Leica M – Kids – 8 Year Old TRI-X

This entry is part 18 of 38 in the series Shooting Real Film

Someone was seeking some advice regarding the Leica M9 and shooting his kids in one of the post comments a while back. I thought I would share some of the images from that last roll of eight year old Kodak Tri-X that I developed a couple of days ago. The images in the original post and these were some of the the images on that roll.

Personally I believe that shooting your kids, your brother’s, sister’s, and neighbor’s kids is probably one of the most “important” and “valuable” things you will ever shoot. You can make money doing just about any job – not just photography jobs but when it comes down to what you point your camera at – your kids and people that are close to you, or their kids, will probably be the most important in the long run. Some of the best and most appreciated gifts I have ever given anyone were images of their children. Not for money – just gifts. Unlike other commercial photographers I actually have shot tens of thousands of images of my children. I think I am pretty good at it. So do other commercial photographer friends of mine – they have begged me to shoot their kids – mostly because they don’t. Shooting kids is really hard and most images of kids really suck.

So what about the Leica M and kids? I believe it is a fabulous tool to shoot kids and all people for that matter. These are pretty much some strait scans off of that eight year old roll of daughter No. 3 playing in a puddle. They are not the best images that I have ever made of her but I am glad I made them. I have similar stuff all shot with a Leica M6 – mostly with a 50mm Summicron. If you want to shoot your kids in a football or baseball game from the stands or sidelines the M series is not going to cut it. If you want something that you will always have with you and can shoot fast with confidence the M series is great. Would I want to carry around my Nikon SLR gear with a fast zoom all the time – hell no. In addition to having it with you, it also is very unobtrusive – even with kids this seems to matter.

So I guess my answer to the Leica M9 and kids would be – Yes it is fantastic for shooting kids. What do you think? Do you want to shoot everyday situations like daughter No. 3 playing in a puddle? If yes the M series will do the job, maybe better than your DSLR and definitely better than your point and shoot. Assuming that you put in the effort to learn how to use it.

I actually think some of these long lost images may have some potential with a little dodging and burning and a slight crop here and there. What do you think? I hope that sharing some of the random non-perfect stuff that I point my camera at is at all informative to you.

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You’re currently reading “Leica M – Kids – 8 Year Old TRI-X,” an entry on RB Design

Published:: 10.15.09 / 12pm

Category:: Articles, General Photography

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RB 10.15.09 / 12pm

For you technical folks out there. Pyrocat HD 1+1+100 at 70F for 11:30 minutes, agitation 1 inversion/30 seconds. Water stop bath, TF-4 fixer.

Pyrocat HD is a fabulous developer for just about any film and deals with really difficult highlights beautifully as you can see from the reflections this is all pretty much back lit from 60 degrees overhead – not good – very difficult light to shoot in.

Based on experience these will be pretty much perfect at 6×9 (or something around there depending on what aspect ratio I choose) and fantastic up to about 8×12. After that they the grain will be apparent but nothing to overly worry about.

Dirk 10.15.09 / 5pm

Hi RB,

Nice article about the black art of shooting children!

In my experience the beautiful shots illustrate what shooting children is all about. To me it is all about capturing the right moment.

This is always difficult shooting people, but it is an art with young children. They move so fast an unpredictably that even the fastest motor drive does not help much.
Actually I only tested about 4 frames a second, but I suppose that even 10 is not enough. Often when shooting bursts of shots, I find that the first shot is the only one just right. If the first one is off, the others are not much better.

First hurdle is to hit the camera button at just the right moment. Afterwards, things like exposure, framing and so on can be corrected. When you miss the shot by a fraction of a second, even hours in photoshop will not help much.

It is evident that the M style RF is an excellent tool for this. Strange enough, it seems to be a weak point in most so called ‘advanced’ digital systems. A few weeks ago I watched a professional with his brand new Canon 5D markII and a 80-200 f2.8 (i think) trying to shoot a bunch of kids on our companies annual party. And after a few hours of shooting he produced some nice looking ‘unposed’ portraits.
They almost all looked pretty static to me. He was not fast enough to capture the interesting moments, so he shot them when they sat down, or slowed down for a moment..

And because this kind of photos is so valuable to a lot of people, the RF system is far from death.

If you keep posting these great articles, I will have no other option than to buy an M6 with a cron 50

RB 10.15.09 / 5pm

Dirk,

You sound like a man that has tried shooting kids (yours). I always say that if you can’t shoot a cat there is no way you are going to be able to shoot kids. I do mean a moving cat not one sitting still – try one that is having the “night crazies”.

On that note – for some reason I have never liked shooting people with long lenses – I have tried but for some reason it just doesn’t look right. I can count shots on one hand (mine and others) that I actually like on anything over 100mm or equiv. I have always liked 50 – 90 no matter weather it was personal work or commercial.

A thought on when to press the button – with all people pictures, headshots, old, young – the moment is everything. The most important. Slightly different expression and the shot is blown – trash. I am not talking about gross changes in expression – I am talking about tiny tiny micro muscle differences in lips, eyes, everything. I can show you two pictures that are almost identical and if you had to describe the differences in words you would have a really really hard time where one is right and the other one is wrong. The only thing you could attribute it to would be expression but if you had to pick a word for both expressions the word would be the same.

I made a living for a while by being able to get the right expression, all the right muscle tensions that were exactly right. It is an art not a skill. Shooting models is not about learning poses and figuring out how to communicate those – well it is but it is way beyond that. After all of the rest of the bullshit – that is the hard part and one of the reasons I love photographing people. No matter what you will never ever ever take the exact same picture of anyone, ever. Amazing.

Ps Some of my biggest failures have been the exact right moment with other things that flawed the image – mostly technical and having to settle for the okay but not quite as good and never exactly reproducible moment. Good term though – “Black Art”

RB 10.15.09 / 7pm

One more thing – congrats on detecting how much motion/action was involved in these shots – most people don’t pay that much attention. I am figuring that you saw that every shot hat boat loads of wave action going on in the very shallow water that would have dissipated very quickly if anything was actually still.

Dirk 10.16.09 / 8am

RB,

You guessed right, I actually tried shooting kids. And I have been doing that since I was about 15, now 30 years ago. At first it were the kids of my aunts and uncles, now it is my own boy (5,5 years old)

My first camera was a Nikon FE with a 80-210 zoom (mostly). I used to sit for hours hunting for the right shot. And I was not bad at it, if I can say that myself. After the age of 25 I did not shoot much because I did not have children of my own and there were no youg kids in the family then.
About 15 years ago, the kids of my brother and sister were my new subjects.

My first digiatal camera was the Nikon 990, nice lens and fair camera, but with one major drawback: shutter lag of about 1/10 of a second. That was really fast for its time, but still too slow to hit the moment without a lot of luck involved.

When shooting kids, I am never interested in poses. I want to shoot their soul, and that is only possible if they forget that you are there. But that means you have to be really fast…

As soon as I could afford it, I upgraded to a Nikon D70, and it has been my main camera until recently. The main reason to switch was the shutter lag improvement. Still, I liked the handling of my old manual focus lenses with my Nikon FE better than the D70.
Later Nikon models did not offer a significant improment in my view, so I stayed with the D70…

About 6 months ago, something triggered me to start reading about Leica. I guess it was a feeling that Nikon is going in a direction that will not help me going were I want to be. For example, every camera they release is larger and more complicated that the previous one. A D70 + 18-70 zoom is already more than I want to carry around for vacation and family events. Upgrading to D300 was considered, but rejected…

That is when I realised that a Leica RF system probably would be a real improvement for me. A used M8 with a cheap lens seemed like the only RF option for me within my budget.

After a while I found two other options.
One,
I purchased a Digilux 2 in August, which has really surprised me in a positive way. I like the handling much better than my D70. It convinced me even more that Leica is the way I want to go.

Two,
Your series of articles about shooting film made me consider shooting with an analog Leica RF, like an M6. It is amazing!
I never thought about shooting analog since 2000.
Now I am considering to develop my own B&W film again, like when I was a teenager. Then scan the negatives on a nice Nikon coolscan.

Do you have any recommendations on film scanners? I will rarily print on 12″x18″, most prints will only be 6″x9″.
What do you think about the LS1000 or LS2000 for this application?

Dirk

RB 10.16.09 / 9am

If you will be scanning BW you may really want to think about the new scanners with larger dynamic range – at the very least the 4000ED would be great – If you can find an 8000ED or 9000ED used that would be even better dynamic range, allow you to someday do medium format and…. you can batch scan 12 35mm at once.

Then newer X0000ED series scanners are of really good quality from my experience. The only other scanners that I have used (not personally but have scans from them) are really expensive pro drum scanners that cost 20,000+ the 8000ED and 9000ED are comparable.

Pavan 10.17.09 / 7am

Great shots RB; these are the kind of shots I am looking for.. the moment is everything when it comes to photography.. Even if the technical aspects are a bit lacking if the moment is captured that means a lot.. especially for family photos.. For professional photos I can understand the requirement for other details but even then, the moment is the most important thing..

RB 10.17.09 / 12pm

Pavan,

Glad you enjoyed the photos. I have 2 more rolls of 7-9 year old undeveloped Tri-X and 2 of the same vintage TMAX 3200. I will be developing these just to see what is on them. My cameras – 3 of them are already loaded up with old film awaiting my first foray out into the world and new film is on the way. The first couple of outdated old film will probably be just random stuff. Now I have to pick one of the never started projects off my list to go shoot.

Will continue to post the 2009 film follies as they unfold.

Anonymous 11.24.09 / 12pm

C. X.

I have passed most of my time occupied with my side-line hobby doing engagement, wedding and portrait photography. Most of my free time I have spent it reading about camera technicalities and practical photography in general. As a married man with two sons and a daughter I have had ample time to shoot my kids at home and out of doors. Now at my old age I really pity those occasions when I had empty frames left in my films and hurried so fast to develop them and, thereby missing lost opportunities, – now I realise – to record
beautiful and exciting moments of our kids’ activities, behaviour at play and at the table at dinner or sometimes at lunchtime!
I know I have lost momentous shots by missing that split-second moment of catching that particular expression on their face of that eventful moment! I know I had my Rolleiflex 2.8 F model, but it is bulky compared to 35 mm camera! For this type of photography one requires a good range-finder 35mm camera with shutter and/or aperture priority! And if one wants something special one should go for a Leica M 6 or better M7. There is no dispute about this, because you will be going for all complete excellence in photographic equipment.

Congratulations for your instructions and wide enlightenment!

RB Design

Leica M – Kids – 8 Year Old TRI-X

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