Slightly OT: Somebody stop me, or at least find the flaw in my logic....

[jason_dean1]

I had a similar discussion with myself about two years ago. I had a nice Hasselblad set up,

and also had my M outfit by that time. Here's what I ended up deciding: the Hassie stuff was

so heavy and ungainy for faster work- street shooting/informal portraits. But the Hassie is

great for subjects that don't fidget and get nervous and such. Also, I lugged my Hasselblad

stuff (501c, 150mm, 80mm, 40mm, and 2 backs) all aroung the four corners area last

summer, and that outfit was pretty heavy. All this to say, I would keep the MP, or whatever M

camera you like, just to have something small and light. But, if you decide to get rid of the

MP, let me know, cause I would trade you my M6TTL, and my Rolleiflex 2.8e TLR for your MP.

[stephen_w.]

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CPXP

[frank granovski]

Marke, (1) sell everything you don't need or (2) keep everything you own including the sour-puss blond. If it were me, I'd stick with #2. #2 will keep you busy but happier.

[derek_stanton2]

I'm in the same boat. Just re-bought into Hasselblad.

 

I had an M7 a few years ago, then sold it because i didn't love the 'rangefinder way.' But, i bought another one last year, because of those "tactile aspects" you seem to understand. But, i'm still more comfortable looking/framing through an SLR, and i'd rather use the Hassy or Pentax 67 for 'important' pictures. The M7 was purchased when i felt a need to participate in the 'street photography' experience, but i know now i'll never be a street photographer. So, why do i keep it? I have Leica glass for the R8, so....

 

But, i'm loathe to sell the M (again), and then suffer (again) from M-Lust. If i get out now, i'll have to stay out....

 

There will, no doubt, be lots of reasons to keep the M, and plenty of passionate responses in favor of it in the above posts. But, i keep coming back to one simple thought - Most of the photographers i 'idolize' most have never used rangefinders. The Leica is an iconic tool for certain kinds of 'work,' but it isn't THE end-all, be-all of photography.

 

In the end, i'll probably keep the M7 until i can't afford to keep it. I would, though, sell it before my other cameras. It's probably a 'luxury' for me now, moreso than the others. You just have to do what you feel - it may not be an empirically sound decision, either way. What helps me to come to some manner of resolve is to look at the images i favor most, and then ask myself what tool would best/most comfortably accomplish the same objective.

 

There's no flaw in the logic. Unfortunately, logic isn't always the answer.

[jerry_lehrer]

Marke,

 

Everyone seems to have their own personal choices. I think you should

make up your own mind.

 

But if you want to sell your SWC, I would be interested.

 

Jerry

[marke_gilbert]

Absolutely Jerry,

<P> Ultimately I will decideon my own, but its nice to be able to bounce an idea off others, as their perspective may reveal something I had not considered...

[lee hamiel]

Marke:

 

Sell the Leicavit & CV 35 & hang onto the Mp & 50 'lux.

 

Get a small bag & simply carry it wherever you go - kind of like a wallet.

 

If still not happy - sell the balance to me!

 

I do feel like Al said - you will regret it someday.

 

Good Luck

[gene_e._mccluney]

Unless you really need to raise money. I, myself have everything from Leica RFDR, CV

RFDR, all sorts of Medium Format, Hassy, Pentax, Mamyia, Kiev, then large format

including a Sinar P Expert multiformat 4x5,5x7,8x10 system.

 

I find that for my personal photography, the Leica RFDR stuff fits one particular style of

photography I love to do, and the medium format fits yet another style.

 

The images I seek out to shoot directly depend on the type of equipment I decide to carry.

There truly is a RFDR "Style" and you cannot easily substitute a medium format camera.

There is also a Medium Format "Style" which requires the look of medium format. Just try

to do candid street photos with a Hassy. (ha ha)

 

For professional work, I have yet another set of considerations.

[stephen_w.]

I made the opposite decision. MY "logic" is posted here:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CPXP

[Robert_Lai]

My experience is probably totally irrelevant, since I don't own a Leica (I know, what am I doing here?). However, almost every time I've sold something, a situation arises where the item that I just sold is what I really, really need. I've ended up buying and reselling the same lens, such as an 85mm f/2 over and over again (twice, as a matter of fact). I've also gone through about 6 different 50mm lenses, looking for that "best" one. This kind of cycling is costly and time consuming.<p>From my bitter experience, put the unused Leica gear away in a nice ventilated storage box in a cool dry basement, and wait a year. Maybe wait two years. If the urge to use a Leica doesn't hit you in that time, then you may consider selling it. But, use the heck out of it first before you make that ebay listing. If that usage doesn't rekindle your love, then there's nothing to hold you back from selling it. This is assuming that you're not in a financial crisis, and you need money now.

[billsr]

If you are solvent and don't need ready cash, keep the Leica no matter what. You won't be sorry in the long run and you won't lose money either. Best regards, Billy

[jason]

When I did studio work, i really enjoyed using medium format. i used Mamiya TLR, C2,C3,C330. Then I purchased after trading the Mamiyas, a Pentax 6x7, some lenses, tubes etc. The carrying bag was simply enormous. I always had a Rollei TLR 75mmTessar. The sheer suffering carrying that rig had me shoot less and less, on medium format. The cost factor of processing and printing was also a very inhibiting factor. I have noticed as many photographers get older, there is a preference for the larger format. Maybe its the bigger negatives and contact sheets. I need reading glasses. I am 61 so I am there!

I traded the Pentax at Sammys in LA in 2000. I walked out of the store with a loaded M6, my old 50mm Summicron(1954) and have not stopped shooting! I don't need a Pullman Ocean Baggage case to carry my "stuff".

Yes! In a Rollei roll, I may indeed have 4 keepers per roll out of 12. A far higher reward then my Leica. I simply do NOT have the same fun! I react with the M3/M6 to the scene! The least keepers i find are on my Digital..One afternoon, i blazed away and got almost 300 images. I havn't even looked at the files since!

The medium format was used very formally. Tripod often. I am way to a jumpy person with maximum ADD!! I barely use the Rollei TLR.

Photography for me is life and a passion. I guess many here are the same..So if you want to sell the Leicas, do so!

When the summer heat has taken its toll with dragging those Swedish Boxes around, ya gonna miss your M's..

[fran__ois_p._weill]

Eliot Rosen wrote :

 

>> One day, you would miss the ability to take spontaneous pics without having to set up and plan each time. You can't beat Leica M for that <<

 

I would have given exactly the same answer, well... about 30 years ago.

 

I once owned both a Leica M and a Hassy outfit. The last M (an M 5) I had was deemed economically impossible to repair after one of the shutter roll went wild. The Hassy 553 ELX outfit was stolen... I now use a humble Hexar RF with Leica lenses and a Mamiya 645 1000 S MF SLR.

 

Point in case, when compared with today's technology, even if the Leica M has still the edge in front of a Hasselblad (CM - EL series) on spontaneous photography, neither can beat what is now offered by the built-in technology offered by modern SLR's in terms of the capture of fast actions. If I had the budget, despite it is more cumbersome, the present Mamiya 645 Pro TTL will be faster to capture the decisive moment?

 

Hasselblads are still selling relatively well because they are still a marvelously adapted answer to the kind of subjects they were designed for (a sedate pace photography with much thinking about all parameters to get a splendid job on mostly still subjects), but - unfortunately - if the small format rangefinder concept is still potentially the best for such subjects, Leica M's (and unfortunately to this date all their competitors) have failed to add to their unobtrusive character, quiteness and unbeatable accuracy of focusing in low light low contrast situation, allowing to use extremely wide apertures, the performing fully automatic light analysis (a term more adapted than measurement) of matrix metering.

 

Anyone who has got some experience in using a medium format SLR knows that - with the same emulsion - it is possible to get a much better rendition of a subject through the sheer power of negative size... Not only this feature will lower the grain when compared to a small format camera but each part of the subject will be rendered by many times more silver halide pile, translating its various colors and contrasts much more precisely. It takes a very, very bad lens on such a MF to be unable to better a small format camera, even when this small format camera has a Leica lens on it? (and Zeiss lenses used on Hassies are good). To equal (more or less) a MF, a Leica M will need to be fed with much slower film, hence generally ending on a tripod, which is the negation of what is was designed for originally.

 

The real problem with the M?s today (which is IMHO the very source of Leica's present difficulties) is the small format rangefinder camera is in its present state of the art an imperfect system for what it was originally destined to perform and few will invest (even if this system is extremely well built qualitatively) in a camera body which is so at the same price as many excellent systems which are actually state of the art and which their shortcomings are considered less potentially troublesome in action and more polyvalent to tackle other subjects?

 

Personally, I won't recommend Mark to keep his M outfit if the kind of pictures he generally realize are compatible with the use of a MF SLR like the Hassy, and - sorry to say that in this forum - even if he wants to keep a small format rangefinder camera (the ideal complement to an MF SLR as far I'm concerned), if I were him, I would sell the body and wait for a cheaper, faster to use (like an M7 it is after all an AEL camera) body to use my Leica lenses instead of keeping the very "snob" oriented MP... A Zeiss Ikon for example...

 

François P. WEILL

[35mmdelux]

Now here I am buying again even more expensive stuff. What if you just want to relax and go for a stroll? Will you take your hassy and its 45 deg. prism and fisheye? Not I.

 

I have a similar problem though somtimes. When I go to Hollywood and do some shoots with my F5, I leave my Leica on the shelf for a time and mentally move to the F5 as my main camera.

 

But then I go on my strolls and I wouldn't even consider carrying the F5. Where is my Leica!

 

Richard Avedon had a nice MO. With a closet full of fancy cameras, he just pulled the one that was the most appropriate for the task at hand.

 

If you got "everything pretty mcuh for free" then don't sweat the finances. Keep the MP another year or two. You might even want to alternate formats just for the hell of it.

[EricM]

"Hasselblads are still selling relatively well because they are still a marvelously adapted answer to the kind of subjects they were designed for (a sedate pace photography with much thinking about all parameters to get a splendid job on mostly still subjects),..."

 

Hasselblads are still in the game because of the acceptance of a digital back. Nothing more, nothing less.

[steve_swinehart]

I don't think it matters. You seem to trade or buy cameras as you need them. I've never owned "a slew" of anything so I can't relate to selling, buying, selling, buying, etc.

 

Leicas will be around in 5 years, if you need one then you can sell your digital camera (hmmm...probably not), well...back to the subject at hand... and buy another Leica when you want one.

 

"Looking through my negs, there are very few shots that I got using my Leicas that would have been impossible with other cameras."

 

I agree. However, that's not the pertinent point of a Leica. It's having a camera with you when you need one. Easy to carry, easy to keep with you. If you don't have those type of photo needs, you don't need a Leica.

[fran__ois_p._weill]

Eric,

 

You wrote:

 

>> Hasselblads are still in the game because of the acceptance of a digital back. Nothing more, nothing less. <<

 

What a digital myopia syndrome!

 

Much more than for small format cameras, digitalization in the mostly professional MF world is proceeding at a slow pace...

 

For a professional user the huge investment on a digital back should be justified by a considerable output volume and much less frequently by the delays than the PJ's who jumped to the digital bandwagon as soon as the quality was deemed sufficient for the fianl use (low to medium quality printing).

 

Nearly all the amateurs still using MF cameras are still silver halide adepts, so are most professional photographers who haven't sufficient volume output and are not under very short delays.

 

Whatever the medium recording the image, the way you proceed is different from a kind of subject to another. This was true in an all silver halide world, this will be still be true in a digitalized world.

 

Someone using a MF or even a view camera simply won't tackle the same kinds of subjects. It is not the camera which command the approach, but the subject and you'd better use the proper tool if you can.

 

A camera which is slow to use but gives you a very detailed and refined image of a subject will only suits almost still subjects, just because your camera - whatever your experience - will slow your action, so it is useless when you have to record the movement of life. Conversly a camera which was originally designed to record the movements of life (even something different then to record sport or action events) like a small format rangefinder camera should be conceived with all the built-in technology to let the person behind the camera free to chose the frame and the instant, without bothering too much for anything else... As the budget most of us have is not indefinitely extensible, we have to make choices, I consider investing on a new M series body is today almost deprived of any sense because if nobody can really gain a decisive technical edge on a Leica M, both the Hexar RF (defunct only on the US market) and now the soon to come Zeiss Ikon are just equalling the M7 (for example the Hexar RF shortcomings are exactly the opposite or the same of the ones of the M 7 technically, the Zeiss seem to be even better because it eliminates some of the Hexar RF vs the M7 but intorduces some others)... The point in case is both the Hexar RF and the future Zeiss Ikon, which are in no way the perfect 21st century small format rangefinders, are significantly cheaper than the Leica product.

 

On the Hasselblad side for a V series camera (but Hasselblad also produce much more "modern" models and has recently issued a full digital body) the fact is the relative slow operation is not a real liability when tackling the subjects the camera was designed for. So the fact it is in many ways an "antiquated" (but efficient) design doesn't influence the potential customer. The possibility to adapt a digital back might be reassuring for some people but for the present days it is so unaffordable that is a purely psychological effect. Beside, you can also adapt a digital back on a Mamiya 645 Pro TL.

 

The M series problem (and the associated problems of Leica as the R series sales are marginal at best) is due to the combination of a far from technically state of the art body in the role it was originally designed for (and to add a digital back won't solve this problem at all) and a stellar price nothing could reasonably justify, even a proverbial reliability which, in our transitional era, at the end of which film might be unavailable, may prove totally useless.

 

Only people using their M in very odd way (when most professional photographers will use a MF camera or even a view camera) may be convinced their camera body is still at the forefront... Most people, both amateurs and professionals won't accept to pay the price of a state of the art pro body for something using a mix of 1950's and late 1970's technology in the year 2005. During Leica heydays, when Barnack was at the controls, every technical improvements were used to make Leica rangefinders shine in their role... This was what created the legend of Leica, because the cream of the crop of photographers wanted the best tool they can afford for the job they had to perform, even at a high price. Since the stupid demise of the M5 and its even more stupid replacement by the M4-2 and then M4-P (I had one) the technological lag of Leica constantely increased. As long as the M was the last of the small format rangefinders with interchangeable lenses in production, Leica was to survive... Now there are competitors again.

 

The "boutique item" policy is the failure which may ultimately make Leica disappear.

 

Whether in the digital or - for sometimes to come - only in the silver halide world, its time for them to wake up (if they can) and become again technological leaders where they always had been: the SFRF bodies, the very symbol of excellency... They have the lenses, let them have the body.

 

Fran篩s P. WEILL

[stephen_w.]

one would have two use slower film to equal MF...lets say 50 to 100 for SM compared to 200-400 to HANDHOLD a MF plus slower lenses. One's for SM are at least two-stops faster (1.0 vs. 2.0), so the two stop (4X) decrease in will more than compansate for the 3.5X greater film area, and the Leica M + Noct' (or 'lux vs the standard 2.8) is much faster handling, compact and lighter.