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Goodbye Leica T..it's been fun


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I am happy I had a chance to get this camera early and use it. As you all know, it's an amazingly well made and thought out camera. It's not a knock against the camera that I sold it, it's just not for me.

 

I had almost forgotten how I was such a late adopter to the iPhone from my Blackberry. I always really been uncomfortable with touch screens. But I made that transition and love my iPhone and buy each new one as soon as they are released.

 

But that's not the reason either. I am really a fan of 28mm and that's what's on my MM and M240 most of the time. Probably 90%. I've owned the X1 and X2 and loved them, particularly the X2. While I wished for 28mm, of course there is a lot to be said for 35mm, each focal length of course has it's purpose.

 

For the kind of work I do, I just couldn't get comfortable with the T. It's really me more than it, I shoot very fast and am so used to manual everything. I also am more comfortable with dials and buttons than with touch screens.

 

The T makes perfect sense for many, especially to take advantage of Leica lenses. It's unlikely I would use my other lenses on it and finally I decided to let it go.

 

Replaced it with something that is almost tailor made for me and a great companion to my MM.

 

I've heard there will be a MM version of the M240 and while I am pretty sure I will get it, I have to say there's much I prefer about the body and simplicity of the M9/MM.

 

Should be very interesting to see what replaces the M240.

 

Anyone need a lightly used holster? :p

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It's really me more than it

 

The camera guy equivalent of the 'it's not you, it's me' break up line :)

 

 

 

Replaced it with something that is almost tailor made for me and a great companion to my MM.

 

 

 

so what have you replaced it with?

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Given how much you work with this focal length, perhaps a Ricoh GR Digital with its fixed 28mm-equivalent lens might work for you as a companion to the MM.

 

Nick

 

and the winner is....

 

YOU.

 

well done.

 

:p:P

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Hi There

I might need a lightly used holster - where are you? How much do you want?

 

. . . incidentally, I quite understand your point of view - the GR is a lovely camera, and it produces great results. It also has a great (but very different) interface.

 

The T is here to stay, and there will, I hope, be firmware updates and new lenses to go with it.

 

all the best

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Hi There

I might need a lightly used holster - where are you? How much do you want?

 

. . . incidentally, I quite understand your point of view - the GR is a lovely camera, and it produces great results. It also has a great (but very different) interface.

 

The T is here to stay, and there will, I hope, be firmware updates and new lenses to go with it.

 

all the best

 

I love the simplicity of the interface on the T and clearly the T is here to stay and I expect it will receive lots of significant firmware updates. The GR shipped with V 2.08 and I installed V4, so I didn't get to appreciate the differences with each one but I hear they were significant, especially with focus speed.

 

The holster has a couple of scuff marks on it (might come out, haven't tried) and I was very happy using it. Just brilliant design. I even did like the T snap but would only use one on days when the T would have light use and I wouldn't have to change the battery or card much or at all. It made the fit into the holster that much tighter which wasn't a bad thing either. Really was looking forward to the wrist strap.

 

I'll send you a PM. :)

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  • 6 months later...

I also bought a GR to shoot alongside main bodies. Its an absolute knockout camera and that 28mm equivalent lens is every bit as good as Leica glass. I went in expecting it to be really good, but was wholly unprepared for how good. AF can be slow in low light, but everything else is so well weighted in the shooter's favour that I would have to rate it as the best single focal length street/docu camera I have ever used.

 

I was curious to see what Leica's APS-C interchangeable camera would be a feel they have missed a golden opportunity here. Still, the lenses are great and there is always the chance that they will rethink the body part of the system equation.

 

Are there those out there who love the touchscreen dominated interface? It does not seem to me to have been designed by someone who really takes photos and does so a) under pressure and B) to a high standard.

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I also bought a GR to shoot alongside main bodies. Its an absolute knockout camera and that 28mm equivalent lens is every bit as good as Leica glass. I went in expecting it to be really good, but was wholly unprepared for how good. AF can be slow in low light, but everything else is so well weighted in the shooter's favour that I would have to rate it as the best single focal length street/docu camera I have ever used.

 

I was curious to see what Leica's APS-C interchangeable camera would be a feel they have missed a golden opportunity here. Still, the lenses are great and there is always the chance that they will rethink the body part of the system equation.

 

Are there those out there who love the touchscreen dominated interface? It does not seem to me to have been designed by someone who really takes photos and does so a) under pressure and B) to a high standard.

 

I am not a touchscreen fan but I do like simple and intuitive user interface. In this regard I feel the T has advantages compared to other mirrorless cameras.

For example my A7II has so many customizing options and function buttons that I dont even use most of them because I can never remember which button leads to which function. Do you set AF assist on auto or manual? Do you switch pre-AF on or off? Do you shoot silent mode or not (I find silent of A7s strange because totally silent and normal sound a little loud), etc. etc.

With the T II normally shoot in A mode. One dial exp comp, one f-stop. Good auto iso implementation, good AWB and good exp metering. Not much else I have to change to take an image. (The only thing I would wish a way to move AF-point around while having my eye at the viewfinder)

Since I own several cameras at the moment I sometimes shoot them side by side for fun. I dont feel the T slows me down. Except for sports because the AF has no usable continous mode.

But I assume its a very personal thing how a user interface works for someone.

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I was allowed to try the t for a couple of days. I have a d- and a v- lux and most of their buttons and dials are a nogo zone for my hands when i am out. With the t i was able to do all the adjustments i wanted, even in the cold.

 

So yes, I absolutely love the dials and the touchscreen on the t.

Regarding a) i am prepared to take some losses,

Regarding B) the t definitely raises the standard of my photography. But that may not be up to yours!

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I also bought a GR to shoot alongside main bodies. Its an absolute knockout camera and that 28mm equivalent lens is every bit as good as Leica glass. I went in expecting it to be really good, but was wholly unprepared for how good. AF can be slow in low light, but everything else is so well weighted in the shooter's favour that I would have to rate it as the best single focal length street/docu camera I have ever used.

 

I have been using a GR alongside my M9 and M240 for the past year and, as Jono says, it is a lovely camera. To my eye it is not quite as good as the M+28 combo but near enough as does not matter. And besides many disagree with me, Ming Thein for example, and 'batmobile' in this quote.

 

My only reservation is that the colour palette is subtly different. When I intersperse GR and M photos from the same session, I find it disturbing. Have played a lot in LR to see if they can be matched but so far no luck. Not a problem if I am taking the GR with me on a business trip and using it exclusively.

 

And not a problem if you shoot B/W obviously. In fact, the GR takes great B/W shots.

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.My only reservation is that the colour palette is subtly different. When I intersperse GR and M photos from the same session, I find it disturbing. Have played a lot in LR to see if they can be matched but so far no luck. Not a problem if I am taking the GR with me on a business trip and using it exclusively.

 

And not a problem if you shoot B/W obviously. In fact, the GR takes great B/W shots.

 

Have you tried one of the color calibration packages? Is this one of those things that can be fixed if you carefully calibrated or is it one of those things where the range of the gamut and the distribution of the tones within the gamuts are so different that it can't be fixed?

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Yes, I may do that. I have been looking at the X-Rite Colorchecker. Just don't want to acquire more kit I never use, if it does not fix the problem.

 

To date my workaround is not to use the two cameras together. Which is a shame because it does help with avoiding lens changes, e.g. M+50 and GR (28mm). Instead I take my Leica 28/2.8 and change lenses as needed.

 

Probably topic for a new thread. There must be quite a few people who use a different brand second camera and need to get good colour alignment.

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Are there those out there who love the touchscreen dominated interface? It does not seem to me to have been designed by someone who really takes photos and does so a) under pressure and B) to a high standard.

 

yes, its one of the best camera interfaces ever made IMHO

 

however a key to make it sing is to do something sacrilegious to the folk on this website,

use the back screen for viewing and use touch focus !!!

 

touch focus is a real revelation when done properly. being able to instantly focus on the subject without focus and recompose is amazing. it much faster in operation, not just more accurate.

 

I think people always using the external EVF to focus and take pictures are missing a trick. Of course its useful for very bright sunlight or when extra stabilization of the camera is required. but the sum of he parts really work well for touch focus

 

my 2 pence ..

Edited by colonel
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Are there those out there who love the touchscreen dominated interface? It does not seem to me to have been designed by someone who really takes photos and does so a) under pressure and B) to a high standard.

 

One thing that I must say, is that I've always thought of Leica photography as a deliberate thoughtful process, one that requires _THINKING_ until your brain rewires itself to the point that many times without thinking, it comes naturally. So I would say that I never expected the camera to do most everything well "under pressure". Making it perform well in time critical situations is a bit of the art of being a good photographer.

 

The touchscreen interface, makes almost everything that I need really quickly accessible in a way that is easy to customize to my way of shooting. It isn't buried in some archane menu system which is different than every other camera. It is all right there in a clear organized way. The rest is up to me.

 

yes, its one of the best camera interfaces ever made IMHO

 

however a key to make it sing is to do something sacrilegious to the folk on this website,

use the back screen for viewing and use touch focus !!!

 

touch focus is a real revelation when done properly. being able to instantly focus on the subject without focus and recompose is amazing. it much faster in operation, not just more accurate.

 

I think people always using the external EVF to focus and take pictures are missing a trick. Of course its useful for very bright sunlight or when extra stabilization of the camera is required. but the sum of he parts really work well for touch focus

 

my 2 pence ..

 

My trick is a little bit different. I personally have seldom used touch focus. That two photographers have come up with two different ways to make the camera "sing", suggests that the capability is in there in the camera, it just requires the photographer to manifest the latent capability.

 

It is an APS-C sensor, and the fastest native lens for it is a f/2.0. It isn't like you are focusing a Nocticron with an full frame M on a fast moving subject. With most apertures, you can use the same tricks that you have to use on the M to be very fast on the draw. If you use MF don't need to wait for the camera to hunt through a focus range:

a) hyperfocal focusing

B) pre-focus at the target distance

c) zone focusing

 

And if you want to be even faster, setup the exposure before hand as well. Then the camera doesn't even need to meter the scene and calculate anything before triggering the shutter. I haven't figured out how long the shutter lag is when you are MF, M mode with a preselected ISO but it is approaching 0s and well below anything that I can percieve.

 

The biggest thing to make that work is you have to keep the camera awake (using batteries) when you are waiting for "The Decisive Moment" or when you feel a grab shot coming on. Otherwise it takes about 4 sec to gather itself and activate the shutter.

 

You don't need continious tracking autofocus and a blazing frame rate in drive mode to take good photographs, and if you do then I would argue that it you aren't necessarily a great photographer but rather just playing an odds game and getting lucky from time to time.

 

When I am not under pressure to get a shot and have time to move around to find the right arrangement of objects and camera parameters, the AF is plenty fast enough.

 

Just keep this table in mind and think about how fleeting the moment you want to capture is likely to be:

 

  • MF, M with pre-selected ISO - approx 0s
  • AF focus locked (shutter 1/2 pressed) exposure parameters set - approx 0s
  • MF, A S P mode or M mode with auto ISO - approx 100-200ms
  • AF focus locked waiting for the moment - approx 100-200ms (not sure about this one - is the exposure locked as well?)
  • AF approx 1s (hopefully Leica can improve this. e.g. License DFD from Panasonic?)
  • Camera asleep in hand 4s (I'm hoping that leica will further improve this at the very least in the MF case.)
  • Camera off or asleep around neck approx 6-10s
  • Camera in bag 15-30s
  • Camera in bag with wrong lens 45s-1min
  • Camera in car or at home -- you missed the shot

Edited by bencoyote
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Are there those out there who love the touchscreen dominated interface? It does not seem to me to have been designed by someone who really takes photos and does so a) under pressure and B) to a high standard.

 

 

Absolutely, yes. There are only two reasons I think the Leica T is a worthwhile investment. The first is the lenses (obvious), but the second is the interface of the camera. I love being able to move my favourite functions to the top of the menu. I love touch AF and even touch AF+Release.

 

The process of taking a photo has never been easier or quicker IMHO. I own the EVF but rarely use it because the touch AF+Release is so convenient. I can instantly change settings on the fly without menu diving or remembering which custom button to press. Honestly, it's about time other companies start designing their interfaces after the T. It's a game changer for me and I'll even continue overlook the outdated sensor technology because of it.

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