Beginner needs your opinion and advice! Which Leica do you recommend?

Timothyd,

Different camera respond differently to 50 years of use or non use. The Contax is a fine camera to start with. One of the head aches with some cameras is that you need to remember to wind the shutter before changing the shutter speed. Not doing this can cause either a major repair bill or the creation of a beautiful paperweight.

There have been several threads about not using a light meter and using paper charts for guidance. Read through several and look at making (printing, cutting out and taping with clear packing tape) a few to see how they work for you. While I love built in meters, I find myself using an incident light meter when ever I'm not sure. You can do fine with the paper based while you look at the different light meters. The Luna Pro was one of the best ever made, still holding value. I myself have a Sekonic L-318. Digital incident meter that can do a spot reading with an attachment, takes one AA battery. It's small and for me, perfect. Light meters are handy and another expense.

As you might stick with your Contax Google the model and find some free instruction manuals, print and learn them. The old manuals are great for being complete. Contax was the basis for the Nikon line of rangefinders. Nikon chose a different approach to the shutter, but if you like the Contax, you'll love Nikons. IMHO Nikon Rangefinders (S2, S3, SP, S4) are the perfect rangefinder for one hand operation (your right of course).

Rangefinders seem to work better with "Normal" (50mm or so) or wider angle lenses (35mm or less). Lots of folks love the 50, I never did till I got my Nikon S2. Now I've learned to love it. You can do a lot of great stuff with just a 50mm. If you like the 50 and want to go wider, look to either a 25mm or 28mm as your next step. Sticking with your Contax body, Stephen over at www.cameraquest.com still has a few SC wide angle lenses available (SC works on Nikon or Contax rangefinders). You could go with a 35mm, but I do not think there is enough difference.

You could switch over to Leica, but it's expensive and I would recommend kicking the tires on the Contax first. They have a fine shutter (that some times need repairing after 50 years) that is very quiet. There one guy out there that fixes them as good as new, take a look at the web and ask folks here on the Contax forum.

Good luck and keep asking questions. Most of us are very happy to help.

B2 (;->
 
Ain't it the truth!

Ain't it the truth!

sitemistic said:
...

You can learn much about photography with your current kit. But if you really want a Leica, nothing will cure that disease but buying one. Ask just about anyone here. Just don't think it's a magic bullet that will make your photos instantly better.
Click to expand...

Amen to that! It ain't the stuff that makes you a photographer. It's how you use the stuff you have. I have the cancelled checks to prove that.

Case in point: By modern standards the film, cameras & lenses that people like Edward Weston and Ansel Adams used wouldn't bring more then a few pennies on the dollar today. However, their photographs are still the envy of more than a few of us.

One good thing about digital cameras is that all the parameters you could ever want to know about exposure, focal length, etc. are recorded in the EXIF data. Learn how to interpret that data when looking at your photographs. Another thing that digital folks talk about is the need to post process the image. It's part of the process. Perhaps you just need some practice with a good RAW converter and a little manipulation.

I echo the advice to get a good 35mm fixed lens RF camera and a bunch of B&W film, tanks & chemicals. Start at the beginning: D-76 or Rodinal for your developer.

Have fun! It's all about having fun.
 
Timothyd, You have the whole solution right there in your Grandfather's camera bag! My intro to RF shooting was my Dad's IIIa and Sonnar 50/1.5 plus a Nikkor 35 and 135. The camera packed up almost immediately, and I sent it off to Henry Scherer for a complete overhaul. That was the summer of 2003, and it still works like new today! He's a real magician and even made the meter work perfectly! The Sonnar is one of the GREAT lenses of all time. The Contax was the workhorse photojournalist's kit for a very long time. Robert Capa shot the landing on D-Day with one.
Check out Henry Scherer's site at http://www.zeisscamera.com. Long waiting list, but worth it. Pursue the "learning with your dSLR" strategy while you're waiting for Henry to fix your Contax. The IIIa is smaller than an M Leica, and very beautifully made. As you'll learn at Henry's site, they usually don't work well until overhauled, and the story of why that is is really entertaining! I love my Leica M3, but I also use my IIIa all the time. Enjoy!
Vic
 
THAT'S the guy I was thinking about! He does wonderful things with the roll-top shutter, well worth it. He would be like Sherry and DAG to the Leica folks, the best in the world.

I thought I saw that you had another lens, what focal length is it?

B2 (;->
 
While you are trying things out, Leica is a horribly expensive platform to do it. An M6 and a 50mm lens will set you back $1500. If you went with a manual Nikon camera and a 50mm lens, you'd spend $300 at most. I find SLRs to be the best tools for learning - a rangefinder needs a slightly clearer grasp of concepts like plane of focus and depth-of-field. Be sure you understand the differences between SLRs and RFs before going for Leica and also be clear about a rangefinders limitations.

RFs are great at what they do, but SLRs are more versatile. I suppose you are aware that RFs won't really do macro or let you use long lenses.

-A
 
I think the most important first step is to forget about zoom lenses and go into the primes. The Sigma 30mm 1.4 is an excellent starting point, letting you play with depth of field due to its high speed and being a converted normal focal length (of 45mm i believe). Stick to your d40 now, it is actually very small.

After you have gotten used to shooting in manual and with prime lenses, you should start to look into analogue photography, getting to know films and developers. The change to a range finder is then another, completely different thing. I'm currently still learning that myself 🙂
 
As others have said, the only thing that will cure you of Leica lust is to buy one, but if you have not handled one yet you are safe - for the moment.

I learned to shoot with my father's Contax IIIa/Sonnar 50/1.5 - IMHO one of the great cameras of all time. The learning curve is steep, but worthwhile and you could do worse than that out of the gate. And it is free. Even if you need a CLA it is going to be a lot less hard on the wallet than even a new prime lens for your dSLR.

Before I ever got into digital and came back to film RFs I spent a lot of time with an OM-1 with the 50/1.4, which is a great learning camera as well. Your Olympus Pen EE is a good tool as well, and has a great 28mm lens. But it is fixed-focus and the meter may well be toast.

If you didn't already have the Contax I might recommend a Leica IIIf with one of the period lenses - maybe an Elmar or Summitar. IME the LTM Leicas are not as easy to operate or live with as the Contax, but since I started using one my work with other photographic tools has improved. My favorite lens on this body is a 5cm/f1.4 Nikkor SC (Sonnar design, brass construction, RF-coupled to 3' but also has scale-focus to 1.5').

I use a VCII clip-on meter with my meterless bodies - sometimes on the hot shoe but frequently in my pocket. The VCII is small and accurate, if not particularly inexpensive.

Whatever you end up doing, enjoy yourself.
 
Which Leica to recommend. Why solicit such madness?

I have two Leicas an M4-P and a M2. Purchased quite a while ago when the price was right. They are fine cameras, but to be frank, the reason I don't sell them is, I don't need to. Owning these cameras has given me pleasure, they are well made, precision instruments from another era. But, I must submit: not this era.

If you want a Leica you want a symbol, not a tool. Owning one of these things will not make you a better photographer. Remember, a Leica does not make better photos, you do.

Is a Leica M, more of a challenge? Will it allow you to create in ways you've never imagined? Will the fact that you've mastered the technical aspects of a fully manual camera (something that will take the aveage person 10 minutes to understand) give you some special understanding. .......Sorry, No.

Am I saying "not buy a Leica"? No, indeed I am not. Give in, buy one, get it over with. Perhaps owning one is part of the initiation.

Just don't forget the image, the product, is what this is all about.
 
Thank you everyone for giving me your advice. BillBingham2, your thorough explanations help a lot.

I took my contax to B&H in manhattan and asked a guy at the used camera department to take a look at it. He thinks the light meter is broken, and the focusing is stiff (looking through the viewfinder and focusing, I don't see any difference, but maybe it is because the viewfinder is very fuzzy). I opened the back and tested all the shutter speeds, the 1 second doesnt work, the shutter just stays open, all the others open and close (although I am not sure how correct the time is). Could someone who has a contax three, or is familiar with them, tell me what the two dials left side are? I know the outer dial is connected to the light meter, does this mean that because my light meter is broken, that moving this dial has no effect on the pictures? And what is the inner dial, I see f stops on one side of the inner dial, but f stops are also on the lens..so? And on the other side of the inner dial are the numbers 9 to 30 in incriments of 3 and after 30 are the letters D I N.

What film would you recommend for this contax to produce photos as clear as possible? Is it a bad idea to just load a roll, and take some pictures to test the camera out?
 
Timothyd,

2 more cents. I sent some FSU bodies over to a guy who was said to be great, they came back OK, but not great. I sent some lenses to the guy who everyone said was the best, they came back GREAT. It cost more, but the came back working the first time. Having spent several hundred dollars on folks who do an OK job and the same on the best, it's your grandfathers old camera, send it to the best:

http://www.zeisscamera.com/

This guy is the best, like DAG and Sherry are to Leicas, this guy is to Contaxs. He will cost more, but I do not think repair and brain surgery is where I would skimp. 30 years ago you could find enough techs who had a reasonable amount of experience on these cameras to do a good job. Few have enough practice to keep their skills up. It's the same as looking for a Doctor, find the one that has done thousands and look at their quality. If it's high, that's the one you want.

I think when you bring the fully functioning camera back and take a picture of the previous owner with it, it will bring a sparkle to his eyes!

Take a look here for directions to a free copy of a manual for you:
http://www.theupstair.com/photograp...instruction-manuals-from-various-branded.html

Other stuff here: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-19381.html
http://www.cameraquest.com/conrf.htm
http://www.auspiciousdragon.net/photowords/?page_id=1079
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Contax_rangefinder

You might want to move over to the Contax forum and look there. Lots of good guys hang out here. Me, I'm move of a Leica and Nikon sort.

Hope this helps.

B2 (;->
 
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