Category Archives: Architecture

Pictures of buildings

135mm Leitz Elmar – some results

Architecture, Leica, Lenses, Photographs

An excellent lens for very little.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.

Sharp with excellent micro-contrast even at full aperture, this 65 year old Leitz 135mm f/4 Elmar lens is excellent for capturing architectural details and street candids, though the latter can be a real challenge given the lens’s demand for correct focus, which can take time with the long throw focus collar.

Some examples snapped yesterday – architecture first. Five of these can be clicked for a much larger version:




Click for a bigger version. Note that even focused close to infinity
at f/8 the lens delivers very shallow depth of field.



Click for a bigger version. Check the definition in the glass
globe and wall stickers in the big version.



Click for a bigger version.


Click for a bigger version.






Click for a bigger version

And some candids – all were cropped from one quarter of the 24mp RAW file, making the focal length equivalent to 270mm. Unlike, say, with a 21mm or 35mm focal length, ‘spray and pray’ is not a winning strategy with the 135mm. Careful handholding and accurate focus are the order of the day:



Sure hope they like those tattoos, because
they are stuck with them for life.


Another tattoo freak. The camera was panned to
enhance background blur.


Taking in the sun.

The resolution is as good as anything money can buy and the main caveat is that, without solid technique and a properly adjusted rangefinder (check the link in the opening paragraph, above), results will be disappointing.

Brighton

Architecture, Photographs

On the coast.

A scant one hour south by rail from London – if the trains are not on strike – Brighton is a showpiece of glorious Victorian architecture, replete with ornate cast iron and beautiful masonry work. These snaps were taken in February, 1974.














Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX, ‘scanned’ on a Nikon D800.

Googie lives!

Architecture, Photographs

A vibrant time in America.

You can read about Googie architecture here. This futurist style from the middle of the past century is never less than fun but, as is the American way, many exemplars of the genre have been torn down.

Here’s a superb example which has been ‘repurposed’ by an interior design firm in Boise, Idaho, having started life as a gas station:


Googie at its best.

iPhone 12 Pro Max, processed in Photoshop and Lightroom to remove the telegraph poles and ugly wires.

Old is new again

Architecture, Photographs

Lovely architecture.

It was a full half mile after I shot past this building that the synapses kicked in and said this is something worth checking out.

It’s unclear what the original use was but it is being lovingly restored in the original Spanish style. A new cobbled forecourt has been laid down and work proceeds on the facade and interiors.



Except for one click keystone correction in LR (Develop->Lens Corrections->Basic->Vertical) these are SOOC. Or should that be SOOiP? (Straight Out Of iPhone).

iPhone 11 Pro snaps.

Lightroom workaround: LR was shutting down on a first boot with the iPhone connected. I discovered that if I plug in the iPhone and steer it to the Photos app before invoking LR, all is well. That and standing on my left foot with my right arm extended upwards. Thanks, Adobe.

At the library

Architecture, iPhone, Photographs

Not a right angle in sight.




The ultrawide optics does its thing.

My local library is one of those wildly abstract and severe designs which denies the existence of the ninety degree angle. This sort of architecture is fodder for the camera, as the above image discloses.

One of the complaints I have seen aimed at the ultrawide optic in the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro is that it is fixed focus. Such opinions are expressed by those with no training in the physics of photography. A 1.54mm focal length lens (13mm FFE) will render everything sharp all the time, as I illustrate here. There is no need for focusing. And if you want to change depth of field, Focos awaits. The other complaint is that saving the image in RAW format is not possible. Only compressed JPG is available. What this opinion denies is the extent to which computational photography and Apple’s always-on SmartHDR technology obviates the need for RAW. (RAW is available in some camera apps like Halide, not in the stock Camera app). Finally the third complaint – excessive lens distortion and vignetting – is justified, but easily resolved with one click in LR or PS or ACR using my lens correction profile. Apple’s claim that they left distortions uncorrected for the UWA lens to emphasize its ‘wideness’ is so much rot. They clearly rushed the product to market along with a disastrous series of iOS 13.x releases, each replete with bugs.

It is the small file sizes of JPGs for the UWA – and indeed JPG is standard for all three lenses – that is one of the unsung secrets of the camera’s design. As the data for the above image disclose, the RAW image is some 12mp (3024 x 4032 = 12.19 mp), whereas the JPG is a mere 2.88 mp. Now a file from your enormous Nikon D850 with its 50mp sensor and no less gargantuan optics will come in at some 150mp when converted to TIFF or PSD, which is what LR or PS has to do before you apply any processing corrections.




EXIF data for the above image.

And by contrast, so sophisticated is SmartHDR in the iPhone that those corrections are rarely called for. So suddenly LR performs once more like the spring chicken it once was, loading those 3mp files in a trice and creating full size previews in like time, whereas your D850 image dictates ever larger capital outlays on more storage, faster storage and improved GPUs. Why, process just seven of those images and there goes a gigabyte of storage …. And while you are processing all of those bytes, I have crafted a blog entry, written a suitably inflammatory narrative and am out on the street searching out new subjects for my camera. Plus, you are $5,000+ out of pocket and your shoulder is sore. I suffer from neither affliction.