Don't mess with Stefan M

Saturday I had the pleasure of taking new portrait photos of Stefan R. Manzow. Stefan has just brought back wonderful pictures from India and is now working on a new photo page so that you can also experience the remarkable results of his 4-week trip. Of course, he also needed a talking author photo. I created this with my portrait equipment and will soon be featured on his photo blog. (When his page is finished, I'll of course post a link here too.)

Finally, I asked him to stop for a moment so that I could try out my new Leica M10. In the back of my mind, however, I had more in mind to make my - well, let's call it - signature shot. You know: not necessarily the typical portrait of smiling people.

Of course photographed with the Noctilux with the aperture wide open. I hope you like it…

Could I have photographed this with the “old” Leica M (Type 240)? Yes and no. Since the Leica M10 Nothing changed in the size and resolution of the sensor, the basic impression of the image would of course have been the same. However, I had used a hard spotlight and Stefan's body disappeared into almost complete black with the dark cardigan on a dark background. Only his fingertips were still faintly visible in the original. So I brightened the bottom area of ​​the image massively. With the M240 I would have had a serious problem with the so-called banding - i.e. a horizontally striped, uniform pattern. As you can see, the Leica M10 has significantly better reserves here. No trace of banding - you wouldn't have seen that without the black and white conversion. Here I chose to convert to black and white only because I think that color is not the right choice for this type of lighting design. It should look much more like a picture from a time when analogue photography was still used. This is further emphasized by the use of the Noctilux.

Oh yes: that's why I added the grain. It is a naturally artificial. No, the Leica M10 doesn't make that much noise.