tom_bryant

Oh! What a lovely bunch of opinions! Gotta add mine.</P>

 

M3: You can focus it with both eyes open.<br>

Focus is more accurate.<BR>

No flair in the viewfinder.<BR>

Self timer.<BR>

Vertical dimesion of the 35mm frame is extraploated by the horizontal dimension of the 50 mm frame.<P/>

 

M6: I much perfer my Gossen to a reflected light meter.<br>

(I sold an M7 that gave me louzy readings when I had a light source in the meter's spot.)<br>

No self timer.<br>

Sherry K. says they're not nearly as well made<br>

(I've never owned one, so I pass this along as hearsay)<br>

Comments on the comments:

 

The picture was a piggyback on a Celestron C-8 Ultima, with PEC on and the polar axis within a few arc minutes of the actual pole.

 

The lens *was* focused at infinity.

 

My Noctilux stayed home. It's just too big and it's hood does not reverse.

 

The Summilux has been dropped on the concrete at least twice, and bumped innumerable times. The mount looks like a beaver once chewed on it. Of all 11 of my lenses, it's my favorite.

 

As to the stars not being bright, Antares (the red star in the lower right) is way over exposed. Note how M4, a globular cluster barely visible to the naked eye (just a bit right of Antares) looks almost as bright. Antares is over 100 times brighter than M4.

 

After a bit of overexposure, the film iteslf starts to show its defects, like halation. Antares shows quite a bit of halation. Note the star directly above Antares. It's much less overexposed, and the abberations are a bit less as well.

 

I suspect that the new Summilux would have produced a sharper image in the corners, but, as someone else has already noted, these lenses were rarely used for this purpose.

<P>There has been much speculation as to how good or bad the old Summilux 50

was. Pop Phot flunked its wide open performance around 15 years ago, although

I've always been pleased with my results.</P>

<P/>

Just how good is it wide open?

<P/>

The night sky is an excellent test. Stars are essentially point sources of light,

and any shape they show is due to abberations in the lens, and the dark

background around most of the stars allows all those abberations to be viewed in

garish detail.

<P/>

Here's a 7 minute shot on Agfa 100 scanned at 3000 dpi, and made into a "Highest

resolution" jpg. You can pretty much see the grain.

<P/>

Note how sharp the center is, and even in the corners, the fainter stars are still

tiny. The lens seems to have more coma than curved field, IMHO, despite the

ravings of Pop Phot many moons ago. BTW at f/5.6, it's of course exquisitely

sharp, but then, so is just about everything else.

<P/>

Be warned that this is a 7.9MB file you'll be pulling over a DSL connection, so

be patient. On the off chance that the URL below just pulls up my main page,

click on the "The Center of the Galaxy" tag in the top right.

<P/>

<A HREF="http://mainsequence.org/top/shMW_Center.html">Click here to have a look</A>

<P/>

Just in case you're astronomically inclined, the center of the picture is at

Right Ascension 17h 25m, Declination -26 degrees. The streak running through

the center is a satellite. The light that exposed the film was between decades

old to over 30,000 years old, with the exception of the satellite, which was

milliseconds old reflected sunlight.

Gorgeous photos, Anhtu.

 

Your work again proves the old saying that it's the nut behind the viewfinder that is the most important part of the photographic system.

A friend recently gave me one of Luigi's half cases. Up until now, I have despised cases as "never-ready".

 

This one's different. With a body cap only, the body still fits into a large pocket. This is important.

 

The case unsnaps in 2 places to free the body for film changing. No tripod screw, which takes too long to undo.

 

When you're shooting, the strap can provide additional stability, held aganist your neck, and if you need both hands free, you can just let the camera dangle about your neck. Not bad.

 

The leather also takes bad bumps better than 45 year old vulcanite.

My 15 mm Heilar is a very nice lens. The build quality of my 21 Asphere Elmarit is better, but optically, it's in the same league.

 

It doesn't couple with the rangefinder. Hardly matters, though.

Hmmm. I had noctilust for years. Finally bought one.

 

It gathers dust, the least used of my leica 50s. The summicron and summilux are *much* more pocketable.

 

However, there are those very dark times that I'm glad I've got it.

Hmmm,

 

The way I got it through my grapevine was the Nikon was willing to pretty much give their cameras away to well published pros, and Leica wasn't. As for the most durable camera made, Tomas Tomasy, who wrote the books about overhauling antique camera series, gives that distinction to the Canon F-1. The Leica M series was fairly good, however.

If my understanding is correct, it was marketing, not technical merit, that doomed the rangefinder to 2nd place. As it has with Betamax and unix.

 

<rant>

If you're reading this from a M$ windows system, you're a victim of excellent marketing. It's the least reliable, most inefficient operating system out there. By any measure except superb marketing, Linux and Mac OS are far superior.

</rant>

 

As to Leica vs. all the rest, My Summilux 50 has literally pounded the pavement in bounces that killed a former Nikon 50 f/1.4. It's sharp wide open. The Nikon wasn't. But Nikon was "cool", back in my college days...

 

We consumers, who dominate the market, are pretty much fools, at the mercy of well paid marketing mavens. I'll let Harlan Ellison have the last word:

 

Harlan Ellison, speaking at a dinner at the spring conference of the

Western States Ad Agencies Association, told executives:

 

"Your children use drugs, and you told them to do it. You've been pushing

chemicals on TV for years: 'Can't sleep? Take a drug. Not happy? Take a drug.

Where in the world did people get the idea that it's smart to get in a car and

go fast? To get in a 4x4 and tear up virgin land. You told them to do it."

 

"As much as you're subject to the whims of your deranged clients, you rule

the world. You have the reins to the most powerful medium in the world:

television. And the only people who can afford to advertise on television are

the lowest common denominator of goods ... stuff like McDonald's toad

burgers."

 

Ellison, who is the west coast spokesman for Geo cars, was quoted in

Advertising Age and the LA Times, which described those present as "stunned"

and "rather dismayed".

I went to a butterfly exibit today, and took the visoflex on my M3. I

found that my trusty 65mm elmar just didn't let me get close enough,

so in desperation, I replaced the elmar with my 135mm f/2.8 elmarit,

stopped down to f/11. Of course it was impossible to focus, but one

simply moved the entire camera. I used the table top tripod as a

chest pod, and found that the 135 gave me the reach I needed to be

able to get a close up of a blue morpho at 2 feet (~60cm) as opposed

to a foot. The butterflies spooked when you got too close. Overall,

I got shots I would never have been able to get with the elmar.

A leica M3, bought now for $750 + 200 for a good CLA will put you back $950 USD. A Bessa will put you back around $400 - 600.

 

In 10 years, when you decide to sell it, the Bessa will be worth around

$100. The Leica will be worth about $800.

 

Q: Which costs more?

 

Bessas are also prone to jamming at inopportune times. My friend Dr B bought one for a trip to Europe, and it jammed on his second day out.

When he got back he bought an M3.

I agree with Al Kaplan. That SLR blackout makes it very difficult

to hold steady at 1/30th or less. I think it's more of a physiological eye-brain-hand phenomena than simple SLR slap.

 

The SLR slap is important in critical work. Sometime in the 90s, Pop Phot's Victor Keppler ran a column that proved that SLR slap was quite real and could noticeably decrease resolution.

 

My Canon F1s gather dust.

<P>Comment on the M3's slow loading. It's <B>very</B> reliable.

Both my M4 and M7 have misloaded on me, <B>Grrrrr</B>, but my

M3s have never misloaded.</P><P>The old viewfinders are delicate, however, has I found to

my dismay. $450 and a month later, Sherry had reinstalled an M6J

finder in it, which is OK, but not as good as the M3's original.</P>

mine has ~ 1/2 mm of diaphragm blades in the aperture

as well.

 

Like everyone else is saying, it's a *great*lens, perhaps

the best (optically speaking) of the 21s for 35mm use.

 

Mine has never let me down.<div></div>

<P>Here we go again, as if Leica even reads the stuff. Still, on the off chance that they are, I'd upgrade my Ms with the following:</P><UL>

 

<LI>1) Larger lens opening. Compatible (via an adapter) with the current M bayonet. This would allow, among other things, for a Noct that didn't vignette so badly

<LI>2) A larger viewfinder with 1:1 viewing, so glasses wearers didn't have to bang up the right lens of their glasses while taking pictures, and of course, <B>no flare in the rangefinder/viewfinder.</B>

<LI>3) Alpa style rewind knob.

<LI>4) The removable back can be replaced with a digital back, any time you want digital, not film.

<LI>5) This dream M8 would be no larger than the M2/3/4/classic6. Small is good. The M5 is just too big, and the M6TTL and M7 are not as nice, even if it is only a few millimeters.

<LI>6) I'll trade faster shutter speeds for quieter shutters.

<LI>7) <B>Rock solid durability.</B></UL>

<P>The Visoflex has a wonderfully <B>bright</B> screen. You can even use it at f/22, a stop at which my Canon F1 is just too dark. Overlooking it's lack of automatic diaphragm stop down, it's a lovely system. As to metering, however, either wait until the meter registers (~ 20ms or so) or just use a hand held light meter. I do the latter. The M7 was designed for through the lens, not behind the mirror, metering. For the sort of macro and telephoto work I do, the increased time to figure exposure doesn't seem to be a problem. If I'm in a hurry, the sort of photography I'm doing lends itself to the rangefinder, with its coupled 21-135 lenses.</P>

The Visoflex works very nicely on your M. A Visoflex II can be had quite cheaply, although the myraid of rare close up attachments can cost more.

 

I've got a 65mm Elmar and helicoil, and it's very nice. The ground glass finder is very clear, even at f/22, and the lens is superb.

 

It's not automatic, and you must remember to both lock up the mirror and stop down the lens before exposure.

 

Once you're done with your macro/telephoto work your camera can again be transformed into the wonderful rangefinder that it is.

 

As to a close up rangefinder, the Boowoo and other efforts by Leica et al to make this happen are perhaps best relegated to a museum.

I'm just not a fan of the M6 or M7 (I own an M7 with a 0.85 viewfinder) the viewfinders flare very badly, and I've learned long ago to use a Gossen Luna Pro.

 

I'd recommend an M3 with a 50mm f/1.4 Summilux.

 

My Instructor in the art of things Leica, GLM, recommends an M4, with a Summilux or Noctilux, and it better fits your criteria (seeing around the 50 frame)

 

Get a good user. You're gonna love it. Once you're learned to use this camera, it really sings, sort of like a Stradivarius. Brutally expensive compared to the competition, and worth every penny of it.

The Leica M is never ones' first camera, but for me, at any rate, it's my last. You'll learn to deal with the focusing quirks, the loading/unloading quirks, etc, nothing else comes close. I've owned just about every other camera out there, as I established this rather expensive fact.

Love the bananas shot. Classic!!!

I'll opt for the M3, with it's 0.91 finder and no flare. Exquisitely accurate, although I've chewed up my glasses with the finder eyepiece.

 

I'm also a fan of the 50.

 

As to viewfinder accuracy, the M6 and M7 50 mm lines are calculated to show what is covered by a 23 x 35 mm frame at the 50's closest focus, 0.7m. Using the thin lens equation, 1/O + 1/I = 1/f, where O is the distance between the lens and the object being photographed (0.7 m in this case), and I is the distance between the lens and the Image, and f is the focal length of the lens at infinty, (50mm), I is 53.84mm.

 

Still with me? Good! This means the the 50 viewfinder frame is actually a 54mm viewfinder frame. A 50mm lens covers 39.6 x 27 degrees (I'll spare you the math!) A 50.84mm lens covers 37 by 25 degrees. To get a more accurate idea of what the lens is really covering (this can be important for panorama shots!) add a degree or so to the edges of the 50 frame.

 

Great. How do I measure ~1.5 degrees when all I've got is the camera and a 50? Your knuckle, between your 4th and 5th (pianist's numbering) fingers is about 1.8 degrees wide when held at arm's length. This is fairly accurate, as people with small arms have small hands, and vice versa.

 

Now all you've gotta do is remember this speil in the field!

 

Professor M reminds me that the important thing is to take good pictures, and this rant is just the technical equivalent of bean counting.

 

Carpe Luminum!

FWIW, I've always been a fan of the Summilux with detachable shade. Just a bit bigger than the Summicron, tack sharp, and with bokeh that defines the "Leica glow". Its build quality is a quantum step above the Nokton, or most anything else you'd care to name.

 

Slap a cap on both lens and body, and an M leica (even the M7) in one pocket, the Summilux in the another, a few rolls of film tucked into what room is left and you're set for an evening of unobtrusive candid photography. About twice the price of the Nocton, used, at least if you don't like it, you can sell it for what you've got in it. Try that with a new Nokton.

FWIW, I have an 0.85 M7 and a couple of M3s. The M3 viewfinder is far superior to the M7, I've never seen flare that bothered me from it, and the M7's worst feature is it's flare. It's quieter than the M3, and the auto exposure is both fast and accurate.

 

Overall, if you don't mind using a hand held meter, the M3 is the better camera. It's smaller, and I actually use the self timer from time to time. The viewfinder is the best of any rangefinder, IMHO.

I <b>do</b> wear glasses, and I can see most of the 35 frame in my 0.85 M7. The problem with the 0.85 is the rangefinder flare, not the frame visibility.

Love it. My favorite M lens. Compact, sharp, durable, portable. Who cares if it has field curvature? I don't use it as a process lens.

It's the worst feature about my new M7. There have been times where I couldn't focus the camera, in a room with harsh overhead lights. My M3s <B><big>never</big></B> do this.