TOP: A Leica Won't Improve Your Photography

I think all of the baove is confusing and rather meaningless based on what the writer intend "professional level" to mean

I think what needs to be repeated over and over again is that :

The Leica M ( or any rangefinder camera for that matter) is not SUITABLE for many people and genres of photography
if for instance you want to do a lot of :
Macro photography
sports photography
fast moving subjects ( including your kids or pets running in the garden)
far away subject ( requiring more than a 100 mm lens in 35mm equivalents)

LOw, low low light photography ( like shooting people moving in a tunnel after dark)
tripod mounted work

in all of those instances ( and I am sure I forgot a few) a Leica M is not for you

a leica M is only fitted for some subjects ( call it street photography, photojournalism , reportage , casual portraits) but what it does , it does it so well and in a such different way that for some of us , it becomes the best way to go around it

even if the M9 was say $1,000 , it would still be ill-suited for most people out here

so to some extent , the price becomes a minor factor because for those who would not like it even if the camera was cheap . and alas for those who can really appreciate it and make the best use of it , nothing else would do
( and for the moment nothing else is available)

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why is it that anything i wrote does not show at all ?

http://www.harold-glit.com
http://www.modelmayhem.com/haroldglit

No I don't suppose an M9 will improve many people, but what about a bit of what you fancy does you good theory. Isn't it about how much one can afford and lust. Now don't take me wrong, I love the whole idea of the M9 and few lens', but it will remain out of my reach unless some luck runs my way.

Porschè, Bugatti, Ferrari, Rolls and Bently to name but a few, all supply luxury that will never justify it's price yet they sell and survive the market. At least Leica owners will retain a greater percentage of their outlay than the car owners above. Prestiege, feel good factor, the love of fine things is near enough for me, and if I had the money to go, well stand back and be amazed when my boat comes in. Leica, Apple and Porschè would all do well out of me, as would a few charities. What was that lens, 50mm ƒ0.95, I'd even fly to America for Jim to try out, ha ha ha ha daydreams are good fun................... reality can be a difficult companion on times. If only huh!

I agree with what you say except for the followng.

Member said:

No one is born with the skills of a great photographer but those skills can be developed over time with just about any camera.>

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Every artist has an in-born talent, a talent that can't be learnt. It can be improved by studying technique, but if the talent isn't there then the studying will only improve your understanding of the technique but not your photographs.

rayjames

Well said!

rayjames said:

rayjames said:

No one is born with the skills of a great photographer but those skills can be developed over time with just about any camera.>

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Every artist has an in-born talent, a talent that can't be learnt. It can be improved by studying technique, but if the talent isn't there then the studying will only improve your understanding of the technique but not your photographs.

rayjames
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--
'Change is not Mandatory, you don't have to Survive...'

the enjoyment of the act of taking pictures and for that the Leica can be quite rewarding.

Rangefinders are not for everyone and I admit that I can get a little "behind" in the action but there is something about the viewfinder and manual controls that brings me back to way before autofocus and exposure.

Some photographers are not trying to impress anyone but themselves!

Enjoy!
--
Greg Gebhardt in
Jacksonville, Florida

Bob_O said:

--My problem with Leica is that for the overwhelming number of photographers, they're not good value—not even good Veblen value. I worry that people who are serious about photography, in the earlier stages of their interest, can be led to believe that Leicas will improve their work, to their great cost and disappointment. There's a reason few professionals use Leicas, and that's that the Leicas are not as good at producing professional-level shots as a DSLR. Almost any DSLR.

Link: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/09/a-leica-wont-improve-your-photography.html
Regards,
Bob
http://bobolsen.zenfolio.com/

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That statement is just patently false. What is true is that a Leica will not make you a better shooter. Many of the film bodies and lenses have appreciated or held their value over the years. That is value. You can still get one used, film or digital, use it a bit and lose little when you sell it. In the end it is just a camera and the snapper makes more of a difference than the brand.

But we all pretty much agree, that learning to shoot a simple full manual camera teaches the principles of photography.?

I use a SLR for macro and tele work.. what do I look like...? a idiot..?

But I love shooting with a M. even if it does not improve my pictures.

Pretty sure that if forces me to pay more attention and in turn possible improve the pictures I take... maybe... if it don't I will keep it anyway.

.

Bo

DOWNLOAD template for handcoding M lenses

http://bophoto.typepad.com/bophoto/2009/01/m8-coder-simple-manual-handcoding-of-m-lenses.html

Random d-lux4 images - http://bophoto.zenfolio.com/p978526368
Experimental blog - http://www.bophoto.typepad.com
Homepage - http://www.bophoto.com/panos

Bravo!
The rangefinder experience can be had for less! Imagine that!
This understated point needs to be shouted!

So it comes down to what YOU are about.

Shows your skill which I admire tremendously.
I dont think I saw anything there which could not have been done with an SLR.
Your gallery is so interesting Ill look again.

Well I'd disagree, I got lazy, rangefinder photography made me think more.

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Phil Askey
Editor, dpreview.com

Phil Askey said:

Well I'd disagree, I got lazy, rangefinder photography made me think more.

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Phil Askey
Editor, dpreview.com

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Good to see you pop in here, Phil. I was happy to read about your experience with the M9 and thanks for the review as well. And you are right.. RF photography does indeed make you think more.

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Jim Radcliffe
http://www.boxedlight.com
http://www.oceona.com

The ability to 'see' the shot is more important than the gear used to capture it.

As others have said different types of cameras are good for different types of photography and we know, as stated above, what are the advantages of rangefinder cameras vs SLRs. The argument has also been made that "it's the photographer and not the camera" — and that is true up to a point, in that different types of cameras will affect to some degree how the photographer shoots.

My own experience is that years ago I started with a Nikon F and then was given my father's Leica IIIf. What I found was the latter camera indeed improved my photography, mainly landscapes and portraits at that time. What I found was that in using the Nikon F everything I framed looked beautiful on the ground glass of the penta prism and I tended to put the camera to my eye to search for something that looked good, and when I found it press the shutter.

With the Leica IIIf I was faced with a tiny viewfinder window in which things looked no better than what I saw with my eyes — and the difficulty was confounded by the fact that to focus I had to move my eye to the left of the viewfinder window to the rangefinder focus window. The result was that, first, I had to find what to frame and then I had to focus and go back to the viewfinder window and reframe. The process was somewhat more difficult than with the SLR, but the result was that with the Leica I was framing the shoot in my mind as I looked at the scene and only bringing the camera up to my eye to shoot, while with the Nikon F I was search for the scene through the viewfinder.

In other words, with the Leica I was looking more while with the SLR I was hunting through the viewfinder. The result was that my photography improved after I starte using the Leica IIIf. However, after a few years I sold the IIIf and went back to the Nikon F and found that that improvement with the IIIf now carried across to shooting with Nikon F. In terms of lens quality, when I look back to pictures taken with the Leica and with the Nikon pictures shot after I sold the Leica, there really is no discernable difference in quality and I'm harf pressed to remember which shots were made with which camera, unless I remember how a particular shot was made.

Eventually I started using a Leica M8 and a little over three years started to shoot digitally with the Ricoh GRD and then with a D-Lux-3 followed by a Ricoh GX100 and then a Ricoh GRD2, and finally with a Leica M8.2, which is what I use now.

The Ricoh GRD2 and the other small sensor cameras were important for me because they led me to loosen up my style and make it more fluid, which I consider important for street photography. The loosening up came from framing with the LCD rather than a viewfinder: I use the LCD to frame the shot loosely and then to look directly at the subject when pressing the shutter. And I think that some of this has carried across to my shooting with the M8. Nevertheless, I think small sensor cameras are a new format — characterized by a rougher way the lens draws and the huge depth of field — in the way that 35mm was a new format when the first Leicas were introduced.

The point of all this is that one can be affected by the type of camera on uses but some of that can be carried accross in one's style when one uses a different format or type of camera.

Here are a some of examples what I mean in what I wrote above. The first two pictures was taken with the M6 on Tri-X:





The second two were taken with the Ricoh GRD2:





And the last three pictures were taken with the M8,which perhaps shows that what I learned from the small sensor cameras has carried across to shooting with the M8:







—Mitch/Potomac, MD
http://www.flickr.com/photos/malland/sets/72157613189560804/show/

CaptD said:

(List snipped)

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Dennis,

Just about everybody on your list shot film Leicas decades ago. I can't think of anyPJs or art photographers using Digital Leicas now. That said, though, I agree with the many posters who say that shooting a manual camera does improve your photography. I know using my M8 improved mine. There is no reason that a manual camera has to be a Leica, however. A Pentax K1000 would work just as well for about 1% of the price of a digitalM. IMO, IQ is over-rated, but that is another topic.
Regards,
Bob

--
http://bobolsen.zenfolio.com/

Plenty of truth in there

Bob_O said:

In other words, if you must try a Leica, and you can easily afford it, go ahead. But don’t be a victim of cult-think: "What an unbelievably great camera; I could never do this with a DSLR." That’s what we call serious BS.

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I like the statement : The M9 is not a magic wand
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• Franka -

Member said:

The only thing that makes you a better photographer is practice and time. No one is born with the skills of a great photographer but those skills can be developed over time with just about any camera

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That would be the Motto , definitely ....

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• Franka -

Phil Askey said:

Well I'd disagree, I got lazy, rangefinder photography made me think more.

--
Phil Askey
Editor, dpreview.com

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I have found that anything in the process that slows me dow a bit improves the way I see and capture. Rangefinders do that for me and so does using legacy lenses on DSLRs.

Another factor may be the way each of us "see" with the various viewfinders, window & frame, reflex or view (LCD or ground glass). Changing view finder types might remind us that we see before we want/decide to capture.
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Bob

Harold66 said:

Yes , that's generally true. However , it is not correct to say that any of these leica users would have been able to make the same pictures if they had to use a SLR ( digital or film)

A lot of these famous images capturing a decisive moment look the way the do because they were shot with a rangefinder

Shooting with a rangefinder camera ( leica or other , just leaving the brand out of the equation for now) makes you photograph a different way

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that reeks of leica justification. james nachtwey takes better, more immediate photos with more emotional impact than almost all of the photographers mentioned (yes, including HCB) and he does so in more dangerous environments with shorter 'decisive moments' that require more intuitive action and reaction...and he does it with a canon slr.

http://www.jamesnachtwey.com

5 capa gold medals. would he have won more if he shot a leica?

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dave

Very well said...Jim. Now I need to go out and shoot, shoot, shoot.
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http://www.juliussantos.com

i still use a ton of tri-x...and don't fool yourself, it's an affectation...it costs me MUCH more than shooting my d40. b&w film and processing...my tally for last year was $3300. printing not included.

for a beginner a d40 and the 35/1.8 is a far better investment...and they will learn faster and get better results.

--
dave

Jim Radcliffe said:

The use of a fully manual camera, over a period of time, will also improve your photography as you begin to understand the relationship of all the variables: shutter speed, aperture, ISO and the light. Those who shoot in auto mode all the time are missing some important lessons as the camera is doing the "thinking" for them.

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a lot of truth in that paragrah, jim. i teach photography and i always tell my students that the goal for the month is to know enough that their p&s cameras begin to annoy them...it means that they've hit the stage where they're visualizing a photo and then thinking about how they can exercise that vision technically. the old clunky canon a-series compacts with their full manual controls were great student cameras...and less than $200!

Member said:

Improving your photographer's eye is something that you can't depend on any camera to do for you, digital or otherwise. That comes with practice and examination of what great photographers have done in the way of composition and the light that was available to them at the time of capture.

The beauty of digital is that the learning process can be accelerated. I learned more in the first year of using my D30 than I ever did shooting my Canon A-1. You can get instant feedback from a digital camera and see what your chosen settings produce image-wise while still "in the moment" so to speak. You can experiment, constantly, and hopefully learn from that experimentation. This can be done with almost any digital camera that offers a manual mode in which you control the shutter and aperture. It doesn't matter if the camera is a point and shot, a DSLR or a rangefinder.

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bang on. the learning process is much much faster. i use my d2x with wt-2a and a computer...in 7 photos and 30 seconds i can show my students apeture and how it changes DOF from f/1.4 to f/11...the photos popping up instantly on a 24" monitor have immediate visual impact. even the least technically inclined students 'get it' almost instantly. in the field, it encourages experimentation and, since they are students, the cost is nill as they are using cameras that they already have.

Member said:

The only thing that makes you a better photographer is practice and time. No one is born with the skills of a great photographer but those skills can be developed over time with just about any camera.

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wholeheartedly agree. i think the new leica is a nikon d40 and 35/1.8...as small, faster and just as quiet...and the whole thing costs $500.

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dave