Subdued colours of summer

It's September and the summer is pretty much over. Well, here anyway. So, let's look at some summer colours while they are still fresh in our minds. I took these photographs to test an old Leica screw mount lens, a Canon Serenar 85/1.9, on the Leica M8. It's a reasonably sharp lens that however produces images that have rather low contrast (which is typical for old lenses). This can be beneficial in harsh light, but usually you need to add contrast in post processing. I believe all these photos were shot wide open at 1.9.

2010 - Leica M8, 1/4000, ISO 160

2010 - Leica M8, 1/750, ISO 160

2010 - Leica M8, 1/2000, ISO 160

There are several old, fast 85-mm Canon lenses. Internet legend has it that the best of the group is the 85/1.8, which I have never seen myself. If you find one, grab it. The 85/1.9 and 85/2 are supposedly pretty close in quality and both are considerably cheaper than the 1.8.

I like the overall rendering of this lens. It has a round aperture even when stopped down, which should help to produce some pleasant out-of-focus highlights. I have however mostly used the lens wide open or very close to wide open so far. Unfortunately, my copy does not focus quite correctly, which is why I'm not using it that much. It has considerable back-focus issues that I need to look into. I hope I can fix it. In the above picture of the reed I have compensated for the back focus.