Hi all,

Old lenses and Leica « glow » is something I ever tried to understand fully… Like many of us, I’ve seen black an white images made by the old lenses… Besides the fact any (good) lens has its own fingerprint and will create a particular “atmosphere” form these specific character, I am wondering if the famed Leica “glow” is not related to another point than the lenses particularities…

Many years ago (at least 25 years), I found an old pack of Kodak Velox paper. It was already out of date, but nevertheless I tried it just to see… Miraculously, it was still in perfect shape and gave me from negatives coming straight from my Nikon F2 splendid prints with this very milky appearance often showed and depicted as the “Leica glow” and attributed to the old Leitz made lenses… Of course the lens fingerprint was different, but the result was there…

Knowing the Velox was a rather common (and not specially “deluxe”) paper back in the 60’s and the 50’s and it is so difficulty now to get a truly good paper with a high proportion of silver (even with the so called “archival” papers), I wonder if, at least for a part, what we attribute to the lens is not more (or partially) linked to the kind of paper we have to use know and its relatively low quality…

I’d really whish to have your opinions on that particular point…

Friendly

François P. WEILL

-- François P. WEILL (frpawe@wanadoo.fr), May 05, 2002

Answers

Paper is centainly much more important for the "glow". Have you tried Bergger FB papers? You will be surprised...

-- Roger (roger@photo.net), May 05, 2002.

You don't mention what enlarger you used for your test. Different condenser enlargers give a particular look, and cold cathode enlargers can make 35mm negs look postively etherial. Using old Leica lenses can still give the 'look' you are talking about even with modern materials, so I would say that this is still the main reason for what you describe. But paper, enlarger, and even bad technique in the darkroom can also contribute.

-- Steve Barnett (barnet@globalnet.co.uk), May 05, 2002.

looking at your forum now and then (more then) i find this a very good question. I have negs dating back to the middle of the seventies, done with various cameras (changing as we go, right?) like Nikkormat, Olympus OM1, Leica M2, Olympus OM4, Leica R4s, Olympus OM4t (I was unable to use a rangefinder, tried the M2 and later an M6, really loved it's silence, but could just not get into the all clear viewfinders).

But I know very well what you mean by this quality, this look of a print, and to me the answer does not lie so much in the camera, but much more in the enlargers, the paper and how you developpe your prints. From a print I can not tell which camera someone uses, but I might see which enlarger was used. It's nearly always evident when a Focomat 1c, or 2c, was used. Something about the grain in the edges and the warmth, the feel of the image. The 2c has the additional factor of printing between glass (the neg. carrier with the anti newton glass) and Leitz managed to construct something that still gives a brilliant print, despite it's changing caracter due to the extra glass.

Because I mix old and new work I still print from "all type cameras' negs" and sure I get some differences, but these mainly result from better film developpement and better light metering over the years. I used to think the Nikkormat gave me harder, more contrasty, negs. That the Olympus looked very much like Leitz, or visa verca, but now I feel there just is not much of a difference at all. Anyway, not in that "this is better than that line of thinking".

Now I no longer use Leica's, it's back to Olympus, for many reasons, but not because I think O. is optically the best, sorry I feel there is no such thing. But I do swear by the 1c and the 2c - even to the point that i've been buying more of them, so cheap now, because I dread the moment when they'd break down and could not be repaired.

To me the best camera is the one you forget about while working, the one that does not give you a hard time, the one people don't fuzz about when they see it. Paper is important and strangely enough, with all the digital stuff happening, there has never been a time when so many good fiber papers are being produced. Just search and try the different ones. However, if you stick to mass produced prints, that's where it becomes like driving a beautiful car on dirt track roads, funky sometimes - sure, but in the end .......

Machiel

-- machiel botman (machiel.botman@worldonline.nl), May 05, 2002.

Anyone who believes the glow is inherent to the printing process or can't tell it from negs, should shoot just one roll of slide film with the Leica M.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), May 05, 2002.

Sorry to disagree with you Jay, but photography's end product in on paper, be it silver gelatine, RA4, Ilfochrome, offset or billboards. This is where we should measure resolution, glow or whatever.

-- Roger (roger@marques.net), May 05, 2002.

photography's end product in on paper

Which we put to the side,what lense on the end of our camera has far more glamour. Reality is about the above and how it is achieved,it has as much relevance to the final image...if not more.

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), May 05, 2002.

Roger:

>> Paper is certainly much more important for the "glow". Have you tried Bergger FB papers? You will be surprised...<<

Roger I’ll try to test it… I say I’ll try for my “wet” darkroom “printing department” is now gone. I sold everything last year in anticipation for a move to come… Three elements were determinant in that decision: First and foremost, it is more and more difficult to get quality paper for a day to day work, both in terms of availability (and moreover where I’m going to move) and on the economical side of the problem these papers are sold at a huge price worthy only for exceptional shots and gallery enlargements. Second, the problem of photo-finishing is now nearly insurmountable if you want to obtain glazed prints… Flat bed glazing machines are of a very low quality now (mainly the chrome plates) and the output is ridiculous and rotary glazing machines (if any are still available, I asked for one about ten years ago for the last time) cost the price of a mint second hand M6 TTL… Third, at least 2/3 of my production (which includes a sizeable quantity of MF films too) is now made from slides (though a more important part of my 35 mm negatives are black and white). Consequently, I decided not to include in my new home to come the relatively vast darkroom I had here and go to learn digital printing… Using bi-chrome function in Photoshop (but being limited by a flatbed scanner, while waiting for a 4000 dpi film scanner) I succeeded in giving the appearance of the relatively good Agfa Record-Rapid paper to my prints (including the slightly warm tone) and a much better rendition than the average RC papers I hate so much (they almost succeeded in killing B&W photography). I have no reason to doubt your experience with the Bregger paper gave you the specific precious glow (or whatever it can be called) of the B&W prints of the past, but I regretfully notice that a photographer has now to rely on so-called special high end paper (with associated huge costs) to obtain a rendition which was once common even in standard and lowly papers of the past. Not to mention once more the question of finishing the prints with the same ease our elders experienced with these papers. Anyway thanks for the tip…

Steven:

>> You don't mention what enlarger you used for your test. Different condenser enlargers give a particular look, and cold cathode enlargers can make 35mm negs look postively etherial. Using old Leica lenses can still give the 'look' you are talking about even with modern materials, so I would say that this is still the main reason for what you describe. But paper, enlarger, and even bad technique in the darkroom can also contribute. <<

Steven, it was a Durst L 900 Laborator with Rodenstock lenses with condensers but also with the specific feature of Durst enlargers: the light illuminating the neg. is reflected once in a mirror before going through the condensers… But as the comparative was made under the same enlarger, I doubt the effect was affected by the nature of the enlarger itself. I compared what was obtained on an Ilford FB series ordinary paper of the time (still better than the RC version) to the old Velox… As for the modern material, it depends on what you call “modern”… and what category of paper you use… Most of the pictures which were at the origin of “Leica glow” (something far more elusive than the lens fingerprint) were printed on day to day use paper during the 50’s and the 60’s or earlier. My comparative was made under the assumption the AVERAGE day to day paper once available extracted much better the qualities of any good lens than nowadays. Unfortunately, we can’t produce anymore what was obtainable on high end paper of the same era as I think from the prints I have seen not a single of the so-called archival, gallery and so on FB papers available today can compete with them. For me, they are at best equal to the workhorse papers of the 50’s and 60’s… The difference lies in the cost and availability of these so-called high end papers from what was once a very common and widespread product. Hence my interrogation: besides the specific fingerprint of Leitz lenses from the past, which was indeed specific to them (and different for each lens) and the new Leica lenses which has also a specific fingerprint of a different nature, is the famed (but elusive and scientifically not clearly defined) glow, is it Leica lens or the paper the prints were made on which gave birth to the myth ?

Machiel:

>> looking at your forum now and then (more then) i find this a very good question. I have negs dating back to the middle of the seventies, done with various cameras (changing as we go, right?) like Nikkormat, Olympus OM1, Leica M2, Olympus OM4, Leica R4s, Olympus OM4t (I was unable to use a rangefinder, tried the M2 and later an M6, really loved it's silence, but could just not get into the all clear viewfinders).

But I know very well what you mean by this quality, this look of a print, and to me the answer does not lie so much in the camera, but much more in the enlargers, the paper and how you develop your prints. From a print I can not tell which camera someone uses, but I might see which enlarger was used. It's nearly always evident when a Focomat 1c, or 2c, was used. Something about the grain in the edges and the warmth, the feel of the image. The 2c has the additional factor of printing between glass (the neg. carrier with the anti newton glass) and Leitz managed to construct something that still gives a brilliant print, despite it's changing character due to the extra glass.

Because I mix old and new work I still print from "all type cameras' negs" and sure I get some differences, but these mainly result from better film development and better light metering over the years. I used to think the Nikkormat gave me harder, more contrasty, negs. That the Olympus looked very much like Leitz, or visa verca, but now I feel there just is not much of a difference at all. Anyway, not in that "this is better than that line of thinking".

Now I no longer use Leica's, it's back to Olympus, for many reasons, but not because I think O. is optically the best, sorry I feel there is no such thing. But I do swear by the 1c and the 2c - even to the point that I've been buying more of them, so cheap now, because I dread the moment when they'd break down and could not be repaired.

To me the best camera is the one you forget about while working, the one that does not give you a hard time, the one people don't fuzz about when they see it. Paper is important and strangely enough, with all the digital stuff happening, there has never been a time when so many good fiber papers are being produced. Just search and try the different ones. However, if you stick to mass produced prints, that's where it becomes like driving a beautiful car on dirt track roads, funky sometimes - sure, but in the end ... <<

Machiel, it seems you at least confirm my theory on the importance of the paper used (and of course the technique behind) to give a particularly attractive rendition on a B&W print. Since a long, long time I ever printed my B&W negs. myself. Yesterday on photographic papers, today with digital… I’m not so surprised the classical papers are now multiplying themselves… It is more and more necessary to rely on high quality paper to beat what is now possible with digital. But to be frank, it seems to me it is a kind of swansong as digital is coping much faster than with the shooting part of the process with the classical silver based technique. Any picture printed on RC paper is already of poor quality when compared to what is obtainable with a good digital chain. So it seems logical to try to extract once again the best the classic paper can offer us. But there is an economical and practical limitation to this tendency… The valuable papers you mention are not widely distributed and very expensive and only gives you what a photographer was used to expect from an average paper in the 50’s and the 60’s and all the photo- finishing tools once commonly used during the exclusive reign of FB paper to obtain a perfect result and a reasonable output are now whether very expensive or no more available.

Jay:

>> Anyone who believes the glow is inherent to the printing process or can't tell it from negs, should shoot just one roll of slide film with the Leica M. <<

Jay, I’m sorry but it seems we are not calling the same thing the “Leica glow”… The first time I used an M3, it was during my first days as a professional press photographer in a small local newspaper… It was just collecting dust on a shelve, almost forgotten with its old generation Summicron… I cleaned it and used it for some assignments in company with my Nikon SLR’s. By any mean the gray scale the thing can produce was astounding… As usual in this era, the pictures were however printed on RC paper to speed up the process and even with these awful paper, this characteristic still held. But in no occasion I noticed the so-called “Leica glow” to appear. This lens was superb, gave an unbelievably rich gray scale rendition when compared to the Nikon lenses (a proof the final correction compromise was different) but nowhere I obtained the milky highlights and rich black tones I was able to extract with my Nikon negatives from the lowly old Velox I mentioned in my original post or what I obtained with high end FB papers, whatever was the shot taken with… I also tried for me an Ektachrome film with this M3 (I sincerely regret not have offered the paper to buy it by the way). The rendition was here again different, warmer, a tad less of contrast than with a Nikon… But the rendition was not soooooo evidently better here, perhaps because my personal taste was (and still is) toward a more neutral rendition of colors. With my present outfit (as far as Leica lenses are concerned it is composed of a 35 mm pre-aspheric Summicron and a 135 mm f/4 Tele-Elmar so none of the present series) I find a much better rendition of colors than with this old Summicron. Perhaps, the color correction of Leica lenses has much improved since the 50’s… It seems to me you are more referring to the peculiar fingerprint of these lenses.

Roger again:

>> Sorry to disagree with you Jay, but photography's end product in on paper, be it silver gelatine, RA4, Ilfochrome, offset or billboards. This is where we should measure resolution, glow or whatever.

Allen:

>> photography's end product in on paper

Which we put to the side, what lens on the end of our camera has far more glamour. Reality is about the above and how it is achieved, it has as much relevance to the final image...if not more <<

I evidently agree with Roger and Allen here.

Friendly.

François P. WEILL

-- François P. WEILL (frpawe@wanadoo.fr), May 05, 2002.