Julian Thompson

For me the problem with the digital shooting is still restraint. even though I know I CAN delete unwanted shots I also know it adds a lot of work to editing later to actually sift through all those 'same old' photos and get to the crux of the scene. Sometimes, my selection will be poor and I'll make errors at editing point. With film I make those choices at the point of shot - and so it's much harder work - but because I'm in the moment at that point the relevance of the editing is much better. By editing later - sometimes weeks or months later - I don't feel as though I have the same artistic control. I'm an editor - not an artist. And I don't like that. So - if I can be an artist in film then this is the ultimate for me. No amount of pixels can beat the feeling. But if I do shoot digitally then if I can mimic the frugality of proper film shooting and come home with a selection only of quality shots then that feeling comes close.

No! That's definitely not the case for me! I had mp for a little while and I learnt a lot with it, and enjoyed it too, but in the end being able to do everything that the mp can do with the added benefit of aperture priority shooting for me sets the m7 out as the perfect compliment to m9 photography.

I guess we'll see Brett - I'm expecting a call from David very shortly offering me one if he can't offload it

Ah but Brett - the question I'd like to ask is if they are all sold to end users, as opposed to being sold into the dealer network by Leica? There is obviously a big difference.

I finally settled on M7 to work with my M9. I did have an MP and I enjoyed it, but I find the M7 does everything it did and a bit more too, as well as having the speed wheel arranged like the M9 so my brain doesn't hurt I'm also stopping making comments about film and digital as a preference because the more you take pictures the more you realise that your viewpoint is dynamic. One month I'm committed to film and selling the M9 and X1 and the next month the M7 doesn't leave the house. I think I'm just going to chill out and enjoy shooting whatever my head or heart tells me to shoot at that particular time without giving it a second thought. On this matter, oddly enough, I find myself taking the 'wrong' camera almost all the time just to 'see if I can get away with it' - so I'll take the M7 to a dimly lit wedding just to see if I can create something interesting with ISO400 film only, or I'll take the M9 to a vintage car event when I actually know the M7 will stop me coming home with 600 exposures and give me some character grain in the pictures right off the bat. Madness really! But, one thing is for sure, if you are fortunate enough to have sorted out what focal lengths work for you the combination of M9 and M7 and those hand-selected-just-right-for-you lenses is a potent and compelling combination and you'll have a lot of fun.

I understand the OP's viewpoint on the IQ of the two cameras - the M8 is absolutely wonderful. But for me, my 21 Elmarit and 50 Lux performing at their 'real' focal lengths is enough to justify the difference in cost between selling my M8.2 and upgrading to M9. I also love the fact that I can use M9 and M7 'together' now without 'switching gears' so to speak!!

There is - I never go near 'info' for EV. Just half press the shutter button with the camera up to your eye and rotate the jog dial a nudge and the lcd in the viewfinder shows the EV right away - takes fractions of a second.

I absolutely love it - it's stunning. But if I did buy one I'd be too scared to use it at that price ! But if I were a multi millionaire I'd have one tomorrow !

Makes sense for sure.

Look at the 'M9' bodies visible in the enlarged picture of the boxed M9 Ti on the leica website in the 'special editions' section for the M9 Ti. They are obviously different from the current M9 - any ideas?

Really great Pete - interesting about the Gamma C altering the actual colours - I'd never noticed that before. It's fairly minimal on most of the scans I've played with and I won't be re-doing them all but certainly from now I'll use 2.2 for Adobe and SRGB for RGB, then alter the gamma to set the spacing. Not so sure about doing white balance in CP though - I had a go at it and feel that the slider in aperture / LR is better.

Yes that's much better Pete, but as you say I guess that my profile is unique to my scanner so I suspect that profiling yourself will take matters to a satisfactory conclusion :-))

Yes Ian I remember that - the one of the old black guy we saw in Manchester. To be honest, if Gary posted that up it'd ignite a whole new level of arguments about the level of PP that one should be applying!!! Having said all that - the final image was stunning and the initial capture was, well, crap. So maybe, yes, the final image is probably all that counts!

This is interesting - I too have noticed it, but in a different sense. The wider the lens, the greater the 'story' you are often telling, and so it is certainly more difficult to frame the desired parts of the story only until you get used to the level of proximity it takes to create dramatic close up photographs using a wider lens. I found this a real challenge with my 21mm Elmarit, but after I have worked and worked with it I now find it to be almost my favourite lens. So, I suppose my comment on it would be that cropping to correct framing errors is analogous to a darkroom operative cropping to correct film that didn't enlarge flat or whatever around the edges, but that cropping to wish you had used a different lens is less desirable. Of course, the only thing that matters to the outside world is the image, but secretly this isn't true because for photographers who are striving to be as good as possible we would always regret that focal length choice and wish we had been better or more selective.

Hmmmn - now that is interesting. Indeed, when I first kicked off with Vuescan before I used the new scanner profile I recall having a magenta issue myself (I was working on a picture of my boy in a blue baby suit which kept looking magenta!) Then I profiled the scanner and the problem went away. Tell you what Pete - send me your email address on a PM and I will email you a copy of my ICC profile. I don't know if it will work on your particular machine but its got to be worth a quick try?