Leica M3 vs Konica Hexar AF

Leica M3 vs Konica Hexar AF

  • Leica M3

    Votes: 45 61.6%

  • Konica Hexar AF

    Votes: 28 38.4%
  • Total voters
    73
  • Poll closed .
M

Moriturii

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Well, Juan's thread on this Konica Hexar af threw my big plan into a loop. I thought I'd get a Leica M3 and settle with that camera for a long time to be honest but now using a Konica Hexar AF seems very appealing. Now be honest, if you had to have only a Leica M3 (the one I am eyeballing comes with a 5cm f2 close-range lens and has a serial of over 1.000.000) and I might be able to get it for about 700-800 bucks I think. It's in fine shape, nothing exceptional, normal used.

OR

Well, what seems to be a million times more practical and user-friendly, travel-friendly Konica Hexar af, with metering, great AF etc etc. The especially nice thing is that I can probably get this for half the price. Since I am a poor ******* that is a big plus!

If you had to pick the one or the other, which one would you recommend for me? 🙂

Thanks guys!
 
I sold my M3 and kept my Hexar AF as my main work camera so...

I does depend how you see yur photography, though. THe M3 is more tactile, a pleasure to use, like driving, say, my old Volvo Amazon. THe Hexar probably gives better results in crucial situations, and is reliable, like my VW Golf.
 
The Hexar AF has a lot of very clever functions such as silent mode (I mean really silent), spot measurement and the super intelligent P-AE mode.

But, as Paul T said, the M3 is more tactile. When I started using the Hexar AF, I first had to become familiar with the Hexar's rather unconventional user interface. The camera features a number of clever functions, but these are operated using a very small number of insufficiently labelled multi-purpose function keys.

E.g. manually prefocussing this camera, and even locking a given focus position is possible, but it is a bit clumsy as the corresponding buttons are not laid out very intelligently. You need to take the camera away from your eye to find and reach the buttons. Also, you need to memorize some keypress combinations, or else you might get stuck during camera operation.

Once you have memorized these functions, however, this camera is a pleasure to use.
 
I've always wanted to try a Hexar but I voted for the M3 ... though in my opinion an M2 would be a better comparison because it can match the 35mm focal length.

That 1/250 max shutter speed of the Hexar would worry me!
 
They're so totally different I don't understand why you go from one to another as main options...

They differ in:

Different lenses
Autofocus
Meter
Autoexposure

They're not like different cars, and they're not like a car and a motorcycle, but like a car and walking...

I think you can decide more than anyone around, the way you want to photograph... In one extreme, the M3 does nothing for you, and you decide everything, and in the other extreme, the Hexar AF does everything for you... With one you'll be slower and you'll miss some shots, and with the other one you'll be faster and you'll hardly miss shots... But what matters is what you want to feel while you do it, and if you plan to photograph slowly because you'll shoot mostly scenes that don't change, or if you plan to do street/people instead and also be ready for low light situations...

Basically most (but not all) you can do with the Hexar AF, can be done with the M3 most of the times (but not always), and mastering the M3 can take years, while mastering the Hexar AF can take -maybe- a few days...

Finally, the Hexar AF has manual mode like the M3, and spot metering on that manual mode, so you can work slowly and decide everything when you prefer to be in charge...

And to make it harder, yes, a Leica is a Leica, and will last longer... And needs no batteries...

I can be sure you'd enjoy the Hexar AF a lot more after doing it the hard way with the M3... Perhaps you could "be taught" by an M3 for some time, and just leave the Hexar AF for the future..

Cheers,

Juan
 
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Very good points everybody. As far as they might be too different of a cameras doesn't bother me. I lump them in as cameras to take picture with, they're all the same to me. 50mm or 35mm whatever, they're both great and I love whichever I would get my hands on as far as focal length goes.

Then again, I guess I can always buy one, try it, sell it and get the other, bit of a hassle though isn't it. Ah choices choices.
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
They're not like different cars, and they're not like a car and a motorcycle, but like a car and walking...
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Where the Leica is the car for me. 🙂

I never understood the "one Leica, one (35mm) lens people". For those, the Hexar AF is better, IMO. I used it like this and it's a really great camera.

The major strength of the Leica is interchangeable lenses. With a 50/1.4 or 90/2 and M3 I can do stuff I could never do with the Hexar. Even with an M2/M6 with 35/1.4 I am more flexible due to speed.
 
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Eh, apples and oranges, but some really lovely apples and oranges. I think the only correct answer is both.

By coincidence, I saw a guy shooting his hexar af in the street yesterday. He was holding it vertically to his eye with his one hand, the other hand tucked under his elbow. He was doing full body street portraits, moving slowly, momentarily stopping in front of every person he was photographing and pressing the shutter . The camera was doing everything else, and knowing the camera it was doing it correctly. Tick-tick-tick, barely audible and never skipped a beat. I followed him around for a a while and nobody seem to pay attention to him, he was like a ghost. He never changed his grip, never used his other hand, never lowered the camera or changed settings, all he did was frame. Nice.
 
Surely this poll -as all of them- will reflect Leica is the winner: the better brand, but it won't reflect the best tool for the member asking... An M7 with autofocus would be the better tool, because of interchangeable lenses, durability and mechanical back-up if compared to a Hexar AF... But comparing a Hexar AF with an M3 is like comparing a scientific calculator with a pencil. If both are dropped, one of them can suffer more...

An M3 is a great pair of durable shoes, and the Hexar AF is at least a bit faster than that... 🙂

Cheers,

Juan
 
It really does depend on what you're looking for. For a fast, quiet, user-friendly film camera with great lens and features, it's really hard to beat the AF. It's the perfect tool, I think, for street photography for example. Like people said, you'll be much less likely to miss shots with a camera like this. If you want a more traditional, slow and, as someone also put it, tactile experience of using a film camera, then it's probably an M (though I don't actually own one).

EDIT: Perhaps more telling than any explanation is the fact that I am selling my Hexar for something more manual (and in the face of some good advice I've gotten from these forums 🙂) because I am looking for that tactile experience. I feel I can get the more automated shooting experience with my old digital SLR and want something different from my film camera. It really is a great camera, though, full of characters and more than the sum of its parts, I think.
 
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I had a Hexar AF and I really enjoyed using it. The lens was spectacular and the camera performed very well and was intelligently designed. But for me, the automation while convenient was also a drawback for me. The major drawback was the AF. The lack of a mechanical focusing mechanism/focusing aid was the one thing that bothered me. Even though the Hexar had the focusing crosshairs and focus confirmation (that it has locked on), one does not really know "exactly" which spot it locked onto. When you are shooting at wide open aperture, a slight change in focus point might make the difference between great shot, a mediocre shot, or blown shot. In the great majority of the cases, the Hexar will focus just fine, but when I started seeing blown shots, this issue started getting on my nerves.

I eventually sold the Hexar because of this. This just my personal experience, YMMV.

As others have said, the M3 is a completely different animal altogether, probably 180 degrees opposite. The M3 is my main RF camera.

--Warren
 
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