ray .

Old thread but those saying this is a trivial issue apparently haven't used a Leica with a plastic battery cap, or have been lucky enough it hasn't been a problem. I've had mine pop off 3 or 4 times, at least once not knowing it did, finding the cap and batteries missing. I had an M6 TTL with threaded metal cap that didn't have any problems.

"Digital has everything over film except one thing. You can change lenses frequently and not worry about dust on the sensor because there is no sensor." Gotta disagree with you there Alex. : ) For me film still gives a special quality to the image that digital can't always quite replicate. Not saying it's better, just different. For b&w especially, I've yet to see a photograph from a digital camera that produces the same subtle tone qualities of my best results from b&w film.

Tri-Elmar: Fine, but I think they are relatively heavy as Leica lenses go. Also fairly slow, at f/4 wide open.

I'd bring a back up, no matter what camera you use. That is, unless you don't mind picking up another during the trip if you are where one is available to buy. You can drop a camera, have it stolen, or whatever. Bring a back up.

I had one and sold it after a few years, and have thought of getting one again, but for as old they are, they're a bit pricey. Seems like some dealers in Japan hoard certain cameras and the M8 appears to be one of them, so prices may be high in part because of that. If I ran across a good deal on one, I might pick it up. I had an M9 and now M240 for the past several years, but I swear for b&w those two cameras are not as good as my M8 was for making b&w photos. The M8's strength for b&w has been noted frequently elsewhere on the web. Color is fine, though generally not as spot on as the M9 or later Leica digitals. If you're shooting color though, definitely use an IR filter on the lens. 10MP is fine, and the sensor size lends itself to plentiful depth of field. As others have said, images are best up to ISO 320, usually fine at 640, but begin to get sketchy shooting any higher.

scott, I use VueScan now so from what you say maybe I'll try scanning something from this same roll using that software and see if there's a difference. B&W film scans from the Nikon software could be either a tad magenta, sometimes a little yellowish, very rarely sepia or brownish as the image above. I'll take a look too at the scans I've done with VueScan since I've used it the last few years and see how accurate they are. From what I recall some may be a smidge off as you say but possibly they're more accurate than the Nikon software produced. VueScan version I'm using is 9.5.32, which has probably been updated several times. It works so I've refrained from updating it. Probably should check into that though.

Good to know, I may order some for the freezer before October then. It's a nice film, very clean, almost antiseptic, but I've concluded overall I like Ilford FP-4 better. As long as that and Tri-X are around for b&w film, I'm good. Acros is more contrasty than FP-4 but with the silver efex pro software film simulations (for digital camera files) they seem to have it reversed, with the FP-4 simulation being higher contrast.

The photo I'm posting here was shot in 2002, pretty sure on Tri-X (could be Plus-X but not likely). It was scanned on my Nikon Coolscan IV with the Nikon software that was available at the time. I usually scan b&w negs in color mode, because it seems it produces better tonal values. At any rate the tint in the photo here is straight from the raw scan. Normally there's a little tint from my b&w film scanned in color mode but it's much closer to straight black & white. So I may leave as is, or use the b&w layer in photoshop to neutralize it. Often times depending on the neg, that compromises tonal quality- I believe similarly to if it was originally scanned in b&w mode. My question is, what might have produced the strong tint here on the roll this photo is from? Would it be the particular developer used to process the film? Thanks in advance...

Yeah Sherry doesn't do Contax G2 stuff. She's booked up as it is with Leica repairs.

Here's the same M240 at work, this time coupled with 35 Summicron.

Shot with the 90 Elmar-C I got yesterday, one of the least expensive Leica lenses. Doesn't appear to suffer at all except for being no faster than f/4.

Sherry is slow, I'm sure she's super busy… Just bought instead of the Rokkor a 90 Elmar-C from a private seller $235, free shipping, 14 day return. Description of condition was very clear. No knock on Photo Village but they have the same lens listed at $550 in possibly lesser condition.

The Summaron is an f/3.5, the one I had before. I know my 35 Summicron overall is the superior lens, so I'll probably pass on the Summaron. It's just tempting because of nostalgic reasons, it looks really clean, and I'd kind of l like to see how it combines with my M240. Sherry's item is a 90mm lens. I emailed her again since her website states she rates items on a 1-10 scale, and accepts returns. See if she can come back with a rating for me. I know she's really busy, as is Don. They've both told me (Don a month or so ago) that they're not accepting new repairs until they catch up to their work load. Btw must be about 10 years ago I called Sherry to inquire about a Minolta CL. Almost bought it but didn't. Sherry was very talkative and we chatted for about an hour about cameras, photography and film.

Sherry Krauter is a good egg but after two emails she's only answered my question about the condition a lens she has for sale, saying "it's in good shape, you won't be disappointed." Has anyone purchased something from her store and what was your satisfaction factor? On another front elsewhere, there's a nice 35 Summaron available, a lens I used to have. Though I have a 4th version Summicron, the lens I've used most ever, I'm thinking about getting the Summaron again too. Silly or what? My technical photo skills were less when I had the Summaron, so I don't have a completely reasonable basis for comparison. I'm sure in general the Summicron is better, with the Summaron being a little softer in sharpness and contrast.

Don't know what kind of owl but it's a good looker. : ) Also, thanks Arthur...

Is that an older Zeiss, Arthur? Biotar?

A camera is a time machine….. This is a German friend I happened to meet in Madrid when we were both touristing there, 30 years ago. I wonder where you are now, Heike Stahl.

Arthur, $6 drug store glasses for a $6,000 camera? I know the Leica diopters are probably overpriced but if you put out the cash for a Monochrom seems like you'd want to take full advantage of that viewfinder. $119 isn't much compared to the price of the camera. I've lost one or two of them because they've unscrewed and dropped on the ground without me knowing it. Now I check them from time to time and just make sure they're snug and all is good.

There's a great picture of Robert Frank holding a Contax when he was young and good looking, working for whatever ad agency it was. The camera looks cool with him holding it, but when I look at them on ebay they just look kind of clunky to me. I'm probably wrong about that, but don't tell me if I am or explain why, because I don't need any more cameras!

My friend Barry says his computer is in the shop this week, so he asked me to post the weekly Picture sharing contest. Bonus points if you took your pic with a Leica, but I have no idea what those points will get ya. Likely not anything but pride of ownership and bragging rights over those no-nothing Canon and Nikon users. Ooops, that's me, I have and use both, so never mind, you're safe, even with a Fuji. Barry wanted to be sure I didn't mess up his bookkeeping, so he expressly instructed that this is Week 12, and with that I have indeed complied, so all is right with the world. I double checked to make sure I had the right number; it's not good being out of Barry's good graces. So with that I'll quit blabbing and as Barry would say if he could be here, something like, "Come on peeps, don't be shy, show us what ya got, post 'em up, and pronto!" My pic of this '56 Plymouth was taken with a Leica M240, 35 Summicron, & converted to b&w with the help of silver efex pro. You could do it at a fraction of the cost!

Norman, you might try to contact them. Go to 'Help' and there should be a box there to type a message. It could also be that they didn't select the film for Thailand because the topic would generally be of more interest in the US. There's another pretty good documentary on youtube if you have access to that. Image quality is a little soft but not too bad.

If you get the free trial you should be able to view the film, unless the app works differently. At any given time there are 30 films available, each viewable for 30 days, with one expiring each day as a new one is added. Scroll down on the page once you're logged in to see the films available. If anyone can't get a free trial, if you send me your email I can do an invite for a trial. In fact they give subscribers a free month for each friend who signs up for a trial, but that's not important to me, just as a last resort if you can't get it yourself for some reason. Brad, I don't notice much of a log in issue…. I kind of figured the popularity of phone cameras has cut down on interest in this site or more traditional means of doing photography.

Btw looking at the trailer again, it kind of undersells the film. I wasn't convinced from it that I'd enjoy it but figured I had to give it a go given the subject, and was pleasantly surprised. This is Street and Documentary forum, right? Kind of surprises me to see no responses given that the guy is one of the giants of photography- specifically documentary photography… Or has traffic just dropped off on this forum?

Just saw this delightful 82 minute film portrait of Robert Frank, and I highly recommend it. It reveals his great sense of humor, and you're introduced to his living space filled with books askew and image stuff all around, along with his collection of cameras. He can't throw anything away and it suits him very well. Nicely done, great music, shows a fair amount of footage from his films, and tracks his life and loss. I don't watch too many films again soon after seeing them, but this will be one. The film is available for the next few weeks on mubi.com. There may be a free trial there, or a subscription is pretty reasonable if you like foreign, art, documentary and classic films. There is another documentary on youtube that's mis-titled using the same title.

I somewhat enjoy Meyerowitz talking about other photographer's work; he's very enthusiastic about that. As an image maker, at least on the street, I find him not that compelling. Especially when it comes to explaining your photographs or captioning/titling them to tell the viewer what it's about- that's usually bush league stuff. I don't want to know what was happening with the guy down on the street with people all around; if the photo has any power at all it's for the viewer to imagine. Explaining the context kills it. And dude, there are very few cell phones on skid row and in much of downtown LA as just one example. No excuses. Fred, if you read the article, it looks like he has gone or "retired" to the country. : )