is that they have to have the latest and greatest and, well, trade-in values on that M6 or M7 Leica just aren’t what they used to be. The ridiculous price of the digital M8 just compounds their problem. Here’s a $5,000 body (no lens!) which is not weather sealed, has manual focus, limited automation and no zoom lenses. Absent low light snaps, where it probably excels, it’s an overpriced, bulky, point-and-shoot (which is what Leica rangefinder photography is all about) far less capable for the most part than any number of $400 offerings from the far east. So economics become a prop for an ill reasoned position. Not the first time that has happened. Makes film a lot more appealing, though, if you are stuck with those old bodies.

Amusingly, the same psychology – it’s expensive so it must be good – comes into play when they finally spring for that M8, having dumped the M6 or M7 at a huge loss. They are now duty bound to proclaim that the digital Leica takes better pictures (!) than anything else out there. But of course.

Unless you are taking pictures in very challenging lighting, requiring fast lenses and low noise, high ISO sensitivity, and you need to make really large prints, then there is simply no difference in the image taken with costly gear like the top Nikons, Canons or Leicas and the $300 point-and-shoot. Digital or film, it makes no difference in regular prints. Up to, say, 8″ x 10″ in hard copy prints or up to a 30″ computer screen, it all looks great. I was reminded how terrific some 6 mp images taken on a Nikon looked, when I examined them on the 30″ Apple Cinema Display the other day in the Apple store. The only reason I know they were Nikon digital originals is because that’s what it said on the file information. You simply could not have asked for a better image – dynamic range on the screen greatly exceeding anything a print could offer. Like looking at projected slides in days of old.

Reverting to that chat board thread, one correspondent confidently stated that he can always tell which images on his computer screen are digital (whatever that means – I suppose he is referring to the original being snapped with a digital camera) – which left me laughing helplessly. Anyway, for that expert and fellow travellers, here’s a selection of my snaps from the archives wherein I invite you to guess which are digital and which film. Meaning, in my world, which were taken on a film Leica as opposed to a digital Canon 5D. And don’t go guessing by aspect ratio – both my Leicas and the 5D share the same native 3:2 image ratio and I crop away depending on my mood. All will be revealed tomorrow. Oh!, and by the way, I hope you enjoy the pictures!

By the way, there as those dogs again….

Well, just one Leica left.

Be under no illusion. Selling off the last of my Leica equipment was emotionally wrenching. These may be mass produced machines, true, but when something has been a part of you for more than a third of a century, well, parting is not easy.

I cannot but reminisce about some of the wonderful optics that made their home on my Leica and Leicaflex bodies. And, in truth, there were more optics than one could recall without saying, in the same breath, that he was privileged indeed to have enjoyed so much that was wondrous. For whatever their future, Leica can claim, without any fear of exaggeration, to have made most of the best lenses that have graced any camera. Ever.

Some stand out not so much for their optical prowess as for the results they delivered. And if I sound a bit like Woody Allen reciting his favorite things on this earth, towards the end of the beautiful film that is Manhattan, well, so be it. Favorites in the early years were the 90mm Elmar – small, modest, unpretentious, yet always willing. The perfect match for that stroke of genius we know as the M3 viewfinder. On those trips to Paris it ceded primacy to the 35mm f/2.8 Summaron. The ‘eyeglasses’ this needed to frame properly with the M3 were not the most chic of Leitz’s designs, but the lens was superb in every way, certainly more affordable to this impecunious student than its f/2 Summicron stablemate. Suffice it to say this optic saw more use on the M3 than anything else during my monochrome London years.

As affluence raised its head after a year or two in the world’s greatest democracy, the M3 was joined by a Leicaflex SL with the ne plus ultra 50mm Summicron-R.

Hard to do anything wrong with that combination. Certainly, the svelte style of the M3 was missing from this bulky pair, but the camera came with the best viewfinder and focusing screen ever built into an SLR – a fact that remains true to this day – and once that body was mated to the superb 180mm f/3.4 Apo-Telyt-R, well, this photographer had found his Chateau Lafite Rothschild of landscape equipment. Throw Kodachrome into the mix and you have maybe the finest equipment the twentieth century ever made available to an aspiring photographer. With but one exception, read on below, this was the best lens I have ever owned.

After years of providing for old age, a process that common sense dictated was something you would be foolish to trust to government, the photographic ethic saw a return to the M and its street capabilities. The so-so 50mm f/2.8 Elmar gracefully gave way to a lovely Summicron, the last model with the removable lens head, and the increased contrast and lovely tonal rendition of this masterpiece, now used exclusively for color, were a joy to behold.

Small, fast focusing, it has moved to a good home. It served me faithfully for the best part of two decades.

The 90mm Elmar gave way to a Leicaflex design mounted in an M mount, the 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit-M. Nowhere near as compact as the old Elmar, its lens element did not rotate as you focused, so the apertures were always clearly visible on top. Almost worth the trade off in size and weight, and the jump in definition and resolving power was out of this world.

But the M3 lusted after something better still, and before you knew it the Elmarit-M was joined by a brand, spanking new 90mm Asph Apo-Summicron-M. The only new Leica lens I ever owned and there are no words in the vernacular to describe the capabilities of this optic. It is as if the M3, released in the early ‘50s, had finally found a lens to do it justice some forty years later. Suffice it to say that it simply intimidated me every time I mounted it on the camera, for the knowledge was certain that there was simply no way I could do it justice. Without a doubt the best lens I have ever owned.

But that was far from the end of it. Like the poor kid who grew up lusting after Ferraris but never dreamed he would own one, I chanced upon a new 400mm f/6.8 Telyt.

This lens had always fascinated me when I was a kid, just like those Ferraris.

The lens had been owned by a collector (Ugh! A lawyer to boot, as if that was a surprise) for twenty years and never taken out of the box. Sacrilege! The lubricants in the trombone focus action were dried up, the schmuck lawyer’s protestations notwithstanding, making focusing about as much fun as a root canal, but a quick trip for relubrication saw another example of Leitz’s genius mated, with the appropriate adapter, to the Leicaflex. The design may only have used a couple of glasses but, goodness, was it sharp. The thing was a foot and a half long, making for a discomfiting feeling in later years as everyone was now watching everyone else, but it cranked out some great pictures despite the perceived threat to life and limb of all and sundry.

Reverting to the streets, where I had pretty much grown up as a photographer, called for something really wide, so why not the best? The late ‘90s market was booming, everyone was an investment genius, money was cheap and, so it seemed, was the outrageous 21mm Asph Elmarit-M.

The third best lens I ever used. Sure, the clip on viewfinder was simply lousy, plastic casing and all, and the lens hood was consigned to the garbage can as soon as I looked at it, but it replaced a bizarre, if cheap, Russian 20mm Russar (a design that Comrade Stalin appropriated from Zeiss) and showed this user what a super-wide was really about. This one really became a part of me. I find it hard to believe that the coverage and micro-contrast of this very special optic will be exceeded at this focal length.

And finally, because I simply had more money than sense at the time, why not a 135mm f/3.4 Apo-Telyt-M?

I already knew what the magical combination of apochromatic glasses and Telyt design could do, so the 135mm replaced a long string of 135s – the Hektor, the Elmar, and the Tele-Elmar. It badly embarrassed all of its predecessors.

There were many others, of course. Like old girlfriends, you never forget them. (There were, I hasten to add, more lenses than girlfriends, in case you get the wrong idea). Each had its genius. Each its faults. All were loved. And remain so to this day. (Lenses and girlfriends).

So now I have one Leica left. My M2, with what is perhaps the ultimate street snapper’s lens, the 35mm Asph Summicron-M. Yes, another gift courtesy of the Internet Bubble. The pairing is on extended loan to a fine English photographer, and will probably return home sometime in 2007. That Summicron replaced a very modest 35mm f/3.5 Summaron which, despite its unprepossessing looks, was as good as you could wish, at any aperture. Indeed, with the sole exception of the 50mm Elmar my M3 started life with, all those wonderful Leica lenses never much cared what aperture you selected, for they were equally good at anything the lighting conditions dictated. And the 35mm Asph is maybe the only design where Leica finally got the lens hood dead right.

So, will I sell both? Well, the M2 body must move on. I am simply not returning to the drudge of film/processing/scanning/dust removal that digital obsoleted. Further, I have little interest in cropped digital sensors, especially at the outrageous price Leica is asking for the M8, so unless the House of Leica comes out with a full frame sensor, affordable M9 (as likely as finding integrity in a politician), and stops making all those darned excuses about technology, the 35mm Asph will go also. Modern point-and-shoot digitals get better daily at prices, compared to the M8, that represent impulse buys. They also permit cost effective annual upgrades, something no M8 owner will like to contemplate after a mere twelve months of ownership. And that, by the way, is why I think Leica’s M8, after the honeymoon is over, is doomed to fail.

Complacency is easy. Change hard. Neither negates the fact that technology marches on.