Today, Steve Huff from stevehuffphoto.com did me the honour of publishing a little essay I wrote, entitled “How I became a rangefinder aficionado”. It’s about, well, how I became a rangefinder aficionado 
Those of you who frequently visit my site might already know how I came to use rangefinder cameras, as I’ve been writing on that topic in earlier posts. But if you’re interested in reading a more extensive essay about what I think and how I feel about rangefinder cameras, feel free to visit my article at stevehuffphoto.com.
Thanks again to Steve for publishing my article on his website!
It’s been two days since I carefully packed the Nokton back into its box and sent it off back to the dealer I bought it from. I thought this was the right thing to do, as I was constantly unsatisfied with having to re-adjust focus everywhere from f/2 onwards. But now I’m having second thoughts. Was it really that bad? Could I really not have lived with it? Looking at the pictures I took with it, I found that most of them were shot wide open anyways, as I either wanted heavy bokeh or was shooting in low light. Only a fraction of my shots were around f/2.8 – mainly landscapes and portraits, where I wanted either sharpness or a large dof.
Now I have no lens for the M8. And as much as I enjoy shooting my E-P1, I miss shooting the M8 … Can’t someone please give me a decent lens to shoot with?!? 
As I wrote earlier, I sent the Nokton back as I didn’t get along with that focus shift. I like the lens’ signature, thoug, and would’ve loved to keep it otherwise as it was small, fast and had a nice rendering. But now I’m looking for a pre-ASPH 35 ‘cron, and I’m sure I will have at least as much fun with that – if not more.
But I did take some nice shots with the Nokton, and as now that era has come to an end, I decided to share my favourites with you.
One of the first shots I took with the Nokton. | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/1000 sec, ISO 100
Continue reading My keepers with the Nokton 35/1.4
I decided to send the Nokton back. It’s not a bad lens – I actually got some very nice shots with it some of which I will post soon. But I just couldn’t get friends with the focusing issue. I managed to get the rangefinder aligned to be spot on with the Nokton at f/1.4 and f/1.7, but everywhere else up until f/8 focus was off by a considerable margin. As I’m kind of a perfectionist (and have been fancying the Summicron 35, to be honest), I decided this is not the lens for me. I’m sure it’s great on film and probably works on digital for others, but not for me.
So bye bye Nokton, hello [insert new lens designation here].
This is Pinot, the dog of a co-worker of my wife who was visiting us for our birthday party last weekend. He’s usually not comfortable at new places, but at our place, he immediately occupied the huge beanbag and stayed there for the remainder of the evening.
"Pinot" | Leica M8 + Nokton 35/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/60 sec, ISO 1250 | b&w conversion in Lightroom 3 beta 2
I don’t seem to get nice colors from the M8 indoors at low light, which may at least in part be due to the lacking UV/IR filter. At the moment I’m converting most of my shots to b&w, as I can’t get the colors straight even with pp. Shots at good light or sunlight are no problem, though.
August 15th, 2010, 9:40 pm | 
