Charlecote Park is a Stately Home not far from where I live. I visit it several times a year to get seasonal generic images. These places are looked after by teams of gardeners and are therefore very neatly laid to be as attractive as possible. Garden and flower shots in these situations are therefore very suitable for stock libraries. Though I visit often the layouts are always different from year to year and through the various months of Spring, Summer and Autumn different plants emerge so I get a variety of colours and patterns. Images like this sell consistently well on my Stock Library sites.
Above is my Leica M10 with a 7Artisans 28mm f/1.4 lens fitted to it. 7Artisans are Chinese company who make budget versions of M Mount lenses.They have a 35mm f/2, which I also have and a 50mm f/1.1. (I tried one of these but it fell apart.) They have also just announced this:-
Now the new Leica 28mm f/1.4 Summilux is £4900 and the Leica 75mm f/1.25 Noctilux is £10,250. Now these prices are truly ridiculous and to be honest I don't know who buys them. Maybe the same people that buy Leica's "Special Editions". Rich collectors or just people who want to buy very expensive luxury brand items. Now it's not that hard to make a high quality manual focus lens, much easier than a zoom with IS and AF motors for example. And there is no way that these Leica lenses merit that kind of money. Now it could be argued that Leica is able to use this money to develop other products, but surely they are missing an opportunity here.
However, the 7Artisans 28mm f/1.4 cost me £350 on ebay, brand new. (The 75mm f/1.25 is apparently going to cost around the same.) Now I have no idea what the Summilux 28mm f/1.4 is like and probably never will, but the 7Artisans lens is excellent. It's beautifully made and sharp at all apertures and is overall a very good lens. Fortunately this company together with Voigtlander and Zeiss make cheaper (and excellent) alternatives for m-mount cameras, so those super expensive Leica lenses aren't necessary.
Above is an old Leica 90mm f/2 Summicron lens I bought on ebay for £450. It's in very good condition and again sharp at all apertures so it produces excellent images. This is another alternative for Leica M users as S/H old(er) lenses are much cheaper than the new ones.
Above are a few of the images I took at this location. The M10 suits me for occasions like this as I work quite slowly and aren't attempting to capture any fast action.
Finally, I'm thinking of using this format for future posts. Detailing my stock shoots, giving details of where I go and what gear I use. I'll see how it goes.
