QUICK SHOT: Leica V Lux By Ken Ratcliffe

QUICK SHOT: Leica V Lux

By Ken Ratcliffe

Hi Steve, thanks for the great web site. After four years shooting the original X100 I felt that my images were getting repetitious and that I needed a second camera to give me more than just the 35mm lens, I felt I was missing some great shots. So I acquired the Leica V-Lux (typ 114). This really is a great camera, the Leica lens and firmware produces quality images from a versatile package. This quick shot I’m sending was taken using the Leica at Lyme Regis on the South Coast England. It’s a quick reaction shot, they were very lucky but very wet. Keep up the good work, best regards Ken Ratcliffe.

Wave-over-the-Cobb

12 Comments

  1. I’m far too late to this party but I’m still rather surprised by some of the comments.

    “Superb”, “beautiful”, “brilliantly caught”, “super”, “great”. What I see is a sooty looking image with block out black shadow sides to waves, significantly large areas suffering extreme highlight blow outs (above the rhs figure, for example) and an horizon halo.

    Composition is fine, but the exposure handling looks careless. Is there any vocab left when something really good turns up?

    • Hi James, it is brillant in the way the photographer took the picture. That’s a lot for a photo, don’t you think?

      It’s the idea, the sense of the moment, the light, the composition, the geometry. if photography was a contest of technical perfection, very few people that actually have something substantial to contribute would care about the subject of photography. We’d end up with a bunch of engineers and geeks who don’t care about the essence of photography.

      Yes, you hate the blown out white in the picture and some other things that a Nikon D5 or similar would have prevented. Little I care because I see so much beauty in the photo.

      What’s your point?

      Best,

      Martin

      • My point is the one you appear to have missed. Please read the post again. It’s there, in straightforward language.

        It’s no use erecting straw men arguments about “technical perfection” if a photographic basic such as extreme blowout is detracting from the image. My images are very ordinary, often embarrassingly so, and I would expect severe criticism if exposure was not looked after.

        You say, “it’s brilliant in the way the photographer took the picture”. Why? What “way” do you mean? You describe nothing. It’s not “brilliant” if there’s no info in significant areas of the photo.

        Thanks for the comeback, I was thinking I was far too late.

    • Hi Doug. Personal choice. I viewed and tried both side by side in the same shop. Definitely worth while as they are not the same camera, different look, feel and firmware. I’d made the choice (wanted the Leica). The shop then offered me a 3mth old one, as new, still boxed, for the same price as the FZ1000, decision made. Best regards Ken.

  2. Brilliantly caught and very full of atmosphere in B&W ! – OOC or PP? (I still use the original V-Lux 1, and its images continue to amaze me, but you have much more at your command with the present model, of course.) Thanks for sharing

    • Hi John, image shot RAW then PP in Elements 14. Yes agree, the Typ 114 gives images that amaze me. Thanks for the kind comments, best regards Ken Ratcliffe.

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