wheelie52

You've all been very helpful and Wilson's suggestion of the slow flash synch was some thing I thought of afterwards and wondered if it would have been the way to go. I always like to see your photos Wilson and your particular 'slant' has always appealed to me!

 

Brad ... I like those portraits a lot, the graininess and fairly high contrast is eye catching ... how did you do that?

 

Ian ... as much as I like the GRD, to be honest I would find the price a bit of a hurdle ($800.00 in Aust) and working around the limitations of the canon and post processing are probably the way to go!

 

Rob ... I haven't actually printed any images as she just wanted me to give her a few shots on disc but I'm sure they would print a lot better than they look on my monitor!

 

Michael ... the red skin tone on the boy's face is interesting. That particular day he was very red cheeked and the camera really accentuated that fact. His face is often this colour and even his sister has always had the rosey cheeked look ... gentics ;-)

 

I like the camera though and as I have only had it a short time I will persevere and become more familiar with it's strengths and limitations. It's a $450.00 camera in Australia as things can be a bit dearer here. (When I bought my D70s with the 18-70 lens they had a suggested retail of $1900.00!) The slight graininess the A620 produces at the higher ISO settings can actually look quite good depending on the purpose of the photo you are taking I guess, so perhaps I should learn to use that characteristic to my advantage occasionally. Thanks all!

Peter ... thanks,

 

The difference at ISO 50 in strong light is startling. Sharp as a tack as the say!

 

Cheers ... I guess I just have to accept the cameras limitations. :-)<div></div>

As a matter of interest here is another shot taken in much better light but still at ISO 200. Better but still not great!<div></div>

Juergen,

 

I increased exposure slightly and of course there was the crop and a little sharpening. I just find when I look at the face closely in particular it is really grainy. I remember reading a comment by Wilson Tsoi, who uses these canons to great effect, that he thought it was pointless shooting at anything higher than 50 and said that he thought 200 was virtually unusable for his needs. I was somewhat sceptical about his remarks but it would seem that he was right!

 

The only other altered setting on the camera was a minus.33 exposure compensation!

 

Cheers

Hi all,

 

I recently bought a Canon A620 as a back up to my D70 for taking more casual

pics where the Nikon would be an impedance due to size/noise etc. A good

friend had a daytime kids party for her nine year old and I thought I'd take

the Canon to take some shots of the little boy, Arakai, who is disabled ...

every minute of his life is precious to all of us who know and love him!

 

Taking shots indoors (I don't like flash) I upped the ISO to 200, set the

camera on aperture priority at f2.8 with image quality set at superfine and

hoped all would be well! I know the A620 doesn't have a great reputation at

higher ISO settings but I was pretty dissapointed in the results at 200. The

photo I have included was shot as landscape and cropped to portrait admittedly

but his face in particular really shows the shortcomings of the camera in low

light situations.

 

Perhaps I'm expecting too much of this point and shoot, or maybe I am doing

something wrong? It's brilliant at ISO 50 but that isn't always possible. I

could have taken the Nikon I suppose but in confined space with twenty odd

children crowded around it would have felt like an AK-47 and would have drawn

far too much of their attention.

 

Maybe I should have spent the extra dollars and got the GR-D .... what else

would have done the job?

 

Thanks in advance!<div></div>

There are some really interesting comments in the other forum ... fascinating reading! I am definitely not an M8 knocker though. I don't desire to own the camera, but I am somewhat saddened that Leica are running into these problems already. With the way the internet works this is going to be very destuctive for them. When a major manufacturer makes even a small blunder these days the whole world knows about it very quickly!

 

I was keen to own an R-D1 until I started reading about the problems they were encountering and now would be very reluctant to take the plunge. Conversely, there are a lot of very satisfied Epson owners out there!

 

I cross my fingers for the M8!

A Canine Smile!<div></div>

I keep alternating between thinking my D70s is all the DSLR I need ... and

wanting to upgrade to the D80. It's not a money thing ... more to do with

rampant consumerism! Aside from the extra 4 megapixels what are the major

advantages of the D80 over the D70s for an amateur?

Hi,

 

I would just like to make it clear to all involved in this thread ... that I was the original poster of the RFF thread and at no stage was my intention to question the legitimacy of Lee's ebay listing! It was purely a comment on the fascination of eBay and the way some items tend to attract over the top bidding when they are well presented! If someone is prepared to pay such a premium price for any item ... good luck to the seller I say!

 

I note that it was bought by someone from the US ... I am the AUSSIE!

 

Regards

Hi there,

 

I bought an 18-200VR from a place in Hong Kong via ebay a few months ago and they were excellent to deal with. I can only assume they also have a physical address. Called themselves Hong Kong supplies. I'll post the eBay link and maybe you can find a way to get in touch with them.

 

Cheers ... Keith

 

http://stores.ebay.com.au/Hong-Kong-Supplies_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm

Thanks dudes .... you are so right. The pics were actually taken by a friend of mine I was having lunch with. I had just got the camera and she was keen to try it out ... she bought one the next day and loves it! :-)

And another..<div></div>

The film boys seem to spend a lot of time discussing the "bokeh' of various

lenses and I can now understand (I hope) the difference between good and bad

bokeh! The ideal seems to be creamy smooth out of focus areas with no swirling

etc?

 

This is just a casual snap taken with my A620 which I bought recently to

complement my D70 kit for something small to carry around. To me the 'bokeh'

of this shot seems very good and not quite what I was expecting from a point

and shoot digital with a zoom lens!

 

Are they all this good ... I'm astounded? The quality of the images of this

camera blows me away!<div></div>

"No offence, Keith, but it sounds to be a voguish business concept that's short on insight"

 

Fair comment Jonothan... but the individual who put this proposition to me of migrant verses native is an expert in his field in Paris and commands high fees for specialist advice to large corporations regarding their employment structuring. I had never heard the term before but was interested in his reasoning as to why natives are currently more successful, in his opinion, than migrants in the computer driven information based corporate world.

 

By the reactions I have had here not a lot of people seem to agree that it has any relationship to the digital verses film debate. I suspected a parallel in certain areas but your reactions suggest not!

 

I am suitably chastened guys. :-)

The point I was trying to make is that the future is going to be run by digital natives whether we like it or not and that is an undeniable fact! Narrowing the whole subject down to computers and cameras was a direction I mistakenly took because it seemed relevant to this forum. Digital technology encompasses many more facets of human existence now and does so more naturally for the generation that is the bulk of the population of the western world.

 

I read somewhere today that the first readily available digital camera with 1.3 megapixels was produced some 25 years ago and cost $13000.00

 

To some, the Leica M may still rule supreme and it does I agree ... and it's called the M8

A friend of mine was talking technology and it's place in the corporate world,

which is where he exists and brought up the subject of digital natives verses

digital migrants. Digital natives are those who were born into the digital age

and migrants are those who were not but have had to learn to adapt and cross

over. He went on to give me a detailed explanation of why a lot of companies

he works with and advises in France, are now reaping the benefits of being able

to employ the natives in place of the migrants and how the process eventually

becomes inevitable anyway!

 

None of this means very much to me to be honest but it also applies to the

photography field I'm sure. We are a mixture of digital migrants and natives.

The digital camera has been around long enough now that there are a generation

of people who know nothing else. I realise that there will always be

individuals born into the digital age who will choose to use film as a

medium ... the same people will quite likely have a healthy Bob Dylan

collection in their music libraries!

 

To see a teenager carting around a Leica M is rather akin to the same, choosing

to wear flares and a corduroy jacket. I guess in reallity that person then

becomes an analog migrant ... and they are definitely out there thankfully! I

realise too that there is a group of people who will never migrate and will

always be far more comfortable with the technology that they were born into.

I picked up a 1936 II a few months ago in absolutely pristine condition, I am currently getting it CLA'd. It had a flash sync fitted to the front of the body just to the right of the lens so consequently didn't attract the bids of the purists... doesn't bother me a dam! I paid less than $200.00 for a beautiful functional II. and aside from a very small amount of brassing at the wear points the black paint is absolutely unmarked. I have recently picked up a red scale 5cm Elmar for it and can't wait to get it back. It is by far the prettiest camera I own!

 

I have seen one of these in a Luigi half case and it has to be one of the best looking combinations around!

"Might take some time! Just came back from a high level presentation of Leica's news from Photokina. The M8 did NOT work!!"

 

WHOOPS!

Sounds like ... maybe the problem lies with the card. You could establish this by putting the card into a card reader connected to your computer. Or try another card in the camera if you have one!

 

Cheers and good luck .... I have a 620 and they are a great little camera but I always use a card reader rather than usb connection to the camera!

"I have never understood why I would create PHOTO.NET gallery when I have my own website, and I can imagine that quite a few photographers think that way"

 

We are not all "photographers" ... some of us are just people with cameras and a passion for using them! Surely P.net is for "all"

I don't think you're way off David, not at all! But you still may be proven to be wrong ... unfortunately though you may also be right!

 

I hope for Leica's sake and for the people who are parting with the dosh for this camera that things pan out differently.

 

Congratulations though on putting forward a supposition based on reallity and not "Leica emotion" After some of the guff that has appeared in these constant threads about this camera you are a revelation in your unbiased reallity!

 

Cheers

Wilson Tsoi's work blows me away ... especially the stuff he can do with the Canon A620 point and shoot! (digital yes I know sorry!)

 

The way he can see something and capture it with that little digicam is something else ... Nels seeems to have the same ability with that camera!

Larry ... you're right about the M8 pricing, it is quite reasonable considering the current M7 price and having a digital that allows you to use quality lenses that you all ready own and have paid good money for is a bonus. I would definitely buy an M8 and happily pay the price but at the moment I would have to sell other Leica gear to achieve it ... which I would be very reluctant to do.

 

Here in Oz an M8 would set you back around $7500.00 but then again an RD1 would be close to $5000.00 The D70s with the 18-70 lens sold for close to $2000.00

I for one hope that the M8 is a big success and I hope it launches Leica back

into the subconsciousness of digital camera buyers around the globe for a lot

of reasons:

 

a) Success will be percieved by other current rangefinder manufacturers as a

reason to develop something to match the M8.

 

b) Rangefinder photography has been restricted to film users for a long time

and digital is not going to go away, so I would expect a whole new generation

of people wanting to use a rangefinder, to make this choice if more options

became available!

 

c) Nikon in particular, I suspect, will watch the progress of the M8 closely

and if it becomes a sales success I could see a Nikon digital rangefinder based

around their previous designs being released into the Japanese market at a

premium price in small numbers ... initially!

 

d) Film, hopefully, won't die out but sales success for camera manufacturers

lies in the digital market and the amount of point and shoot cameras that now

boast 10+ megapixel ccd's proves that they will do anything to sell cameras!

 

I would buy a digital rangefinder like a shot and would love the M8 in my

collection but the price is beyond my reach. I thought about an Epson RD1 but

would worry about reliability and ongoing support for the camera but I don't

discount the possibillity of Cosina releasing a 10 megapixel, or larger

version, sooner or later! I like my Nikon D70s and I also like my M7 but to be

honest a digital rangefinder in my collection would not have to have the Leica

name on it to make me extremely happy ... I would like to be able to use my

Leica lenses on it though!

 

Am I being realistic ... or am just a fanatic wanting the best of both worlds?

"The lens is what makes a photo sharp and contrasty at a large enlargement, not the camera body"

 

 

Agreed, but the rangefinder mechanism of the camera has an important roll here and on that basis I would go with the M6! Also the long term reliability and build quality of the Leica offsets the initial cost saving of the cheaper camera .... depending on usage of course.

 

Plus if you buy carefully the Leica will be easier to sell down the track if you decide the rangefinder route is not for you!