5 Frames with a Leica M3, TTArtisan 50/1.4 and Tri-X

Following my discovery that you can actually acquire Leica cameras without taking out a second mortgage on your home, I returned to my local film camera super-store (Blue Moon Camera in the Portland, Oregon St. John neighborhood) and added a Leica M3 thereby doubling the number of Leica cameras I have available to me. Having recently taken the iiic to the Oregon coast loaded with Ilford HP5+, I decided to return with the M3 loaded with Tri-X.

Initially this article was going to be a lens review of the M-mount TTArtisan 50/1.4 however I decided that there are numerous reviews of this lens that have been done by individuals who are much better at doing lens reviews than me. One might wonder what’s the point of a Leica without Leitz glass or how anyone can afford multiple Leitz lenses? Since I do already have a 50/2 Summicron and given the glowing reviews of the TTArtisan 50/1.4, I decided that the TTArtisan would be my first lens for the M3. I also opted to pick-up a Voigtländer M-to-E adapter so I can use the lens (and any further M-mount glass) on my Sony a7R3.

Living where I do, I’m blessed with the ability to travel to the Pacific coast in less than 2 hours if I drive west or to the Cascade range if I travel east. Going over to the coast is an easy drive. My wife and I usually stay in one of two towns if we go over for a quick stay.

This next shot was an attempt to duplicate the framing of a shot from an earlier post of mine that used the iiic, 50/2 Summicron and HP5+ to compare the differences between the lenses and film on the overall look of the image. One thing that I should mention is that I have (for the most part) run the black and white scans through a de-noise process. I’ve printed several of these shots (looking south from Hug Point) both with and without noise-reduction and while I like the composition of the shot from the iiic more than this specific image, I like the contrast from the Tri-X and TTArtisan over the shot using the Barnack.

I grew up on the east coast of the USA and my first encounter with the sea was from beaches in New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia. The west coast is very different. The rugged volcanic flows come right down to the minimal beach and the rocky geology is often the point of interest.

There are often streams that cascade along the shoreline and end with a waterfall onto the beach.

One of the characteristics of this set of shots that I like is the contrast obtained from both the lens and the film. I shot and developed a lot of Tri-X fifty years ago when I first started my photographic journey. Back then I was able to develop my own film and prints. These days I’ve been relying on mail-order film processing, scanning and printing and once I get the scans back I’ll often do some cropping and straightening (I never seem to get a good, level horizon while shooting at the coast). I wasn’t thrilled with this shot (from Seaside, looking west) but wanted to include it because it shows the Tri-X grain (no de-noise applied by me to the scan).

With 99.9% of my current photography being digital and with fewer than 1% being printed I’ve decided that I miss looking at prints. I don’t typically enjoy reading articles on the computer screen and I much prefer reading printed books and looking at printed images – maybe I need to invest in a decent photo-printer and print more of my shots? I’m OK with grain in a print but for whatever reason I seem to prefer removing grain (noise) when I post shots online.

I think the TTArtisan performs equally well on the M3 as well as on the a7R3. Since taking the above set of images, I’ve added a Voigtländer 21/4 M-mount which I haven’t had a chance to shoot on either the M3 or the a7R3. I expect it will go to the beach with me sometime over the summer.

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