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Leica M 10


rijve044

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I think it was  Ansel Adams who said: You want to be a photographer? - get a job at a shoe store... I think it sums it up - if an artist wants to be free he should cut loose from the commercial aspect. Either by being an amateur who gains his income elsewhere, or by living in Paris on cheap wine and bread.

Ansel said some silly things. But I understand what he was trying to say.

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I want to burn the house down and get back to what photography is suppose to be and not the rat race it became with digital. When clients start overly dictating, it's time to change. When the camera manufacturers start to dictate - it's time to change. Art should come for the artist and everything else is a distraction and a muddling of the process and path.

 

I understand all that but I don't know how you can square that desire with the tethered 50 person shoots that you have previously written are your commercial reality?

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I understand all that but I don't know how you can square that desire with the tethered 50 person shoots that you have previously written are your commercial reality?

Well it's risky, sure, but there are people who are doing it now and coming out on top. There is a definite movement going on.

Edited by Paul J
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I understand all that but I don't know how you can square that desire with the tethered 50 person shoots that you have previously written are your commercial reality?

 

 

Well it's risky, sure, but there are people who are doing it now and coming out on top. There is a definite movement going on.

In any case, it's a process. Start it on personal work, build up a workflow and tie the process down, make a product and put in front of the right people. You don't need a job in a shoe store, just an receptive audience and that is one of the benefits of living in a big city.

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That is of course possible – Leica doesn't seem shy in trying new things and introducing new camera products – but I get the impression that the dropping of the whole M "typ" designation thing and the attention paid to the optical viewfinder indicates that Leica are drawing a line under their recent attempts to give the M system a wider appeal and that the M10 is how the company wants to position the system digitally.

 

 

Yes, that is just as likely.

 

But I hope you can see why some of us are concerned. It's for fear of being presented with the SL and Q as the "advanced" alternatives to the M, suggesting that further development of the M might now be limited now that the popular goal of the digital M6 has been achieved.

 

I'm very pleased that Leica continues to develop and improve the rangefinder viewfinder system. The M10 is a very attractive camera indeed, with one or two minor reservations that are not terribly material.

 

But I sincerely hope there are other ways that the M line can be developed alongside it in ways that won't spoil the M10 or jeopardise its own future.

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The signals are that the Digital M is out to pasture.

 

Film M was 'out to pasture' when the SLR came along and even more so when digital took over. Its survived so far as will digital M. Prophecies like this have a habit of being wrong fortunately.

 

What puzzles me most about this whole debate is the dis-satisfaction many people have with what are by the standards which prevailed for decades, extraordinarily wonderful cameras. Perhaps some is blurring of the lines between camera 'types' but I wonder if a lot is to do with dis-satisfaction with our own photography. I've been there and done that with digital.

 

I'm currently setting up a photo gallery in North Wales with another photographer in order to promote the end result of photographer's efforts more - we value our gear but rarely value the effort and creativity that goes into image creation. Looking through a lot of images from a lot of photographers I'm struck by just how good many are - and this includes a lot of images shot on film. But my point is that its not actually the technology, the MPixels or anything like that - its the subject, composition and lighting which are of far more importance. The M10 will no doubt be a fabulously effective camera and when I need to replace one of my existing bodies, it will be the replacement no doubt. But if I'm honest, photography is not about its absolute specifications at all, its about my abilities when using a camera.

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Film M was 'out to pasture' when the SLR came along and even more so when digital took over. Its survived so far as will digital M. Prophecies like this have a habit of being wrong fortunately.

 

What puzzles me most about this whole debate is the dis-satisfaction many people have with what are by the standards which prevailed for decades, extraordinarily wonderful cameras. Perhaps some is blurring of the lines between camera 'types' but I wonder if a lot is to do with dis-satisfaction with our own photography. I've been there and done that with digital.

 

I'm currently setting up a photo gallery in North Wales with another photographer in order to promote the end result of photographer's efforts more - we value our gear but rarely value the effort and creativity that goes into image creation. Looking through a lot of images from a lot of photographers I'm struck by just how good many are - and this includes a lot of images shot on film. But my point is that its not actually the technology, the MPixels or anything like that - its the subject, composition and lighting which are of far more importance. The M10 will no doubt be a fabulously effective camera and when I need to replace one of my existing bodies, it will be the replacement no doubt. But if I'm honest, photography is not about its absolute specifications at all, its about my abilities when using a camera.

 

 

Yes of course you're right, photography is about far more important things than cameras. I often moan about how much time we spend worrying about gear rather than photography.

 

But we are talking about cameras at the moment, so in that context, we can talk about what we'd like to see next. I think!

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Ansel said some silly things. But I understand what he was trying to say.

 

I think Ansel was right on this point. There is a lot of beautiful, dare I say "artistic", work done under a commercial umbrella but it is rarely, if ever, Art with a capital A. The motivations behind the work are simply different.

 

In any case, it's a process. Start it on personal work, build up a workflow and tie the process down

 

 

You seem to be suggesting some kind of Eureka moment. Are you saying that your personal work isn't already largely film based?

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I think Ansel was right on this point. There is a lot of beautiful, dare I say "artistic", work done under a commercial umbrella but it is rarely, if ever, Art with a capital A. The motivations behind the work are simply different.

 

 

 

You seem to be suggesting some kind of Eureka moment. Are you saying that your personal work isn't already largely film based?

You are right, commercial work is rarely art but it is sometimes, and other times it comes close but could never be by nature. Sometimes it is though and for the times it isn't it can pay exceptionally well so the commercial entity is happy because they get what they want and the photographer is happy because they get to fund their more fulfilling personal projects with work that is inline with their point of view and doesn't affect their personal work too much in terms of credibility. Infact, some commercial work has sparked some personal work too.

 

My personal work is mostly digital for some time. Commercial work is a term which implies things: catalogue, illustrative product work, and all sort of other things I have no interest in but it is also a wider umbrella that allows other things too and my commercial work is not much different from my personal work except for the fact there is sometimes someones product in it. People hire me for my point of view and my ideas as well as my aesthetic and they don't hire me if it doesn't fit. If there is a disconnect between your personal work and your commercial work then, well it's more nuanced than a couple sentences can explain but there becomes a problem. And that problem is part of the reason I have always been trying to push for more resolution to connect my own work to my clients needs.

Edited by Paul J
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Yes of course you're right, photography is about far more important things than cameras. I often moan about how much time we spend worrying about gear rather than photography.

 

But we are talking about cameras at the moment, so in that context, we can talk about what we'd like to see next. I think!

 

Peter, are you able to put any flesh on the bones of what you’d like to see next?

 

You’ve described the M10 as a traditionalist model lacking something that you regard as far more modern. What I haven’t grasped is exactly what that something is that you think is missing, apart from video. After all, the M10 has most of what the Typ 240 has - live view and a reasonably capable EVF. It has wireless capability and GPS. You can use it with adapted lenses. What is that you think should have been added that hasn't been?

 

Is it just that you want these features to be of the cutting edge variety rather than the tried and tested technologies that Leica appears to favour? Or are there other technologies that you think should be available in an M that are simply absent from the M10.

 

I think Leica has made a successful transition from film to digital and taken much of its established customer base with it. It has managed to keep its core technology for the M line - the coupled rangefinder - but has supplemented it with electronic technologies that make the camera more versatile. I don’t see why that process should end with the M10. Leica has also introduced new camera lines with different core technologies to suit different photographic applications. I don’t see why that process should end either. I just don’t grasp what precisely it is about the M10 that causes you such concern about the future of the M line.

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But we are talking about cameras at the moment, so in that context, we can talk about what we'd like to see next. I think!

 

Well, personally I see the M range as continuing to evolve slowly. I think that anything Leica modifies/changes/adds to an M camera needs to be done very well indeed. Not that the current cameras need dramatic alterations, because the M camera do what they do very well indeed already, so I see no point in compromising their fundamental viability by compromising. I see the current MPixels as being more than adequate for a portable, handheld camera which was and is, the way that Leica RFs have been and are mostly used. And I see no point in Leica M cameras trying to 'compete' against more electronic and technologically advance cameras because ultimately they can't due to their mechanical legacy. So really I see little which needs to be uprated in all honesty.

 

If a camera becomes a limiting factor it either needs updating or an alternative should be used. IMO this is the crux of the problem with upgrades, and especially so with the Leica M system. The legacy in terms of its lenses is facing renewed competition to which purely optical solutions are far from economic. If anything this will increase. Accepting the M system for what it is will yield as good images in the future as today. My cameras don't currently limit my imagination and abilities - I do.

 

So if I have to choose something then what I'd like to see next are sensors with greater dynamic range and better sensitivity. Perhaps Leica could adopt other manufacturer's ideas and offer a low light version of the M for those who really do want to use their fast lenses handheld by moonlight? ;)

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Peter, are you able to put any flesh on the bones of what you’d like to see next?

 

You’ve described the M10 as a traditionalist model lacking something that you regard as far more modern. What I haven’t grasped is exactly what that something is that you think is missing, apart from video. After all, the M10 has most of what the Typ 240 has - live view and a reasonably capable EVF. It has wireless capability and GPS. You can use it with adapted lenses. What is that you think should have been added that hasn't been?

 

Is it just that you want these features to be of the cutting edge variety rather than the tried and tested technologies that Leica appears to favour? Or are there other technologies that you think should be available in an M that are simply absent from the M10.

 

I think Leica has made a successful transition from film to digital and taken much of its established customer base with it. It has managed to keep its core technology for the M line - the coupled rangefinder - but has supplemented it with electronic technologies that make the camera more versatile. I don’t see why that process should end with the M10. Leica has also introduced new camera lines with different core technologies to suit different photographic applications. I don’t see why that process should end either. I just don’t grasp what precisely it is about the M10 that causes you such concern about the future of the M line.

You ask a very good question that, to be honest, I find difficult to answer. I have tried in other threafs(there are so many) and I'll try again now, but all that tends to happen is I expose my technical ignorance.

 

I acknowledge that most of what you say is true, as far as the M10 goes. Leica have done a very good job of making a digital camera that retains the virtues of the film Ms in a beautifully non-intrusive way that makes them delightfully direct and intuitive to use, with splendid quality, and I applaud them for it.

 

At the same time there are things that I'd like to think may be or become possible. Like for example higher resolution sensors that are no more difficult to use. And EVF options that can work seamlessly as they do in the SL and Q, but alongside the current viewfinder/ rangefinder so as not to diminish it in any way.

 

Ultimately I'd like to see an auto/focus option. And image stabilisation.

 

The problem is that when we do discuss these things, it usually triggers an avalanche of reasons why they are neither possible nor desirable, why anything of this sort would be a betrayal of the M heritage, why the flange/ mount is inadequate and other technical objections that may well be correct at the moment but are not necessarily permanently insurmountable given an imaginative enough approach to what we're trying to end up with.

 

If something can't be done, it can't be done. But If it was up to me, I'd be confident that digital cameras were impossible to begin with. My hope is that genuine innovation can resolve problems that currently appear to be insoluble. At present the industry interprets progress as more megapixels, greater light-sensitivity and that sort of linear extension of what we're already accustomed to seeing. I'm hoping for more genuine innovation so that the things I most value in the M can be preserved in a camera that doesn't have to concede to something as big and different as an SL in each new development.

 

Video doesn't matter to me. And I'm fully aware that if I want autofocus or image stabilisation there's plenty of choice available since every other small-format camera manufacturer in the world offers plenty of choice. But not one of them offers the virtues of ta Leica M alongside the sort of advances that I'd like to see.

 

I didn't expect any of this in the M10. In many ways they shouldn't be in the basis M; I can see that. But there are some signs that I'll never see them any M and in my personal opinion, that would be a shame. But I could so easily be wrong, in so many ways!

Edited by Peter H
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It is not really a rant. I'm just an amateur, but I happened to pick up my M6 yesterday (actually to change straps around to get a better one on my newly arrived GX8) and, finding there was still a film in it, found myself thinking that this was far more attractive than any M10, and just lying in my safe...

Guess what will be in my bag this weekend  ;)

And most likely during my skiing holiday too :)

 

 

Oh, it's a rant. :)

 

My M4-2 is often in the bag with the M-D, or at least was. It's not there as often now because I prefer using the M-D and find processing digital captures more to my liking than processing and scanning film, and the M-D returns to me the M4-2 shooting experience. Digital capture also enables me to make sensitivity decisions on a frame by frame basis rather than in 36 frame blocks, which I find to be a tremendous advantage in shooting. 

 

One thing I use the M4-2 for more of the time is when I want to shoot with the Color Skopar 28mm f/3.5 lens. This lens performs better on film than on the M-D or M-P sensors. The only sensor it worked with as well as it does on film was my Ricoh GXR with the M-mount camera unit, but then of course it is more like shooting with a 40mm lens. 

 

This often cited "going back to film to return to real photography" just seems kind of silly to me. Photography has traversed dozens of different processes and formats over the years from its invention to the present. The dominance of 35mm film as the defining moment of photography was about a 30 year long moment in that history, alongside other film formats, but good photography transcends both format and capture medium: it's about expression, gesture, timing, and seeing. 

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Oh, it's a rant. :)

 

My M4-2 is often in the bag with the M-D, or at least was. It's not there as often now because I prefer using the M-D and find processing digital captures more to my liking than processing and scanning film, and the M-D returns to me the M4-2 shooting experience. Digital capture also enables me to make sensitivity decisions on a frame by frame basis rather than in 36 frame blocks, which I find to be a tremendous advantage in shooting. 

 

One thing I use the M4-2 for more of the time is when I want to shoot with the Color Skopar 28mm f/3.5 lens. This lens performs better on film than on the M-D or M-P sensors. The only sensor it worked with as well as it does on film was my Ricoh GXR with the M-mount camera unit, but then of course it is more like shooting with a 40mm lens. 

 

This often cited "going back to film to return to real photography" just seems kind of silly to me. Photography has traversed dozens of different processes and formats over the years from its invention to the present. The dominance of 35mm film as the defining moment of photography was about a 30 year long moment in that history, alongside other film formats, but good photography transcends both format and capture medium: it's about expression, gesture, timing, and seeing.

No it's not silly. What you are saying is like Oil Painting is unnecessary because we can just draw on a computer. Selection of medium and format is a part of the expression you list as important.

 

If you haven't got a decent photo to begin with then it will not make much difference and I can't imagine that is much surprise to anyone. But to suggest that format does not contribute to the overall whole on a deeper level is untrue. Process is an important part of how an artist works and the tools, the medium, it all contributes to the final work so what ever works, they should do it. It's not that aesthetics of film make the difference by its self, it's the process, the mindset it puts you in - but in saying that the aesthetics of film can make a big impact too which is why so many spend so long trying to make their digital images look more like film. There is no denying the beauty of Film. Then there is the nature of unintended consequences. Digital has a lot of these.

Edited by Paul J
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Oh, it's a rant. :)

 

My M4-2 is often in the bag with the M-D, or at least was. It's not there as often now because I prefer using the M-D and find processing digital captures more to my liking than processing and scanning film, and the M-D returns to me the M4-2 shooting experience. Digital capture also enables me to make sensitivity decisions on a frame by frame basis rather than in 36 frame blocks, which I find to be a tremendous advantage in shooting. 

 

One thing I use the M4-2 for more of the time is when I want to shoot with the Color Skopar 28mm f/3.5 lens. This lens performs better on film than on the M-D or M-P sensors. The only sensor it worked with as well as it does on film was my Ricoh GXR with the M-mount camera unit, but then of course it is more like shooting with a 40mm lens. 

 

This often cited "going back to film to return to real photography" just seems kind of silly to me. Photography has traversed dozens of different processes and formats over the years from its invention to the present. The dominance of 35mm film as the defining moment of photography was about a 30 year long moment in that history, alongside other film formats, but good photography transcends both format and capture medium: it's about expression, gesture, timing, and seeing. 

Sure, but shooting film is fun with a different look in the result. :) The process certainly influences the outcome.

Fortunately I haven't the foggiest notion what  "real photography" is supposed to be.

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Sure, but shooting film is fun with a different look in the result. :) The process certainly influences the outcome.

Fortunately I haven't the foggiest notion what  "real photography" is supposed to be.

What real photography for me is ...

 

Taking out the film from the box and loading the film on the camera ( I love the smell of the film when taking out of the box ) 

Getting the challenge of shooting the film with a limited choice being Colour or B&W or it being on one ISO. 

Having a very limited exposure count to nail at least one or a few ( very rarely) winning photos to include into the keeper's list.

After finishing the film after few days/ weeks or month go the dark room ( Basically my toilet ) develop it in my photo-cocktail

( miss the smell of the photochemist, best part of the REAL PHOTOGRAPHY )  

And then once in a way to spend a half day in frustration to try a print of two to develope ( to have much pleasure and joy of experience of seen the photo emerge on the paper for the first time .

 

For me this is real photography.  But it is me my personal experience that I cherish and redo it anytime I have the opportunity to do it anytime.

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OK..Leica..you made a great digital traditionalists M cam..the m10..you did it!

I'll probably get one when you put video in there..the m15 or whatever..

I'll keep using my Panasonics and Sonys w/Leica lenses for now though..

And even take up contact prints again on the 8x10 and bring out the m6 from retirement ..

Life is short...I cant wait for you to put out the perfect M for me anymore..as I need all the fixins..on digital now..or at least some of them..

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