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I've been pondering the Leica thing for a while now, and borrowed a used M8 and 50mm f/2 Summicron (65mm equivalent on the 1.3x crop of the M8) from my friendly London Camera Exchange manager at lunchtime today for a play about. Unfortunately they didn't have an M9 available, but I'm at the Leica Akademie next week so will give this test another go then.
I also had a 1D mk IV with a 50 1.4 (65mm equivalent) and a GF1 with a 20 1.7 (40mm equivalent).
One should note that this is in no way a scientific test and I'm just playing about really. No doubt some Leica folks will come on and rip my focusing skills apart ha ha ha. They will obviously be far better photographers than me.
Anyway, I've got a small amount of experience with rangefinders, and am aware how they work, focus etc. The purpose of this comparison was to see whether I can be bothered looking into Leicas further, how easy it is to use one, and whether the pictures that come out of them are worth the cash.
Conclusions first. Focusing the M8 was a total pain in the backside. I know well enough how to line up the images in the wee window, and I deliberately selected open apertures f/2 or f/2.8 (no point paying top £££s for f/2 if you're not going to use it) so I was dealing with a very narrow depth of field. Also, I was using manual mode on all 3 cameras. Occasionally I knocked the Leica's aperture ring off the preferred setting whilst wandering around.
I'm sure I can practice practice practice, but the GF1 and 1D nailed focus every single time in precisely the place I wanted them to whereas the Leica (i.e. me) was hit and miss at best, and rubbish at worst.
Trying to get focus on someone's eye was pretty much impossible as it is just too small to accurately pick out within the rangefinder focus frame. Trying to find a good edge that stands out enough to focus on is just very tricky. Why the focus rectangle isn't bigger is a mystery to me - you can see why Leica make more money selling viewfinder magnifiers. I found it easy to pick out the edge of someone's face, but that of course puts your focus point too far back blurring out the eyes by a few inches. Getting the Leica focus nailed is obviously going to be a tricky business. Obviously it's all my fault and I could hear the camera laughing at me.
Aside from the fact that mis-focused images are useless, the Leica itself is a lovely piece of kit. Beautifully made, super ergonomics and very nice to use. Very slick & simple menu and other controls. Poor rear screen though but it does the job.
They seem to have made a vendor selection error with the processor in the camera which is dog-slow. The M9 I've used before was even slower (larger image files I guess) which is rather inexcusable. Come on Leica!!!
Aside from the focus trickiness which I'm putting down to user error at the moment, the experience was interesting enough for me to go along for a few hours with an M9 and some instruction from a Leica pro. Let's see how that goes. I'll take the 1DIV and GF1 along as well to try a similar comparison as this. If it's possible to nail the focus when wide open every time at f/1.4 or f/2.0 I'll get rather more interested I think.
Anyway, here's a few pics. I cropped the GF1 shots a bit as, even though I moved closer to alleviate the relatively wider angle lens I didn't get it quite right.
I also had a 1D mk IV with a 50 1.4 (65mm equivalent) and a GF1 with a 20 1.7 (40mm equivalent).
One should note that this is in no way a scientific test and I'm just playing about really. No doubt some Leica folks will come on and rip my focusing skills apart ha ha ha. They will obviously be far better photographers than me.
Anyway, I've got a small amount of experience with rangefinders, and am aware how they work, focus etc. The purpose of this comparison was to see whether I can be bothered looking into Leicas further, how easy it is to use one, and whether the pictures that come out of them are worth the cash.
Conclusions first. Focusing the M8 was a total pain in the backside. I know well enough how to line up the images in the wee window, and I deliberately selected open apertures f/2 or f/2.8 (no point paying top £££s for f/2 if you're not going to use it) so I was dealing with a very narrow depth of field. Also, I was using manual mode on all 3 cameras. Occasionally I knocked the Leica's aperture ring off the preferred setting whilst wandering around.
I'm sure I can practice practice practice, but the GF1 and 1D nailed focus every single time in precisely the place I wanted them to whereas the Leica (i.e. me) was hit and miss at best, and rubbish at worst.
Trying to get focus on someone's eye was pretty much impossible as it is just too small to accurately pick out within the rangefinder focus frame. Trying to find a good edge that stands out enough to focus on is just very tricky. Why the focus rectangle isn't bigger is a mystery to me - you can see why Leica make more money selling viewfinder magnifiers. I found it easy to pick out the edge of someone's face, but that of course puts your focus point too far back blurring out the eyes by a few inches. Getting the Leica focus nailed is obviously going to be a tricky business. Obviously it's all my fault and I could hear the camera laughing at me.
Aside from the fact that mis-focused images are useless, the Leica itself is a lovely piece of kit. Beautifully made, super ergonomics and very nice to use. Very slick & simple menu and other controls. Poor rear screen though but it does the job.
They seem to have made a vendor selection error with the processor in the camera which is dog-slow. The M9 I've used before was even slower (larger image files I guess) which is rather inexcusable. Come on Leica!!!
Aside from the focus trickiness which I'm putting down to user error at the moment, the experience was interesting enough for me to go along for a few hours with an M9 and some instruction from a Leica pro. Let's see how that goes. I'll take the 1DIV and GF1 along as well to try a similar comparison as this. If it's possible to nail the focus when wide open every time at f/1.4 or f/2.0 I'll get rather more interested I think.
Anyway, here's a few pics. I cropped the GF1 shots a bit as, even though I moved closer to alleviate the relatively wider angle lens I didn't get it quite right.
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