Street Shooting with the E-P1 and Voigtlander 15mm 4.5 Super Heliar

[penfan2010]

It's been a long time since I've done "blind", finderless street shooting with a proper digital camera (as most of my off-the-cuff shots are often with my iPhone). Roamed around the streets of Princeton, NJ, today and here is a sampling of the results----it was good to go back to the good old days of setting the lens at f8 and pre-focusing, but looks like I need to improve my aim to get consistent framing.

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[Don Baldwinson]

Sorry to say, but you need to brush up on your focus technique, none of them are in focus.
Don

 

[akulya]

Hi and thanks for sharing!

I hope you don't mind my advice? Urban photography can be a bit unnerving, I know I have to be in the right mood to go out and try it, it is all too easy to rush, focus isn't the be-all and end-all, but if you don't get the focus, you should try to get the framing, I think that 15mm is quite sensitive to alignment at the moment of capture, a few footsteps to find the right spot (for the lines in the picture) and you will start to see wonders!

I really like the "guy eating sushi" photo, the long shadows show it was early in the day,
and I think you got the oof foreground about right.

The cloisters(?) is a really nice shot, it has a sort of pastel art diffuse character that works for the subject.

Thanks again

 

[Vivalo]

The breakfast-photo is standing out from the rest. I really like that capture with its feeling of a new sunny day to start with a good breakfast.

 

[silverbullet]

Urban photography can be a bit unnerving, I know I have to be in the right mood to go out and try it, it is all too easy to rush, focus isn't the be-all and end-all, but if you don't get the focus, you should try to get the framing,
Thanks again

Kal,
I'm in the same situation. When I grab the Pen for shooting in the cities it's most of the time hard for me to get 'that' mood. But when it happens, it feels like dancing with strangers.
As a young chap I visited frequently Amsterdam during the weekends. It was like getting new eyes.......it's visible in the pics......but at home here it's a hard fight to squeeze something with a little hook.....

 

[linkedit]

Is it me, or is that lens not very sharp? That or none of them are focused properly.

 

[Streetshooter]

Bernd,
Your not having any issues finding the hook!

 

[akulya]

Bernd, I gotta agree with Don, your pics look so good, I wouldn't have imagined you ever felt apprehensive behind the lens!

 

[deirdre]

The lens is sharp, it's just that the poster needs some practice with the technique. You can see in the first pic that the upper left corner is sharp.

Still, nice attempt with some nice pics.

 

[grebeman]

The lens is sharp, it's just that the poster needs some practice with the technique. You can see in the first pic that the upper left corner is sharp.

Still, nice attempt with some nice pics.

I have been a satisfied user of the 15mm, f/4.5 Voigtlander for some months and the lens produces reasonably sharp results, as indicated below. These are all uncropped images.

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Barrie

 

[penfan2010]

thanks all

All very helpful comments, thanks. I do need to work on the focus--I have not preset focus on a manual lens since my OM-1 days (a very long time ago!), and I think all these years using AF has definitely dulled my technique. I do not have any problems with the 15mm Super-Heliar when I use the LCD screen to focus manually, but shooting blind with the hyperfocal distance set on the lens will need a bit of getting used to again. Still, the main reason I went into m 4/3 was to use all my old manual focus lens and to do more street shooting becasue of how unobtrusive the cameras are. I will keep you all posted.

 

[grebeman]

Hi,
Forgive me if I'm telling you something that you are already aware of, you talk about focussing using the hyperfocal technique. You do realise that when doing that the infinity mark at a lens setting of f/11 would need to be set opposite f/5.6. You need to correct the f stops on the lens barrel by 2 stops. You spoke of using f/8 for your photographs, for that f stop I would have focused the lens at 2 metres, according to depth of field tables the lens should have then been focused from approximately 1 metre to infinity, indeed I might have been tempted to plce the point of focus mid way between the 2 metre mark and infinity.
Once again I hope I'm not trying to teach you something you already realise.

Barrie

 

[penfan2010]

Hi,
Forgive me if I'm telling you something that you are already aware of, you talk about focussing using the hyperfocal technique. You do realise that when doing that the infinity mark at a lens setting of f/11 would need to be set opposite f/5.6. You need to correct the f stops on the lens barrel by 2 stops. You spoke of using f/8 for your photographs, for that f stop I would have focused the lens at 2 metres, according to depth of field tables the lens should have then been focused from approximately 1 metre to infinity, indeed I might have been tempted to plce the point of focus mid way between the 2 metre mark and infinity.
Once again I hope I'm not trying to teach you something you already realise.

Barrie

Grebeman thanks for the reply--I only checked back on this thread now. It also took me a while to figure out your point about compensating on the proper setting on the DOF scale. If I understand the explanations on other sites, on a micro 4/3 camera, DOF of a full-frame 35mm lens is halved as well hence your reco to set hyperfocal distance at 5.6 on scale even if actual aperture is set to 11--is that correct?

 

[grebeman]

Grebeman thanks for the reply--I only checked back on this thread now. It also took me a while to figure out your point about compensating on the proper setting on the DOF scale. If I understand the explanations on other sites, on a micro 4/3 camera, DOF of a full-frame 35mm lens is halved as well hence your reco to set hyperfocal distance at 5.6 on scale even if actual aperture is set to 11--is that correct?

Yes, correct, when set to an actual lens aperture of f/11 the infinity mark should be set opposite f/5.6 as marked on the lens barrel to obtain hyperfocal focusing.

Barrie