which focal length and lens formula did HC Bresson use?

[colker]

35? 50?

the greatest photgrapher on leica ever...

[kully]

I googled "bresson camera lens" and got many hits.

Here is the second.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/cartier-bresson.htm

[payasam]

Apparently he used different focal lengths at times, but his preferred lens (after it came out) was the collapsible Summicron. I am willing to be educated.

[colker]

Originally Posted by kully

I googled "bresson camera lens" and got many hits.

Here is the second.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/cartier-bresson.htm

Who is this guys ken rockwell? that was the most uninformed piece of writting on a photopgrapher i ever read..

[aperture64]

He mostly used 50mm

[colker]

Originally Posted by photomoof

He is an internet guy -- who has somehow become popular as a figure of derision, and also a writer for PDN. e.g. everyone loves to hate him, simply because he appears to make so many foot-in-mouths.

the guy is an idiot. as much as i agree w/ what he says about value, involking Bresson and spewing so much misinformation about him is just wrong.

Bresson came form a family of industrialists. Not a piss poor journalist. His education was based on painting and drawing and his friends were top artists in Paris. He was a PHOTOGRAPHER rather than a jourmalist.

soemone tell that KR to write about somehting else please.

[Gabriel M.A.]

Here's another little gem:

Cartier-Bresson started shooting in the 1930s. In the 1930s, Contax was the good camera, and most serious impromptu photojournalists (all three of them back then) had to settle for Leica instead. Nikons and Canons hadn't been invented yet.

Like Bugs Bunny said: "What a maroon."

I think most would agree that "the best camera" in the market right now, by KR's standards, is the Hasselblad H3. Holographic cameras haven't yet been invented, so journalists nowadays "settle" for Nikon D3s instead.

If KR were a food critic, he'd be comparing the Big Mac with Chipotle burritos and complain that the burritos are too expensive because they are served without a sesame seed bun, and what's worse, not as round and lacking a beef patty.

[Gabriel M.A.]

Originally Posted by colker

35? 50?

He updated his arsenal often. For 50mm, he used Elmars (f/3.5, f/2.8) and Summicrons mainly. For 35mm, he used the Summarons. I've seen a photo of him using a 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit.

Although I haven't seen anything that ties this, I've read he also used the Carl Zeiss 50mm Sonnar. Whether in Contax and/or LTM mount, I don't know.

Part of the "look" was the film emulsion, and also his printer (i.e. people who operate the darkroom). He employed printers, but he always had a firm "editing" hand in how he wanted the look of the print.

[John Robertson]

A few years ago Amateur Photography magazine dispelled one HCB myth, that he never cropped, by showing contact prints from the full frame.
EG the man jumping the puddle is only about half the frame, as is the guy looking through the hole in the fence.

[Florian1234]

There are photos of him at NYC in the 30's with his Leica in a everready-case, operating what looks like a collapsed Elmar 3.5/50 and nearby lies a leather pouch for most likely a 90mm lens. On top of the camera is an additionell viewfinder.

[Vics]

I agree that Rockwell's article is terribly uninformed. HCB was quite well off all his life, coming from a wealthy textile family. His friend Beaumont Newhall said as did many others that he used a Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 on his camera for many years. Anyone looking at his photos will see that he preferred the 50, but many photos have an obvious signature of the 35 and 90 mm focal lengths. The famous Newhall photo of HCB was whot with HCB's own 90mm. I would think that in the later part of his career as a photog, Leica probably sent him anything he wanted gratis.
Vic

[payasam]

As the quoted passage in Gabriel's post indicates, the man should be called "H. Cartier-Bresson".

[ferider]

He used 50mm and cropped down to 75mm perspective .... well, once at least ("Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare")

Seriously though, he used mostly 50mm, Elmar, Zeiss Sonnar, collapsible Summicron. Sometimes 35 (for example in "Sunday on the banks of the river Marne") and 90. Very late, he used CLE's, with a 40 among others. See Delduque's flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/umdiaumafoto/24763474.

Roland.

[Carlsen Highway]

I dont think "Sunday on the Banks fo the Marne" actually is a 35mm wide at all; I think its just a 50mm...to be contrary...

I read an article from 1947 which interviewed him and said that he had two cameras at that time (about the same time Magnum set up) a Leica and a Contax, and a 'battery of lenses for both". In the same article he was mainly using a Leica with a Zeiss Sonnar 1.5 on it.
I note that in 1955 he was photographed with Eric Hartman; Henri had a Leica M3 already, and Eric had a Contax IIa.

(There are many documentary passages uploaded to Youtube about HCB, which are quite interesting. HE seems like such a pleasant, quick and clever little man, There is one on there that was obviously filmed before 1954, but it is in French; Henri does a lot of talking - but I can't understand it. It's dubbed, but into Spanish....)

[Florian1234]

Originally Posted by Carlsen Highway

There is one on there that was obviously filmed before 1954, but it is in French; Henri does a lot of talking - but I can't understand it. It's dubbed, but into Spanish....)

Could you give us the url,please?