ulrikft Posted October 12, 2009 Share #21 Posted October 12, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) My main problem with a rangefinder, is the framing and the small part of the viewfinder one uses when one gets above 50mm. Trying a 90mm or above.. well, it is just such a small patch of viewfinder that is actually the motive, that i find it hard to compose. I kind of wish that someone would give me a fullframe, 100% viewfinder (or 105%? ) digital slr..sized like the m9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 12, 2009 Posted October 12, 2009 Hi ulrikft, Take a look here Ascough on the M9. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
LeicaS2 Posted October 12, 2009 Share #22 Posted October 12, 2009 I think I have bad news for those of you expecting new RF buyers to tire of them and putting them on the market in a year for the rest of us. A friend who was shooting DSLR tried and loved DRFs. Sample of one, but the ability to review a digital image allows for a faster learning curve, and more rapid confirmation of a correctly formed buying decision. The good news is new RF users will keep Leica in the black for all of us. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shootinglulu Posted October 12, 2009 Share #23 Posted October 12, 2009 In a shop i was in today, a photographer had her canon 5d2 + 24-70 set up on a tripod. An impressive looking kit, i am rather M leica'd at the moment and had forgotten how large and impressive DSLR's are, i stood and watched her set up a shoot. She asked, do you have a camera? My M8 was hanging around my neck, only slightly obscured by my bag! The experience made me realise that i had made the right choice when deciding between these cams a few months ago. I would never have been browsing in that shop today with such a huge kit as the 5d2 and huge lens. I love the discreet M8 i have. If i was a wedding photographer , no doubt i would love to use that canon, but to walk around with, never, and i wouldn't start to compare them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat_mcdermott Posted October 12, 2009 Share #24 Posted October 12, 2009 Funny. I had the same experience on the train yesterday with someone with the same setup, minus the tripod. Couldn't believe the size of that lens! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markowich Posted October 12, 2009 Share #25 Posted October 12, 2009 In a shop i was in today, a photographer had her canon 5d2 + 24-70 set up on a tripod. An impressive looking kit, i am rather M leica'd at the moment and had forgotten how large and impressive DSLR's are, i stood and watched her set up a shoot. She asked, do you have a camera? My M8 was hanging around my neck, only slightly obscured by my bag! The experience made me realise that i had made the right choice when deciding between these cams a few months ago. I would never have been browsing in that shop today with such a huge kit as the 5d2 and huge lens. I love the discreet M8 i have. If i was a wedding photographer , no doubt i would love to use that canon, but to walk around with, never, and i wouldn't start to compare them. interesting. i am used to walking around with an H3D II 50 + 2 or three lenses + tripod. agreed, sometimes it makes me tired but..... p Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie Roberts Posted October 12, 2009 Share #26 Posted October 12, 2009 interesting. i am used to walking around with an H3D II 50 + 2 or three lenses + tripod. agreed, sometimes it makes me tired but.....p I suppose there are still wedding photographers who cart that much stuff around (and I just got an Arca Swiss field camera myself to do some larger format film away from weddings) but I don't know any who do unless it's for lighting gear (and then they don't need the tripod). Having shot high end Canons and Nikons, I do believe the Ms are perfect ergonomically IMO. And the quality of Leica glass is not to be underestimated let alone dismissed, which is why the late lamented R10 will be missed, IMO. Interesting about Jeff's comments the G10 / G11 comments though. I shot a few frames with a G10 at a wedding on Saturday and I was impressed with the results; they were certainly good. But nowhere near blown away. The main problems though are optical. The lens on the G10 isn't fast enough or flare resistant enough to be used for anything remotely challenging. I'm assuming the lens on the G11 is much the same. That said, the sensor itself was pretty good up to ISO 600 or so, so for wides (and f2.8) it was ok. Beyond that, or in tele mode, not so much. But you can see where great strides will be made in the next 5 years or so by Canon and others (including Leica with the X1). By then, the M10 will be out, though, and a Nocti will still be a Nocti. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthury Posted October 14, 2009 Share #27 Posted October 14, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) With all the reported sudden death syndrome, I think I might just hold off and usher you guys to be early adopters. I have better places to spend $7K than to do another round of beta testing for Leica. Getting tired and sick of it. And, this article may just have tipped me over ... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie Roberts Posted October 14, 2009 Share #28 Posted October 14, 2009 With all the reported sudden death syndrome, I think I might just hold off and usher you guys to be early adopters. I have better places to spend $7K than to do another round of beta testing for Leica. Getting tired and sick of it. And, this article may just have tipped me over ... Do you have a link to the "reported sudden death syndrome?" Is it a pattern? Don't forget, individual Canons and Nikons die out of the box as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
michali Posted October 14, 2009 Share #29 Posted October 14, 2009 Gianni Berengo Gardin's words sum it beautifully up for me: QUOTE: "Looking through a Leica's viewfinder, which always shows you more than the image you're taking, you grasp reality in a more direct, more participatory manner. It may seem hard to accept, but no other camera provides this introspective view. Am I exaggerating? I don't think so. Let me suggest that you pick up a Leica M and hold it up to your eye. Press the shutter release. The world will seem an extension of your eye." Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyves Posted October 14, 2009 Share #30 Posted October 14, 2009 Leonard Freed once said that the Leica M was an intellectual tool. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_reid Posted October 14, 2009 Share #31 Posted October 14, 2009 Gianni Berengo Gardin's words sum it beautifully up for me: QUOTE: "Looking through a Leica's viewfinder, which always shows you more than the image you're taking, you grasp reality in a more direct, more participatory manner. It may seem hard to accept, but no other camera provides this introspective view. Am I exaggerating? I don't think so. Let me suggest that you pick up a Leica M and hold it up to your eye. Press the shutter release. The world will seem an extension of your eye." That observation is very much in the same vein as what Tod Papageorge and I have written about the M cameras - as quoted above in a previous post. It isn't the right kind of finder for everyone but its excellences are real. Cheers, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
michali Posted October 14, 2009 Share #32 Posted October 14, 2009 That observation is very much in the same vein as what Tod Papageorge and I have written about the M cameras - as quoted above in a previous post. It isn't the right kind of finder for everyone but its excellences are real. Cheers, Sean- Absolutely correct! Regards Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat_mcdermott Posted October 15, 2009 Share #33 Posted October 15, 2009 Do you have a link to the "reported sudden death syndrome?" Is it a pattern? Don't forget, individual Canons and Nikons die out of the box as well. Thanks for calling out this one. Unless I've missed something in this forum, I haven't heard of one incident of sudden death syndrome as we saw with the M8 -- which isn't to say there haven't been lines appearing on sensors and incidents of camera's freezing -- and if I've missed one, certainly not an "all the reported..." situation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthury Posted October 15, 2009 Share #34 Posted October 15, 2009 Thanks for calling out this one. Unless I've missed something in this forum, I haven't heard of one incident of sudden death syndrome as we saw with the M8 -- which isn't to say there haven't been lines appearing on sensors and incidents of camera's freezing -- and if I've missed one, certainly not an "all the reported..." situation. So, freezing is not sudden death. I do not know what is. I guess sudden death to you guys means the camera is totally non-functional. If that's the case, may be the small red-dot company should start hanging the "CLOSED" sign and RIP for selling $7K camera that cannot start up. Ever heard of lemon law protection and law-suits? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat_mcdermott Posted October 15, 2009 Share #35 Posted October 15, 2009 Sudden death in regards to the M8 was a totally non-functional camera, non-user correctable, back to Solms (or New Jersey) with you. Though it's annoying having to pull a battery, in my mind is like restarting a crashed/frozen application on my laptop. Which frankly happens all the time. Sometimes I lose some work I've been doing, most of the time not. Sometimes I even have to pull the battery from that too. Which isn't a justification for not getting the cause sorted out and addressed, for sure. But equally not cause for any company to hang up a closed sign. Nor get so seemingly personally offended and pessimistic as you seem to be. (I say that not trying to provoke, just an observation BTW.) FWIW, on my M8 this sort of thing has happened maybe a half dozen times in two years = Better stability than my MacBook. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamie Roberts Posted October 15, 2009 Share #36 Posted October 15, 2009 {snipped} FWIW, on my M8 this sort of thing has happened maybe a half dozen times in two years = Better stability than my MacBook. Exactly. FWIW, my M8 has done this a handful of times and is apparently more stable than my Nikon D3 with a Nikkor 85mm lens, which freezes at least once per session with that particular lens...(not an uncommon thing with the latest firmware, evidently, from what I can tell from other more Nikon-oriented fora...). You just deal with it. Why? Because any digital camera is also a computer. Any computer--no matter how expensive--can / will freeze. Having said that, Leica / Jenoptik obviously needs to improve the way the camera writes to cards and processes information, and it's early days for the M9. I'm pretty sure this is a bug that can be squashed, and the good news is it's not a data-losing bug. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthury Posted October 15, 2009 Share #37 Posted October 15, 2009 Sudden death in regards to the M8 was a totally non-functional camera, non-user correctable, back to Solms (or New Jersey) with you. Though it's annoying having to pull a battery, in my mind is like restarting a crashed/frozen application on my laptop. Which frankly happens all the time. Sometimes I lose some work I've been doing, most of the time not. Sometimes I even have to pull the battery from that too. Which isn't a justification for not getting the cause sorted out and addressed, for sure. But equally not cause for any company to hang up a closed sign. Nor get so seemingly personally offended and pessimistic as you seem to be. (I say that not trying to provoke, just an observation BTW.) FWIW, on my M8 this sort of thing has happened maybe a half dozen times in two years = Better stability than my MacBook. Thanks for your response. I am just a little unnerved by people reporting having to do hard reboots on a $7K camera. I have used Nikon pro bodies for the last 10 years or so. My current D3 has never requested a hard reboot in the field --- not even once for the last 2 years. Leica wants to be considered high-end but this kind of behavior in their flagship rangefinder does not conjure up the word high-end in my mind. I did that for my M8 a couple of times since I own it about 3 months after it was released. Not happy with a $5K camera doing that. For a $7K camera, I expect more and higher QC standards. And, if it does that, I would raise holy hell. Totally unacceptable and it would feel a like a prototype. Leica wants to be considered a company selling high end products. However, their flagship rangefinder camera is exhibiting behaviors that resemble a prototype from a 2nd or 3rd tier company.I think they need to rethink their strategy along that line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthury Posted October 15, 2009 Share #38 Posted October 15, 2009 > my Nikon D3 with a Nikkor 85mm lens, which freezes at least once per session with that particular lens. Jamie, I seriously think you should send this camera in for repair. I am pretty active in most of the major Nikon forums and have never heard of this one.You would expect a high volume campany such as Nikon would get reported to death if such thing exists. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat_mcdermott Posted October 15, 2009 Share #39 Posted October 15, 2009 I am just a little unnerved by people reporting having to do hard reboots on a $7K camera. I have used Nikon pro bodies for the last 10 years or so. My current D3 has never requested a hard reboot in the field --- not even once for the last 2 years. Leica wants to be considered high-end but this kind of behavior in their flagship rangefinder does not conjure up the word high-end in my mind. I did that for my M8 a couple of times since I own it about 3 months after it was released. Not happy with a $5K camera doing that. For a $7K camera, I expect more and higher QC standards. And, if it does that, I would raise holy hell. Totally unacceptable and it would feel a like a prototype. Leica wants to be considered a company selling high end products. However, their flagship rangefinder camera is exhibiting behaviors that resemble a prototype from a 2nd or 3rd tier company.I think they need to rethink their strategy along that line. I won't disagree that its unnerving to have to reboot in the field. And that Leica needs to tighten up this aspect of their production. You're entirely right. However, in practice I've come to expect a bit of flakiness from software -- even from companies doing it a long time -- and roll with the punches. I'd rather use a digital Leica M, even at the $7000 entry bar for FF (but please no higher Leica -- hands in prayer position pleading...) and with a slight work-in-progress feel, than use a DSLR. And believe me I've tried, but photography isn't an enjoyable experience for me on ground glass. Going back to shooting film isn't a practical option for me, even though I admit I am sometimes tempted. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_reid Posted October 15, 2009 Share #40 Posted October 15, 2009 (but please no higher Leica -- hands in prayer position pleading...) LOL! That's quite true... Cheers, Sean Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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