Essential M Lenses for Business ??

[wosamko]

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Hello everyone,

I wish a happy day for you,

 

Currently I have Leica M10, Summilux-M 35mm F1.4 ASPH and APO Summicron-m 50mm F2.

 

I have registered in professional photography and want to make investment. So, what are the essential lenses for shooting landscape , products , portraits and Macros? 

 

What should I keep and what should I sell?

Your precious knowledge and advices are highly appreciated,

 

Kind wishes,

 

Wosam

Edited December 10, 2022 by wosamko

[Al Brown]

From a pro: You can do most everything with 3 or 4 M lenses.
On top of your great collection just add the 24/3.8 or 24 lux and 75/2 APO and you are completely covered for professional work with an awesome setup.

Of course you can add the macro adapter if close-ups are needed. That's it.

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[FrozenInTime]

It’s probably more important to get a second body before a pile of lenses. 

[wosamko]

13 minutes ago, FrozenInTime said:

It’s probably more important to get a second body before a pile of lenses. 

Thanks for your response .. If second body like SL2, then is the only lens?

[wosamko]

34 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

From a pro: You can do most everything with 3 or 4 M lenses.
On top of your great collection just add the 24/3.8 or 24 lux and 75/2 APO and you are completely covered for professional work with an awesome setup.

Of course you can add the macro adapter if close-ups are needed. That's it.

Thanks for your positive response. Today the teacher made me depressed regarding the camera. He said it is for travel NOT FOR BUSINESS AT ALL!!! He said he never shot with rangefinder ! Your message gave me some relief  Thank you so much

 

Is it enough to add 75/2 APO and macro adapter? 

[pgk]

1 hour ago, wosamko said:

I have registered in professional photography and want to make investment. So, what are the essential lenses for shooting landscape , products , portraits and Macros?

For the price of any one of your three Leica items you could buy a used system suitable for all of the above. Your teacher is both right and wrong. Leica M equipment is limiting in its abilities, although it is far from being just a travel camera. But to do professional work you equipment needs to be geared towards what you anticipate photographig and for landscape, products, portraits and macro there are far more cost effective solutions which will satisfy your needs. The Leica M is fabulous in some circumstances but many other cameras are more suited to professional photography I have been photographing professionally for over 40 years and I do use LeicaM cameras, but I have used many other cameras including Nikon, Canon, Hasselblad, and now Sony. All are very versatile and capable of professional use. Most important factors are spare body, easy availability of relatively cheap and off the shelf lenses, hire equipment availability and so on. Absolute, conjectured image quality is not a pre-requisite.

[Stein K S]

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13 minutes ago, wosamko said:

Thanks for your positive response. Today the teacher made me depressed regarding the camera. He said it is for travel NOT FOR BUSINESS AT ALL!!! He said he never shot with rangefinder ! Your message gave me some relief  Thank you so much

 

Is it enough to add 75/2 APO and macro adapter? 

Did he just state this per se without asking anything about your purpose… or did he provide any ¨rationality¨ behind his statement? Because I am also fully aware that my Elmarit 90 can not do the job of one of those giant white Canon lenses…😉

[FrozenInTime]

1 hour ago, wosamko said:

Thanks for your response .. If second body like SL2, then is the only lens?

A SL or Panasonic S5 would certainly allow you to access the wide range of L-mount and adapted M mount lenses and fulfil a wider range of assignments than a M10 alone.

However your life will be easier if you add in a mainstream system and go with the flow of the class.

[spydrxx]

DO NOTHING!!!!!! Spending money in advance of determining a specific need is merely an indulgence. You aren't yet at the point of effectively analyzing specific characteristics of lenses and determining appropriate use of financial resources. Mostly, you need to practice and ascertain what it is your current lenses lenses can't deliver and what an alternative could, and whether it is really cost effective.

[RexGig0]

35mm and 50mm lenses are a very good start. 🙂

Any lens can shoot landscapes. Your APO Summicron 50mm is certainly sharp enough for landscapes, and in situations where 50mm is not sufficiently wide, the photographer can shoot a series of images, and stitch the images together, during post-processing. A tripod, with a proper panorama tripod head, facilitates shooting the series of images that will be stitched together. As the panorama stitching software improves, having a best-quality panorama tripod head is becoming less necessary. Some photographers, with steady hands, will shoot the series of images hand-held, and stitch the images in post-processing. (Personally, I have never felt a need to stitch images to produce a panorama, because I tend to “see” landscapes at normal to telephoto focal lengths.)

True macro photography is probably best done with a system other than Leica M, but Leica does manufacture a Macro-Elmar-M 90mm lens, which can be bought with or without the Macro Adapter. The Macro Adapter M can be bought, alone, which is what I recently did, in order to experiment with my APO Summicron-M 75mm and Thambar-M 90mm lenses. In order to shoot professional-level macro, however, I would use my pair of Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro lenses, Macro Ring Lite flash, 600EX-RT Speedlites, and a suitable Canon camera body, of which I have several. (I was not in the “business” of photography, but did strive to produce the best evidentiary/forensic/crime scene images, while working in public service.)

I have a small book of portraits, shot by Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was known for mostly using a 50mm lens. Search for his portrait images, on-line, for inspiration, in using your 50mm lens for portraits. If I were to be in the business of portraiture, however, I would probably use 90mm to 135mm lenses, for formal portraits of individual persons, though I plan to try my recently-acquired APO-Summicron-M 75mm ASPH to attempt some portraits. 

Again, I must emphasize that I am not in the business of photography. My ability to provide advice is limited.

Edited to add: When I had a duty to produce vitally important images, for my employer, I felt that it was necessary to have two cameras with me, as well as two lenses capable of making all of the necessary shots. Failure was not a viable option.

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by RexGig0