From Leica M to Nikon D80

[luisarguelles]

About one month ago I seized the oportunity to buy a brand-new D80 at an excellent price (these days Nikon is clearing the stock of this

camera). After testing the camera for a few days, I decided to bring her with me to a week of holidays in “La Toja”, a beautiful holidays

resort in Northwest Spain.

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I’ve been a Leica-M user for years and just love to take “street-photography” pictures (although I’m not completely sure about a definition

for street-photography). Well, I used only two lenses, a Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AF-D and a Nikkor 35mm f/2 AF-D.

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The experience has been great. Not the same feeling as from my M2 or M6 but it has been a lot of fun. Moreover, since I’m a black &

white guy I have been experimenting with Lightroom in a way that the final picture has some coloration but it reminds oneself a sort of

black & white (it’s not only to remove saturation in the images). You can see the results here: <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?

folder_id=865708" rel="nofollow">http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=865708</a>

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Now the important question: film or digital?. The answer, of course, is both. I find black & white from film just a step above what can be

done in digital, but digital is a lot of fun. Moreover, I like to share the lenses between my F4 and D80. By the way, for those having doubts

abut buying a D80, a would say go ahead!

[ronald_moravec1]

I suppose you noticed the angle of view is different from the F4 to D80. Other than that, a camera is a camera.

 

A D700 with make them both the same , film and digital, and give a better image by a factor of 2, much more at higher ISO.

 

I you don`t make darkroom prints and scan the Leica negs, the results are similar.

[luisarguelles]

>>>I suppose you noticed the angle of view is different from the F4 to D80. Other than that, a camera is a camera.<<<

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Oh yes, using the waist-lever finder on my F4 the angle of view varies about 90 degrees :)

[sprouty]

Ronald, please explain this concept of betterness...

[sprouty]

Sorry Ronald, I forgot the emoticon...

 

BTW Luis, I think you have a great set of images and like the loose, spontaneous feel they have. The partial-

desaturation however kills a lot of them for me. The work is good, it deserves a better treatment.

[luisarguelles]

Sp, thanks for your words. The selective-desaturation is something I'm experimenting with. Too much time I think we try to

get black & white, film look-alike images from digital pictures and I think this is an erroneous route, that is, if what I want is

to produce b&w images, I load, say, Tri-x, and get the classical feel. Digital alllows me to play with the images, move the

sliders (even wildly) on Lightroom and get a very different look from the raw files. In any case, clicking on the images for

the large version changes the perception, I think. Again, this color-treatment is a route I'm exploring these days. I don't

know what the arriving point will be, but I'm having a lot of fun. Also, I must print some of the images. This will be sort of a

judge for evaluating this technique.

[mdunker]

Luis, I particularly liked "Meditation". The selective-desaturation is interesting. I don't think it works as well for all the images, but in the right context it certainly give the shots a different feel.

[luisarguelles]

Thanks Mark, that's a very interesting comment. Maybe the technique of selective-desaturation work better with certain

types of images. I shall resarch on this point.

[ty_mickan]

Luis, nice pics. I can see now that your Leica has become obsolete. I am happy to take it off your hands for you ;)

[luisarguelles]

Tom, which one do you prefer, the M2 or the M6? :)

[Rich B NYC]

Luis,

 

As someone who also went from Leica M (also M2 and M6) to a D80, I can understand your dilemna well.

 

I sold my M2 when I bought a D80 but continued to shoot with the M6. After I realized that I hadn't picked up the Leica in over a year, I came to the logical (to me) conclusion and sold it along with all of my Leica lenses.

 

While I do miss using my Leicas, I don't miss dealing with labs that no longer care about film processing. Getting back scratched and dirty negatives and slides from formerly excellent labs is really what pushed me over the edge. I now have complete control from capture to print just the way that I did when I first started with b&w many years ago. I hadn't realized how badly I missed that.

 

After 40 years of film shooting, I've never looked back. I do have a Nikon FM that I can't bear to part with and, since there is very little cash value to it, see not reason to sell. In any case, I can use most of my Nikon lenses with it if the film mood ever strikes.

 

I think that it's a bit too early to tell if you will switch entirely to digital. Some do. Some don't. Unlike me, you may want to continue to shoot some film. I agree that b&w digital isn't quite there yet, but it's pretty close if you use the right printer and select you paper accordingly.

 

By the way, I enjoyed looking at your photos but agree with a few others that not all of them benefit from partial desaturation.

[sprouty]

I actually have an M6, a Rollei TLR, a Holga, and a D700. They all do their own thing well, and they don't seem to overlap so I keep them all. Some days I love being in the darkroom for 10 hours, other days I feel thankful for the speed, flexibility and ease of Lightroom with a clean digital file.

[luisarguelles]

Richard, when the labs in Spain went the “dirty” way back in 2005 I again started to develop film myself (nothing new, I

learned to process b&w in the mid 70s, just before entering the Uni). I love traditional black & white (if you visit my

folders you’ll see that about 80% of my work is b&w) and I also enjoy a lot from using film cameras. I get a very difficult

to describe feeling taking pictures with my M2 or M6, but also with my F2 or F4 and with my OM-1 and OM-3, not to

mention the lovely handling of my Rolleiflex 3.5E.

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But it is not only using the cameras. When I’m preparring D76 I enjoy to measure the liquids, handling the bottles, etc.

It’s a feeling of having the ultimate control, so I think I shall continue using film cameras while film and chemicals last.

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However, it happens that I produce more film images than I’m able to process. Last august I made a holidays trip

covering Paris, Brugge, Brussels, Antwerpen, Düsseldorf, Köln, Black Forrest and get back home. I still have 5 rolls for

developing, so when I went for an aditional week of holidays to the northwest area of the country in mid-september I

bought the D80 for taking a breath. I’m extremely happy with the results, but I remain primarely a film-shooter.

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Here I completely agree with Sp. Some days you’re in the mood for film photography, other days you enjoy digital. Why

not have *all* the fun?

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While I’m writing this, my F4 is on the table, ready to take some pics tomorrow :)