By José Manuel Serrano Esparza
August 1, 1968. Lisl Steiner, a photojournalist working for Keystone Agency, Life magazine and The New York Times, is on assignment in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic.
She has just arrived at a street of the city and comes across some boys playing baseball.
The photographer is equipped with a 24 x 36 mm format Leica M2 rangefinder camera
attached to a Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 SAWOM 11308
featuring 8 elements in 6 groups, designed by Walter Mandler at Leitz Canada factory in Midland (Ontario), following the classical Double-Gauss scheme but adding two further elements, with a weight of only 150 g and highly miniaturized dimensions, which provided great comfort of use, in addition to yielding very good image quality at its widest aperture and superb stopping down from f/4.
Besides, its mechanic construction is extraordinary, greatly made by Hans Karl Wiese, an outstanding Leitz Canada fifties and sixties specialist on the mounting of optical elements during the assembling stage of the objectives, and Horst Haseneier, a true optical genius sporting a painstaking artisan profile and a consummate expert in the grinding and polishing of those optical elements.
Furthermore, already in 1957, Rudolf Seck, Head of the Applications Laboratory at Leitz (Wetzlar), had made abundant tests with several prototypes of this lens sent from Leitz Midland (Canada) to evaluate its performance in real use by professional photographers (something that Leica has always prioritized over the MTF graphs of its lenses on assessing their true optical and mechanical virtues), realizing its amazing image quality, very special fingerprint, versatility and duration keeping identical behavior and optomechanical performance during a lot of decades of intensive use.
Lisl, who has her camera loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white film, has been watching the boys for some minutes and has already approached them as much as possible.
Suddenly, the decisive moment arrives when one of the Dominican boys playing as pitcher (standing at a distance of roughly three meters from Lisl) is about to strongly throw the ball towards another boy (out of image, on the left) performing as batter, while his teammate is roughly two meters behind him, on the right of the photograph.
Lisl Steiner has previously configured her camera and lens to achieve zone focusing through the symbiosis between the depth of field scale and the distance scale on the middle area barrel of the Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 prime, setting f/11 diaphragm and the distance at 3 meters.
This way, the photographer will have a sharpness zone between 1,65 m and 16,81 m, id est, a depth of field of 15,16 m.
Therefore, she will not have to turn the focusing ring of the lens to get accurate focus, because this is by far and will go on being the fastest autofocus on earth, an AF based on depth of field, to such an extent that the photographer only has to raise the camera at her eyes height, frame and shoot, so the reaction speed to get defining instants is much quicker than with the best professional analogue and digital autofocus cameras, both reflex and mirrorless ones.
Lisl Steiner presses the release button of her Leica M2 camera, putting it through its paces with a highly instinctive shot and captures masterfully and with stunning timing accuracy the instant in which the pitcher throws the ball (two thirds of it are visible on the left of the image) with great strength.
The photographer has selected a slow shutter speed, highly skilfully depicting the moving right arm of the Dominican boy hurling the ball blurred because of trepidation, while his left arm, bent in a 90º angle to be able to keep balance, is mostly in focus, unlike his left hand which is blurred because of the trepidation brought about by the slow speed chosen, generating an outstanding feeling of motion in the scene, as well as revealing the boy´s biceps and his impressive athletic talent and strength for his age.
Besides, the right foot of the boy throwing the ball is also captured blurred because of trepidation, with its tip on the ground, while the whole weight of his body is resting on the perfectly in focus left foot, a contrast that increases the perception of motion even more.
The image context features great poverty, visible on the dingy and chipped off wall in the background on the right, in the jagged border of the pavement next to the boys and in the electricity wire hanging from the white wall in the upper right background of the photograph, which is enhanced by the fact that both of them are barefooted.
Lisl Steiner manages to infuse the image with a remarkable dynamism by means of the majestic and incredibly accurate capturing of the boy´s movement just at the moment when he powerfully tosses the ball while being bent forward because of the effort and in synergy with his teammate, who appears paying top attention, waiting to see if the batter is able to impact the ball or it is received by the catcher.
In addition, the photographer introduces a further exceedingly symbolic element in the picture composition : the half-opened door visible on the left of the image, an allegory to perhaps a future sporting chance, diachronically embodied by Dominican baseball players who were successful in United States like Juan Marichal, Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martínez, David Ortiz, Alberto Pujols, José Bautista, Robinson Cano, Vladimir Guerrero, Adrián Beltré and others.
On the other hand, also from a compositional viewpoint, the line made up by the electric wire hanging from the white wall and the straight line separating the sun lit area from the shade one on the right lower corner of the photograph progressively open the scene from the boy wearing white shirt and trousers ( the vanishing points of both lines converge behind him) until reaching the pitcher boy, his shadow, the large manhole on the floor and the ball in the air captured blurred (which highlights the visual effect of kinetik energy), in addition to underscoring the stark contrast between the static position of the boy on the right of the image and the fairly dynamic one of the pitcher, depicted in full motion.
Furthermore, the image oozes a wealth of static geometric elements rendered sharp because of the extensive depth of field on the whole surface of the frame created after stopping down to f/16 : the metallic white bars of the two windows in the background, the very small metallic sewer from early XX century visible between both boys, the ascending straight lines on the
wooden door in the upper area of the picture, the small hole on the border of the sidewalk and the very large manhole on the left lower corner of the image.
Lisl Steiner uses the photographic gear
better adapting to the kind of photography she makes, since Leica rangefinder cameras lack a swivelling mirror and sport much more stability shooting handheld than reflex ones, so they can get sharp pictures up to approximately 1/8 s, unlike a reflex camera needing much faster shutter speeds to avoid trepidation and blurred images.
She has even been able to capture two thirds of the ball, appearing on far left of the image, not sharp, but blurred, as a consequence of the slow shutter speed chosen in advance, which enhances even more the amazing feeling of motion and energy conveyed by this image.
Besides, when the photographer gets a picture with a rangefinder camera, there isn´t any darkening in the viewfinder on pressing the shutter release button, so he / she can see exactly what is happening at every split second.
The Leica M2 is optimised for 35mm primes, as the view from a 35mm lens
fills its excellent and uncluttered viewfinder, so Lisl leveraged it to get the picture of the two Dominican boys playing baseball from a very near distance, enjoying a crystal-clear image through the 0.72x VF of the camera and making a very fast and instinctive shot, getting the picture.
Aside from the talent, sense of anticipation and experience of the photographer, along with her remarkable ability to approach as much as possible to her subjects and get unnoticed during the photographic act of the photographer, which were by far the key factors to make this photograph,
it is important to realize that though the Leica M3 is the best 24 x 36 mm format analog rangefinder camera ever made (along with the Leica M6 and the Nikon SP) with its unbeatable 0.92x magnification exceedingly brilliant and sharp viewfinder, particularly in symbiosis with standard 50 mm highly luminous lenses,
the Leica M2 is also a full-fledged product, an extraordinary camera and the forefather of all the 24 x 36 mm format Leica rangefinder cameras manufactured after it, both analogue and digital ones, in terms of the range-viewfinders used, since their VFs are based on the one designed by Willi Keiner,
who adapted its optics for the 0.72x magnification viewfinder of the Leica M2, so enabling a built-in luminous frame for wideangle 35 mm lenses.
And there were three significant reasons for it:
a) The production cost of the Leica M3 was huge, to such an extent that only its fabulous 0.92 x viewfinder and its rangefinder, made with top-notch glass and very complex, had a similar price to the cream of the crop of professional 24 x 36 mm format cameras from other respected brands at the time.
b) The 0.92x magnification viewfinder of the Leica M3 (sporting brightline viewfinder frames for 50 mm, 90 mm and 135 mm lenses) didn´t make possible to generate a bright-line frame for
35 mm wideangle lenses, needing the use of expensive optical viewfinder attachments to get it, which substantially increased the weight of any 35 mm lens.
c) The Leica M2 was launched into market in 1958 because Ernst Leitz II gleaned a lot of feedback from professional photojournalists who were going to mostly use 35 mm wideangle lenses and needed a more affordable camera that kept on preserving amazing building quality and optomechanical performance.
Advertisement made by E. Leitz Inc New York in 1958 to promote the new Leica M2 rangefinder camera, specially underscoring its built-in luminous frame for wideangle 35 mm lenses (non existing in the Leica M3), which turn it into a reference-class landmark photographic tool in the scope of photojournalism.
This was the key factor for the German photographic firm to focus production on the Leica M2 and subsequent models of Leica rangefinder cameras featuring 0.72x magnification viewfinders, because from late fifties it was evident that the 50 mm standard lenses (which had been mostly used in the halcyon days of black and white photojournalism during the second half of twenties, thirties, forties and first half of fifties) were being replaced by the 35 mm wideangle objectives as more versatile and main lenses in both black and white and color photojournalism.
Something that was greatly enhanced from 1958 onwards with the launching into market by Ernst Leitz Canada and Ernst Leitz Wetzlar of highly luminous 35 mm wideangle lenses like the 8 elements in 6 groups Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 1st Version SAWOM (1958-1979) designed by Walter Mandler, the 6 elements in 4 groups Summaron-M 35 mm f/2.8 (1958-1974) and the 7 elements in 5 groups Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 (1960-1995) designed by Walter Mandler, delivering exceptional sharpness for the time, featuring a wonderful focusing ring smoothness and precision and ushering in a new photojournalistic era in which 35 mm and 28 mm lenses would reign supreme.
© Leica Camera AG.
On the other hand, Lisl Steiner, a photographer whose professional career was always devoted to get the pictures from very near distances and in an unobtrusive way, took advantage of two further significant virtues of her Leica M2 camera to make the photograph of the two Dominican boys playing baseball :
a) The whispering and almost imperceptible noise (decisively helping to preserve discretion during the photographic act) generated by the very reliable utterly mechanical horizontally travelled focal-plane shutter with rubberized silk curtains, in which the fast shutter speeds are formed by a control cam and the slower ones of more than 1/60 s with a small gear train that is also referred to as a delay mechanism.
This exceptionally quiet and virtually vibration-free spring-driven shutter (based on the interaction betwen the relatively low weight of the cloth curtains making possible that the moving mass can also be kept low and their comparatively moderate acceleration as they cross
the film gate, coupled with a controlled, gentle braking of the shutter curtains ) had been created in 1953 (streamlining an original patent dating back to 1934) by Friedrich Gath following the aims defined by Ludwig Leitz and Willi Stein, subsequently reaching its apex of low noise, friction reduction, low temperature operation, longevity and accuracy improvements during eighties and nineties with the Leica M6 saga of cameras focal plane shutters devised by Otto Domes and Peter Loseries, with some inputs from his friend Norman Goldberg.
b) An incredibly short shutter lag ( time elapsed between the pressing of the shutter release of the camera and the exposure of film) of 0.014 s, a scope in which Leica M rangefinder analog cameras were last century and go on being nowadays the unsurpassed benchmark among film and digital mirrorless professional cameras.
And this amazingly short shutter lag is a great advantage when it comes to capturing the most meaningful instants with maximum accuracy, enhancing the photographer´s sense of anticipation and timing precision on shooting the camera to get the picture.
It´s no wonder that right off the bat, Lisl Steiner swore by the Leica M rangefinder breed of cameras and lenses that she used with unbriddled enthusiasm from mid fifties until her passing away on June 7, 2023.
A lifetime and unabated rapport which was still more beefed up from 1991 onwards through her great friendship with Sam Shoshan, who became her advisor on Leica topics, often going to her home in Pound Ridge (New York) and selling her some Leica M cameras and lenses, staying true to fundamental concepts stemming from Ken Hansen´s core values, who have always been a lifetime guiding path for him.
© José Manuel Serrano Esparza
Even, such is the craftsmanship level of the Leica M2 that during nineties there were some in-depth conversations between Don Goldberg (renowned Leica expert technician at DAG) and Roy Moss (a very knowledgeable and experienced member of the LHSA) in which both of them
reached the conclusion that in terms of rugged reliability, uniformity of winding mechanism in each unit and long time rangefinder precision, it is probably the best Leica M camera of all time (though from an overall performance viewpoint many users deem the Leica M6 and M3 as the benchmarks), because when the M2 was in production, the assemblers for this camera had to undergo a three and a half year apprenticeship and work their way up to the assembly line.
Besides, as had already happened with the Leica M3, the Leica M2 benefited from the Ernst Leitz company´s steady tenet of continuing product improvement, and Don Goldberg proved that the M2 rangefinder was improved about halfway through its production making between 1958 and 1967.
And if it all weren´t enough, this picture made by Lisl Steiner in 1968 is also fruit of one of the most unique feats in the history of photographic firms : the foundation of the Ernst Leitz Canada factory in Midland, Ontario (Canada) by a group of world-class optical and mechanical technicians from Leica who travelled from Germany to Canada on board of a ship to start what would turn into the world yardstick of optical and mechanical photographic proficiency (on a par with the Ernst Leitz factory in Wetzlar, Germany) and innovation, under the directorship of Gunther Leitz and Walter Kluck with their great entrepreneurial skills.
© Leica Camera AG
It was at the Ernst Leitz Midland factory where Walter Mandler designed the Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Version 1 SAWOM (1958-1963) with which Lisl Steiner got the picture of the two Dominican boys playing baseball in 1968, proving the unrivalled efficiency of the Leica M concept when it comes to creating images from the shortest distances, with minimum camera size and weight, unfettered freedom of movements, great comfort and stability shooting handheld, unmatched levels of discretion and second to none image quality, thanks to the wide range of very small and light superb Leica M lenses standing for the thriving German photographic firm.
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