The Leica Lens Book

Rating:
Summary: Read the pictures as well as the words
Review: I read the book,$45+4.1%, at Borders, and noticed that the text was lacking. The photos are not lacking and speak volumes with respect to the color properties of those leica lenses. For Leica M or R Camera/lense combinations, I find that Bowers pictures tell the real story. For example, look at the M-6/50mmf1.0 shot of the priest in M-6 by Bower. That is the truest, deepest color lense that I've used to date. The Leica lense brochure is also useful. Use slow film; PKR25, velvia, or agfa ultra 50, and your shots will equal the best.

Rating:
Summary: Idiosyncratic, chaotic, and omission-filled.
Review: The student of Leica photography and Leica lenses will find very little information about any lenses except the newest and most expensive in Leica's line. In addition, Bower fails at the most important task in a book of this sort, describing the imaging properties and optical quality of the lenses he does include. Anybody seriously interested in lenses for Leica cameras should look elsewhere, particularly in Gunther Osterloh's books and those of Theo Kisselbach.

But, Bower's photographs are wonderful, lusciously well reproduced, and as razor sharp as we expect from a top photographer using Leica glass. Instead of buying this book, get the same author's "Leica Reflex Photography." It has many of the same photos and, in soft cover, costs considerably less.