I would put a single word to that… that quite sum it up well!

That said, the next project is to hack apart a Vest Pocket Kodak. Stay tuned.

The background in the image of figgy looking out the window has a very pleasing, almost geometrically-treated look about it. For my money, the other shots look fine too, but the effect is perhaps overall more organic and “real” rather than looking processed or treated. I suppose each presentation has its relative merits, depending upon the situation, but the point is that the Elmarit is capable of achieving this effect where other lenses cannot.

As a comparison, you can see how the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI-S (original) draws the out-of-focus highlights here (edgy-looking, for lack of a better term); compared with any of these three — 1 2 3 — the Elmarit does a better job of not calling attention to it. But like I said, the difference in quality isn’t even 10%, and the jump in price can be breathtaking (Nikkor was $5 at a pawnshop, Elmarit was close to $100).

Incidentally, the naming convention of the Leica lenses has to do with their maximum aperture (summilux = f/1.4, summicron = f/2.0, elmarit = f/2.8), instead of the Zeiss convention, which refers to the construction of the lens (tessar = four elements, etc.).

I know that some of the effect may be lost by posting compressed jpegs here on your blog, but larger-file sizes at flickr might not destroy the effect, right?