Earlier this week I took my Leica Monochrom and 35mm Summilux FLE on a stroll round some of London’s darkest alleys bordering Waterloo Station and the South bank. My intention was to try higher ISO settings out of interest but also to see if the noise resembles film grain as many reviewers have said. I will let you make up your minds on this one, but I have to say I was impressed with the results.
I hadn’t bargained for any action shots (the street dancers and the skateboarders) so I didn’t pack a longer lens. The f/2 75mm APO Summicron would have been useful in retrospect and I intend to go back one evening to check it out. Because of the distance from the action and the wide 35mm lens, shots you see here have been heavily cropped and this has to be allowed for in the results, despite the all-round excellence of the Summilux. I have always followed convention in claiming that Ms are not for sports or action but I confess I was surprised by the skateboard shots in almost-dark conditions. In both cases I had prefocused on the spot where I imagined the figure would take off. My thanks to the guy with the cine light or I would not have snatched this action.
Some of my friends from the Leica forum asked to see the full-frame shots of the skateboarders pictured above. Here they are, before cropping. Borge, a great photographer from Norway, prefers the uncropped versions. What do you think?
