After 2 Week use: Reflection on M9

[spersky]

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So, I dumped all my sweet Canon gear for a retro manual focus rangefinder. Did I make a good decision? The answer is yes. This Leica camera cannot even come close to the full spectrum of auto focus auto everything Macro, action, 8 FPS Canon that I had. What the heck was I thinking? This Canon shots really did look great. I traded all of that for Leica M9 with 50mm Summilux, 28mm Summicron, and 90mm APO Summicon. Plus, I still had to fork out about 4k after selling my extensive Canon gear for a system that theoretically does a lot less.

 

Why did I do it? Well, basically I take more and better pictures with the M9 and the simple setup. I never took the Canon with me. I know it weighed a lot more, but I am a pretty strong guy and I can carry it. Maybe I was self conscience. I carry the M9 with me literally everywhere. Therefore, I take more shots and I get more keepers.

 

However, it does not stop there. I miss some shots that I used to get with my Canon because I am kinda slow with the Leica. Especially when you try to take a closeup of a 3 year old at f/1.4 who decided to rock back and forth in excitement because Daddy is about to take his picture. No matter, the shot was out of focus but the next was O.K., but I never would have taken the shot with the Canon because it would be left at home.

 

Lastly, I really think there is something to that whole slow down (for the art of it) theme that Leica is all about. I take better shots period. Combine a somewhat slower methodical photographic mindset with the best lenses in the world, and I guess even an amatuer like me can take great pictures.

 

This is the greatest photographic instrument I have ever had the joy to use. I think the Leica team finally made the perfect camera for my needs. Although the cost of entry is high, it is well worth it. I am doing what photography is all about, taking pictures, and with each shot creating for me and my family just a small bit of immortality.

 

Regards,

Steve

[Jager]

I carry the M9 with me literally everywhere. Therefore, I take more shots and I get more keepers.

 

I miss some shots that I used to get with my Canon because I am kinda slow with the Leica. Especially when you try to take a closeup of a 3 year old at f/1.4 who decided to rock back and forth in excitement because Daddy is about to take his picture. No matter, the shot was out of focus but the next was O.K., but I never would have taken the shot with the Canon because it would be left at home.

 

 

 

There's the truth of it all right there. All boiled down and simple.

[Bo_Lorentzen]

Steve, good points, agree entirely.

 

the M brings not only the mental process to the party, but also the look of the file. Last night at sunset I got a couple of portraits, just right, when I got home I was blown away by the files, for sure, when you nail it with a M9 the camera make the file rock.!

 

.

[Baptiste]

So, I dumped all my sweet Canon gear for a retro manual focus rangefinder. Did I make a good decision? The answer is yes. This Leica camera cannot even come close to the full spectrum of auto focus auto everything Macro, action, 8 FPS Canon that I had. What the heck was I thinking? This Canon shots really did look great. I traded all of that for Leica M9 with 50mm Summilux, 28mm Summicron, and 90mm APO Summicon. Plus, I still had to fork out about 4k after selling my extensive Canon gear for a system that theoretically does a lot less.

 

Why did I do it? Well, basically I take more and better pictures with the M9 and the simple setup. I never took the Canon with me. I know it weighed a lot more, but I am a pretty strong guy and I can carry it. Maybe I was self conscience. I carry the M9 with me literally everywhere. Therefore, I take more shots and I get more keepers.

 

However, it does not stop there. I miss some shots that I used to get with my Canon because I am kinda slow with the Leica. Especially when you try to take a closeup of a 3 year old at f/1.4 who decided to rock back and forth in excitement because Daddy is about to take his picture. No matter, the shot was out of focus but the next was O.K., but I never would have taken the shot with the Canon because it would be left at home.

 

Lastly, I really think there is something to that whole slow down (for the art of it) theme that Leica is all about. I take better shots period. Combine a somewhat slower methodical photographic mindset with the best lenses in the world, and I guess even an amatuer like me can take great pictures.

 

This is the greatest photographic instrument I have ever had the joy to use. I think the Leica team finally made the perfect camera for my needs. Although the cost of entry is high, it is well worth it. I am doing what photography is all about, taking pictures, and with each shot creating for me and my family just a small bit of immortality.

 

Regards,

Steve

 

Did the same! Sold D700 + heavy 2.8 zooms to get M9 & 50 Lux... But I'm still waiting for the camera !

 

Regards,

Baptiste

[Theodor Heinrichsohn]

It all comes down to what kind of pictures one wants to take.

On a 2 week trip to Japan, mainly Kyoto, I took my M9, 2 Tri Elmars, the Frakenfinder, a 35/1.4 aspherical and the 135/3.4. Why? Because I wanted to take photos of Japanese Zen gardens.

My 1DS III + lenses etc. remained at home, as did the Hasselblads, Linhofs, etc.

Japanese temples in Kyoto often do not allow photography. None of them that I know allow flash or tripods. These circumstances dictate what equipment one can take.

The results I managed to achieve satisfy me and I don't regret having chosen light and small equipment in an unobtrusive bag. The only problem - which did not really matter in the end - was the rain. The wet stones and autumn leaves made for interesting pictures but caused me some worries because of the lack of weather proofing on the M9 and lenses.

Teddy

[stevem7]

Same thing I have been saying since the M8 was released. You are spot on! Enjoy the M9, it only gets better!

[!Nomad64]

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Steve,

I'll not comment on yr decision 'cause I suffer from rangefinder sickness since my birth. The only thing I can suggest is that the next time you take close-up snapshots of your toddler you go on hyperfocal. That's quicker than autofocus as it needs no readjustments. 1.4 at short range would keep in focus only the eyes. 5.6 or 8 even at short range should do the trick and leave the background blurred enough. But that's just my 2c.

 

Ciao,

Bruno

[TacTZilla]

Ahmen!

 

Still waiting for my M9 after dumping the Nikon D3 and lenses (and everything else that wasn't nailed down).

 

Hope I come to the same conclusions.

 

Cheers

Bob

[spersky]

Steve,

I'll not comment on yr decision 'cause I suffer from rangefinder sickness since my birth. The only thing I can suggest is that the next time you take close-up snapshots of your toddler you go on hyperfocal. That's quicker than autofocus as it needs no readjustments. 1.4 at short range would keep in focus only the eyes. 5.6 or 8 even at short range should do the trick and leave the background blurred enough. But that's just my 2c.

 

Ciao,

Bruno

 

Yeah, pre-focus is the way to go, and I am starting to do that. How is the background ever blurred with hyperfocal distance? I thought in hyperfocal your far distance is infinity.

 

thanks

[JMK]

Spersky,

Very well expressed. A rangefinder is a tool. There is no "Swiss Army Knife" of cameras. Clearly if one purported to be, it would be a very idle boast. It would have to fail in many categories. The advantage of a Leica rangefinder is that it puts to the fore the statement that "content is king" It becomes a mind game - one of anticipation and preparedness. Like Cartier Bresson had preached. If you are willing to the play . . . it will reward you handsomely.

 

John

[adan]

Technically, hyperfocal focusing always includes infinity as the farthest "sharp" distance: Hyperfocal distance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - but I've also seen the word used in common parlance for whatever intermediate focused distance will best place the available DoF range to include the important parts of the picture you want sharp, even when the important parts do not include infinity.

 

I.E - you want your baby's and your spouse's heads to both be within the DoF. You don't care about infinity one way or the other.

 

Or you're street shooting with subjects generally between 10 and 20 feet away, so you set the lens to 14 feet. DoF for your lens/aperture/shutter speed won't cover 10 feet to infinity, but will cover 10 feet to 20 feet. In that sense 14 feet is understood to be the "hyperfocal" distance for the DoF range 10 to 20 feet - even though that is the wrong word.

 

There is no official term I can find for that intermediate focus point that does not cover infinity, but does include all of your intended subject matter in the DoF.

 

Put another way, there is a general case: I want "A" and "B" to both be sharp, so I focus at an intermediate distance "C". In the SPECIAL case where "B" = infinity, C = the Hyperfocal Distance, but there is a gap in the language for a generalized term for "C" in all cases, and "hyperfocal (small "h")" is gradually coming to be the general-case term as well as the special-case term for "C".

 

Language abhors a vacuum.

[tom0511]

Technically, hyperfocal focusing always includes infinity as the farthest "sharp" distance: Hyperfocal distance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - but I've also seen the word used in common parlance for whatever intermediate focused distance will best place the available DoF range to include the important parts of the picture you want sharp, even when the important parts do not include infinity.

 

I.E - you want your baby's and your spouse's heads to both be within the DoF. You don't care about infinity one way or the other.

 

Or you're street shooting with subjects generally between 10 and 20 feet away, so you set the lens to 14 feet. DoF for your lens/aperture/shutter speed won't cover 10 feet to infinity, but will cover 10 feet to 20 feet. In that sense 14 feet is understood to be the "hyperfocal" distance for the DoF range 10 to 20 feet - even though that is the wrong word.

 

There is no official term I can find for that intermediate focus point that does not cover infinity, but does include all of your intended subject matter in the DoF.

 

Put another way, there is a general case: I want "A" and "B" to both be sharp, so I focus at an intermediate distance "C". In the SPECIAL case where "B" = infinity, C = the Hyperfocal Distance, but there is a gap in the language for a generalized term for "C" in all cases, and "hyperfocal (small "h")" is gradually coming to be the general-case term as well as the special-case term for "C".

 

Language abhors a vacuum.

 

I would say the term "hyperfocal focusing" is often used for guessing the distance at taking into account the depth of field while closing the f-stop a little to have some safety that everything which should be sharp will be sharp even if the guess was a little off.

[!Nomad64]

Yeah, pre-focus is the way to go, and I am starting to do that. How is the background ever blurred with hyperfocal distance? I thought in hyperfocal your far distance is infinity.

 

thanks

 

Dear Steve,

my bad as I use the term "hyperfocal" in the colloquial sense. I'd better to speak of acceptable DOF within a given range, said range being defined by the aperture indicators on the lens barrel. DOF obviously changes with the aperture, the distance and the lens length.

Anyway You got the idea

 

Bruno

[massimom]

My D700 is now collecting dust with all the lenses. My M9 (and even my M7) are always with me as they are much less of a burden to carry around. The M9 has allowed me to be a better photographer, thinker, composer. Besides, the quality of the images is just stunning. Not the greatest tool to follow around jumping kids with, if one has to use lenses wide open, but it's a tradeoff I would take any time.

[gpleica]

Steve,

Your enjoyment, once again, of the manual process of taking care in the making of a picture with the M9, as opposed to the glorified point-and-shoot of a DSLR with a zoom lens on autofocus, is EXACTLY what I have experienced in the last 30 days in shooting my M9. I have been a "serious" about taking pictures for a long time, mainly for the pure joy of it (with sometime exhibits and museum shows thrown in to justify the activity). I have relegated my Nikons to the ash heap bookshelf of old equipment, along side my film cameras (Fujica 6x9s, Contax, HasB., an M3, and my darkroom (a truly ace darkroom). The M9's simplicity and purposefulness in every thought-out detail, though not perfect, is close, very close, to ideal, for me at least. Partly it might be the excitement of learning how to use this tool, and the four lenses I got to go with it (1 new, 3 off ebay). But I sense that it is much more than that. There is something special about the freedom of movement you have with this small rangefinder that makes the act of taking a picture just flow, from the eye, to the brain, to the finger to press the release. And the files, in post, are so crisp. My friend and one-time teacher, Lee Friedlander, would say, "I've never seen a picture look like that before." And that is what this M9 has given back to me - a better ability to see the world and, if only once every thousand shots, produce a photograph that is surprisingly exceptional.

 

I'm relatively new to this forum and it's been a pleasure reading the posts. This seems to be a pretty nice tribe!

 

Geoffrey

[mweiner]

I think the appropriate term for the method people are talking about is "zone focusing".

Hyperfocal focusing is a special case of zone focusing where one tries to include in the DOF everything from a certain distance to infinity.

 

Sean Reid has a very recent article on Zone Focusing on his site which is well worth reading.

[dwind]

Bryan Peterson's book 'understanding exposure' is an excellent reference for hyperfocal and preset focal.

[adan]

I'm relatively new to this forum and it's been a pleasure reading the posts. This seems to be a pretty nice tribe!

 

Fair warning: we occasionally have our grumpy days and trolls, but the "nice tribe" character always returns eventually.

[ho_co]

... the appropriate term for the method people are talking about is "zone focusing". Hyperfocal focusing is a special case of zone focusing where one tries to include in the DOF everything from a certain distance to infinity.

Very close.

 

1) The appropriate term for the method people are talking about is indeed "zone focusing."

2a) Setting hyperfocal distance is indeed a special case of zone focusing.

2b) Hyperfocal distance is the distance which gives maximum depth-of-field, i.e. from infinity to one-half the focused distance. (That is, that's what hyperfocal distance does, not what it tries to do. )

 

No reason not to use the terms properly, seems to me.

 

 

 

And again, Steve, your assessment of what is special about the M is exactly why so many of us like this instrument, just as Jeff, Bo, steve, John, Geoffrey and others have said! Bruno's is a perfect formulation: "I suffer from rangefinder sickness since my birth." Me, too.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[jaques]

this was the reason I ordered and m9. I just cannot see myself carrying a high end DSLR anywhere. Too big, and ugly- like a pair of nike sneakers.

 

I wear converse and drive a 1967 VC Valiant.

 

I just like older, simpler stuff.