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On 2/24/2025 at 5:52 PM, Pieter12 said:

That is about a lens, not a type of camera. I still stand by my opinion that a rangefinder is less than ideal if your main intent is to shoot landscapes.

This is the type of reductionist thinking that drives me nuts. The M can be whatever you want it to be for. It's a tool. It's the photographer that makes the image. On top of that, landscape doesn't have to be defined in any one particular (boring) way. I've been working on a series of land/sea/sky-scapes using exclusively an M and 135 for a few years now. All handheld. Many of the images are stunning, if I should say so myself. 

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On 2/25/2025 at 1:52 AM, Pieter12 said:

...I still stand by my opinion that a rangefinder is less than ideal if your main intent is to shoot landscapes...

In holding that opinion you are, of course, perfectly within your rights to be wrong.

Philip.

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3 hours ago, charlesphoto99 said:

This is the type of reductionist thinking that drives me nuts. The M can be whatever you want it to be for. It's a tool. It's the photographer that makes the image. On top of that, landscape doesn't have to be defined in any one particular (boring) way. I've been working on a series of land/sea/sky-scapes using exclusively an M and 135 for a few years now. All handheld. Many of the images are stunning, if I should say so myself. 

 

It is in general an opinion that is driven by an ignorance of how to use the framelines accurately.

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vor 42 Minuten schrieb jaapv:

driven by an ignorance of how to use the framelines accurately.

I would agree that the M can be used pretty well for landscape photography - even with the optical viewfinder, as long as you are not too far in the wide angle or the long focal length range. But I would say that your latest statement is a contradiction in itself, because the framelines themselves are anything but accurate. 

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They are  - if you are aware how to use them.

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3 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

I would agree that the M can be used pretty well for landscape photography - even with the optical viewfinder, as long as you are not too far in the wide angle or the long focal length range

"Landscape Photography" is predominately concerned with photographing subject matter where 'somewhat close-or-near-to-infinity' will be the focus point. Accuracy of Focus? For subject-matter at - in effect - 'infinity' with a wide angle lens?...

" even with the optical viewfinder"...

😸

Now I know you are having a laugh!

P.

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4 hours ago, jaapv said:

They are  - if you are aware how to use them.

What’s really crazy is that live view doesn’t even show the full frame. On the back of the screen and on the visoflex2 it’s not 100% coverage. 

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I never knew that. That must be Leica. Compensating for the frame of slide film, even on a digital camera. How is that for traditionalism? 
Maybe we should check the EVF cameras for this phenomenon as well. 

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18 minutes ago, jaapv said:

I never knew that. That must be Leica. Compensating for the frame of slide film, even on a digital camera. How is that for traditionalism? 
Maybe we should check the EVF cameras for this phenomenon as well. 

Yeah I haven’t noticed on the SL2 but I haven’t rewlly used that camera as much.
I first started noticing it in my M11 photos when I had things showing on the edge of the frame which I know I tried to exclude in the Visoflex.
I first thought it was to do with lens correction applied to the DNG but after some experimenting on a tripod using live view it turns out it’s just how the live view implementation works. 

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2 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

So you call someone who thinks the frame lines cannot be used for accurate framing a nerd?

 

5 hours ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

If you call that "accurate" (which will also vary from lens to lens), everything is fine - at least for you.

With digital M's we now have instant feedback of what we are photographing. So unless the landscape is moving too fast for you to reframe, I think the lack of accuracy with the OVF is a moot point. One needs to learn how to interpolate what the frame lines cover or don't cover, and adjust as needed. Photographing is about learning to visualize, and the M forces one to do just that. 

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I’m probably showing myself up as a grumpy old sod, but if there is one thing that I hate about the present-day approach to cameras, it is photographers expecting their gear to lead them by the nose through the technique of taking a photograph instead of learning how to use their tools to best effect. 

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vor 6 Stunden schrieb pippy:

"Landscape Photography" is predominately concerned with photographing subject matter where 'somewhat close-or-near-to-infinity' will be the focus point. Accuracy of Focus? For subject-matter at - in effect - 'infinity' with a wide angle lens?...

" even with the optical viewfinder"...

😸

Now I know you are having a laugh!

Landscape does neither mean that you always operate at the infinity setting nor do all lenses have their infinity focus where the focus ring is at the limit. I have several Voigtländer lenses where this is the case, even though they are correctly calibrated. If I focus on a point in the distance in the rangefinder, the focus is correct, at least within the scope of what is possible with the RF but the focus ring is not in the end position.

But this was not only about focus accuracy, also about angles of view and image sections where the result and the visualization in the optical viewfinder do not match sufficiently.

If you find, that RF are the perfect tool for landscape, go ahead, but making fun of other people's different experiences only shows boundaries that propably shouldn't be discussed here further.

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51 minutes ago, 3D-Kraft.com said:

 

If you find, that RF are the perfect tool for landscape, go ahead, but making fun of other people's different experiences only shows boundaries that propably shouldn't be discussed here further.

Except you're in one or two threads suggesting all kinds of changes to the Leica M design, which makes me conclude the camera isn't for you.

I have travelled a lot with my M. I have used 28mm, 35mm and 90mm lenses. One of my best landscape shots I took with the 90.

With a landscape image often the subject takes up 90% of the image. Is there anything THAT critical at the absolute edge of you composition. I have never taken a scene with my M and thought the composition was way off. And as someone said, it takes 5 seconds to review the shot and reframe slightly. 

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vor 3 Minuten schrieb Chris W:

Except you're in one or two threads suggesting all kinds of changes to the Leica M design, which makes me conclude the camera isn't for you.

Then you may have also read that I made a very conscious decision to buy an M9 (again).

I really appreciate the camera and the experience of taking photos with it, but I'm not kidding myself and am not trying to gloss over the many weaknesses of the rangefinder concept just because Leica is such a traditional brand.

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Instead you are glossing over the advantages of the rangefinder system. And missing the one real disadvantage: the  hiding or revealing of objects relative to the view of the lens, outside the plane of focus , through parallax. 
 

 

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