Tag: ballet

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Shooting Ballet

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Olga Pavlova bowing to the audience after performing “Dying Swan”.
Detroit Opera House, 2015
Leica M9, Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1

I have been working with classical dancers for a few years and learned quite a few things that you might find very useful. Like, for instance, how to get a shot like the one below. At first it may seem unthinkable: getting on stage during a live full-house performance is not something that photographers can do casually. That is, if you do not know how to be invisible.

What you should always remember while doing this type of work is that people did not come to the theater to look at you. So, for them to do it, you need to do something that makes you noticed. For example, get in a spot light, or stand between an audience and a dancer. As magicians say, it is all about misdirection: while people are busy looking at what they paid to look at, you can accomplish a lot, provided you do not do anything making you noticeable, like fast abrupt movements, loud sounds and, as mentioned before, making yourself visible.

Observing the audience from back stage, you will notice how eyes of every single person look in the same direction. If you manage to be where the line of the audience’s sight is not, chances are, nobody will see you. You can make these chances even slimmer by dressing in black and, what is just as important, wearing a black baseball cap, which will cover your head and parts of the face not hidden behind a camera.

Obviously, carrying a big lens is not a good idea, especially the one painted fashionable off-white, or ivory. Back in a day pretty much the only viable option for this type of work was Leica M, which I still use, due to  silent focusing, small size of lenses and a remarkably quiet shutter. Now, with advent of mirrorless digital cameras, options are plenty. Sony a7R II and even more so a7S paired with an excellent Zeiss 1.8/55, or Leica Summilux 1.4/50 is all you need. Remember, it is not the power of your telephoto lens, but how close you are, that makes a successful shot. That is why you need to know how to be invisible: to get as close as you can without disrupting the performance.

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Carl Zeiss Distagon 1.4/35 ZM

670092915Carl Zeiss ZM lenses is an amazing phenomenon is photography: despite their excellent quality and ergonomics, most Leica M shooters do not even know about them. The main reason for their relatively low popularity, besides snobbish attitude of “those with the best glass in the world”, is that at any focal length Leica optics surpassed Zeiss ZM lenses in speed. That is until now…

I’ve been using Zeiss ZM wide-angle lenses since 2008 and always wished for them to be at least one stop faster. So, the news about the new Distagon 1.4/35 sounded very interesting, and I waited impatiently for Carl Zeiss to send me a sample for review.

Ergonomics and mechanical design
My first impression, upon opening the box, was “OMG, why is it so huge?”. Indeed, most ZM lenses are physically shorter and take 46mm filters or smaller. The new lens has a 49mm filter thread and a hefty barrel. However, mounted on an M9 body it balanced perfectly and was convenient to hold.Focusing knob is small and not too convenient to hold on to. I ended up using it as a reference point: the lens has a 90-degree focus throw, and by feeling the knob it is easy to figure out the distance a focusing ring is set to without taking an eye from a viewfinder. May sound like no big deal, but it saves me a second eliminating guess-work as to which direction should I be twisting.Precision is a word that comes to mind when it comes to describing mechanical features of the lens. Focusing is smooth and clean. 90-degree throw perfectly suits the focal length. Aperture blades form a nearly perfect circle. An aperture ring is graduated in 1/3 stop increments, which is a trademark for ZM lenses. Not sure of how useful this feature is, given impressive photographic latitude of Leica DNG files, but it surely feels great.To sum up, I would rate ergonomics and mechanical built as outstanding. The only objection that I have is against an intricate double-spring design of a front cap, which is also common for all ZM lenses. For some reason, it never fits snug on the first attempt. It takes several seconds to find proper alignment.Optical quality
To simply call optical quality of this lens outstanding would be an understatement. All incarnations of Leica Summilux 1.4/35 ASPH, as great as they are, even the FLE version, are in trouble for the following reasons:

Color and contrast

  • This lens is contrasty, even when shooting against the light, which makes it great for B&W photography.
  • High microcontrast makes images look three-dimensional even when lighting is relatively flat.
  • Flare is very well controlled. A lens hood was not included, but I have yet to encounter a situation where it would be indispensable.
  • Even with high contrast, highlights do not get blown out easily. Details are visible even in areas overexposed  up to 4 stops on Leica M9.
  • Colors are vivid, yet not aggressive. Skin tones are smooth and natural, which makes it a great choice for people photography and especially environmental portraiture.

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Superior correction of aberrations

  • There is no focus shift. None. Well, maybe it is, but I could not detect it in practical applications, as it is fully compensated by change in DOF.
  • Slight overexposure reveals beautiful ever so subtle glow, which is reminiscent of Summilux 1.4/35 pre-ASPH, but less intrusive. It helps the lens conceal skin imperfections while maintaining high enough definition of such details as eyelashes and corneal patterns on a face occupying just 1/10 of a frame area. The glow is probably due to a tiny level of under-correction of spherical aberration meant to prevent focus shift (see below).
  • Point light sources and specular highlights are rendered correctly, even when wide open. The lens proved to be an excellent choice for a candlelit scene.
  • Chromatic aberrations are also well controlled, both lateral and longitudinal. I managed to get some of the latter on a backlit out-of-focus edge with more than  six stops of contrast. I do not know a lens, which would not do that at f/1.4.

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  • This lens is sharp corner-to-corner at any aperture. It gets only a tad softer at f/16, which is of no surprise, as diffraction is not something that can be easily eliminated.
  • Even at f/1.4 light falloff is present, yet it is so low that sometimes I had to add it in Lightroom. Not only it is low, there is no visible color change towards sides and corners both with Leica M9 and Sony a7R, which is notoriously known for producing a colorful vignette with third-party wide-angle lenses. While some vignetting is usually desirable in fine art, technical applications demand color and tonal fidelity. Such little falloff is great news because it is much harder to get rid of dark corners than to add a vignette, especially when tonal change is accompanied by color shifts.

To sum up, Carl Zeiss Distagon 1.4/35 ZM is a formidable competitor to any 35mm rangefinder lens from any manufacturer. Its color fidelity, sharpness and exceptional control of distortions and aberrations amounts to outstanding image quality.

Now, the most difficult part. It renders differently from its competitors, somewhat cleaner perhaps. I cannot say, however, that this is an advantage, neither it is a shortcoming. Let’s put it this way: if I were compelled to describe Leica Summilux 1.4/35 pre-ASPH with just one word, it would be “capricious”. For Carl Zeiss Distagon 1/4/35 ZM it is “immaculate”.

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