Retro-Grouch
Veteran
In a normal family, you'd beat up your brother and take his Leica. Oh, sorry, you're Canadian... 😉
The Heavenly Leica M5…
- Thread starter Ororaro
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chuckroast
Well-known
That is slanderous. You beat up your brother, steal his Leica and then apologise. This is considered kosher.
Slumgullion
Well-known
This feels spot-on. When I visited Winnipeg a few years back I chuckled when seeing the city buses had a sign that read: "Sorry, Out of Service" (you also have to say "soorry" in Canadian). Even the buses were wonderfully and unnecessarily polite.
Slumgullion
Well-known
JHF07674-Edit by Jim Fischer, on Flickr
JHF07681-Edit by Jim Fischer, on FlickrThe M5 is such a wonderful camera. The use of frame lines to denote the metering spot is so brilliant/efficient. I don't think that point is shouted enough. As a result, you have the most accurate and usable meter of any film M. My Nikon F6 certainly has a more advanced metering system...but sometimes it still gets 'tricked.' With the M5, if the exposure is wrong, it's because I was a dummy.
chuckroast
Well-known
The M5 is such a wonderful camera. The use of frame lines to denote the metering spot is so brilliant/efficient. I don't think that point is shouted enough. As a result, you have the most accurate and usable meter of any film M. My Nikon F6 certainly has a more advanced metering system...but sometimes it still gets 'tricked.' With the M5, if the exposure is wrong, it's because I was a dummy.
I've had a IIIf forever but an LTM collapsible 'Cron became available to me early last year. "So", sez me, "I always wanted to try an M body", so I bought an M2 with an adapter for that lens. This led to all manner of retail therapy involving Leica lenses and accessories for the M2. In fairness I got a really good deal on the M2, but ...
From the day it was announced, I always wanted an M5. Teenage me thought they looked really cool and and, Leica like Hasselblad, of course, would make me a better photographer. So, when a 50 Jahre "Jubilee" black M5 came up later last year, I bought it. And I love the thing, especially now that DAG has overhauled it. It is a very different experience than the other Ms but all of the M5 hate is simply not justified. It's a superb instrument. As you say, aside from modern matrix meters, it's probably the most sophisticated meter ever mounted on a film body, easily blowing away things like the Nikon Photomic FtN head or the F3 meter.
Later still last year, I fulfilled another bit of Leica lust getting a mint M4 just overhauled by Sherry Krauter. So that should be it - hahhahahahahahaa - silly of me, I know.
Each of these cameras has their own vibe but each of them, from the IIIf through the M5 works really well. Remarkable considering these 4 bodies span the early 1950s through middle 1970s. The IIIf is clumsier to use, but I took it and a couple of Color-Skopars to Europe this year for some film street shooting. It was a joy to use.
And no, I don't have a GAS problem, thanks for asking. I am NOT hoarding Ms, I am .... what's the word ... INVESTING in them. But like I said, I think I am done .... I mean, who needs an IIIg, M3, M4-2, M4-P, M6TTL, M-A, or MP? Certainly not me, no, no, no ...
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Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
...if you have an LTM collapsible Summicron, you need a IIIg.
There's no conversation to be had here. You just do.
chuckroast
Well-known
Actually, I sold that lens because I prefer the look of the newer Color-Skopars to that generation 'Cron.
JSteed#2
Established
Has anyone ever concluded that the M5 body was somehow based on the Leicaflex as a sort of template?
chuckroast
Well-known
I can find no evidence of this. Do you know of something that suggests this?
JSteed#2
Established
I have no evidence either. I just saw a family resemblance in shape (love the 'flex shape because i have large hands).
JSteed#2
Established
JSteed#2
Established
see the prototype pictured above
Richard G
Veteran
I thought my 2010 Kodak MR9 battery that came with my M5 from DAG, serviced and converted to 1.5v, was flat. Nope. Just needed to clean the battery contact which had become dirty from sitting unused for a few years. I now have the firm leather ever ready case for it and I have been out with it the last couple of weeks. I have a good Varta battery in an old Gossen meter which must be over twenty years old, maybe thirty. I have some spares now for the M5, not a good brand. Might never get to use them.
I am really enjoying the very clever metering set up. Sometimes with the M6 you don't know where you are with exposure with a half lit red triangle and confusion about what the shutter dial is set on and the ISO and pfaffing around and missing the shot. Of course the M6 meter is brilliant and I love using it.
The M5 gives you the shutter speed setting in the VF, and you can change it while still looking there, thanks to the M2 frame counter style shutter speed setting dial overhanging the top plate.
Up the left end of the metering panel is the smaller aperture you've set and up the right end the more open aperture. The aperture setting bar for metering is a back-slash and the shutter speed metering dial is an inverse needle swinging left as a forward slash and right more to backslash.
Beyond all those advantages, you see where you are in terms of the current setting and the correct metering for a good exposure. You're either near enough, a bit overexposed and you have black and white or colour negative so take the shot and forget about adjustment, or you have an analogue in-viewfinder indication that you are way off and have to adjust. And there is certainty about what to adjust eg not shutter speed slower than 1/60s or you'll have movement blurring the picture you're rushing, or not opening the aperture because you want shallow depth of field and so increase the speed further. And of course, like the M6 with a meter, you can still shoot manual sunny 16 and the meter just gives you an indication.
It really has been a pleasure to return to this camera.
I am really enjoying the very clever metering set up. Sometimes with the M6 you don't know where you are with exposure with a half lit red triangle and confusion about what the shutter dial is set on and the ISO and pfaffing around and missing the shot. Of course the M6 meter is brilliant and I love using it.
The M5 gives you the shutter speed setting in the VF, and you can change it while still looking there, thanks to the M2 frame counter style shutter speed setting dial overhanging the top plate.
Up the left end of the metering panel is the smaller aperture you've set and up the right end the more open aperture. The aperture setting bar for metering is a back-slash and the shutter speed metering dial is an inverse needle swinging left as a forward slash and right more to backslash.
Beyond all those advantages, you see where you are in terms of the current setting and the correct metering for a good exposure. You're either near enough, a bit overexposed and you have black and white or colour negative so take the shot and forget about adjustment, or you have an analogue in-viewfinder indication that you are way off and have to adjust. And there is certainty about what to adjust eg not shutter speed slower than 1/60s or you'll have movement blurring the picture you're rushing, or not opening the aperture because you want shallow depth of field and so increase the speed further. And of course, like the M6 with a meter, you can still shoot manual sunny 16 and the meter just gives you an indication.
It really has been a pleasure to return to this camera.
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Richard G
Veteran
Earlier there was discussion of the practicality of the two lug M5. I used mine every day for months at a time with an Arist and Artisan strap over the left shoulder, but more often with the strap around my left wrist. Usually I have the camera strap around my right wrist. I liked the complete contract of the right hand on the camera when lifting it my eye. I also liked how steadily the camera hangs when vertical over the shoulder. It doesn't swing like cameras slung horizontal. But around the neck I've never tried, and it would be a nuisance. Recently I turned my two lug into a 3 lug equivalent with the solid leather ever ready case Nr 14544 I never knew about. I see now it's in my 1978 Leica catalogue the medical photography department gave me back in 1980. Saw one on eBay which was for a different camera with a central tripod bush, but that kept me looking to find the one I have. The leather strap is in excellent condition too. The top cover doesn't unsnap, but I spent several years with a leather case of the M2 and got used to this.
Richard G
Veteran
Currently I have the 35 C Biogon on this camera, and its hood, and the case closes over it fine.
Beemermark
Veteran
Over the decades I've owned two or three M5's. Was never enamored of any of them. The VF and metering was the same of the SL/SL2. Not the reason I bought the M series for fast decisive shooting. Seems the vast vast majoritative of users felt the same. So a camera delegated to the dustbins.
Richard G
Veteran
Relegated. And not quite the dustbins, as they have their adherents. Its size relative to an M2 is confronting to some. But a Nikon F3HP, a wonderul camera, is not much smaller and no lighter. The M5 in its case is wider than the Nikon in its case. I’ve generally found 35mm SLRs to be too narrow side to side, and from to front to back where I hold them, specially with a 50 1.4 hanging off the front. At least the Olympus lenses are very light in the OM system.
helen.HH
To Light & Love ...
Indeed Ororaro ~
Still luv my Girl. Miss M5 is a Joy.!
That and the Instax Wide make my Film experience
Though I also loved my Black chrome M4
I sold to Stephen... Stupid girl !!!!!
my other obsessions move towards
Digital madness... Want.want.want
Hassy X and Fuji GFX 100 RF
Need to put those two
on Santa s list.... The poor gurl I am
But I have been GOOD !!!
Still luv my Girl. Miss M5 is a Joy.!
That and the Instax Wide make my Film experience
Though I also loved my Black chrome M4
I sold to Stephen... Stupid girl !!!!!
my other obsessions move towards
Digital madness... Want.want.want
Hassy X and Fuji GFX 100 RF
Need to put those two
on Santa s list.... The poor gurl I am
But I have been GOOD !!!
Richard G
Veteran
Occasionally I am asked, by one of the unwashed, how is my camera collection. It is not a collection. I have a number of cameras I use. How many? It is not many. I have sufficiently few that I could easily count them up and provide the answer. But I’m busy. Counting a few minor things as well I would still not have 20. The last serious camera I bought was a IIIf in around 2018. My last digital Leica was bought 2013. The last lens I bought was a 250 Sonnar f5.6 CF for the Hasselblad in 2019. The only recent photography purchase for a long time has been the leather case for the M5. I realize, as I write, that I am cured, and possibly out. Even if the M9-P dies I would just fall back in my X100 for colour. Or maybe it’s more like, the only way I’d buy a new digital colour M is if the M9-P dies. I don’t want to bend the truth. My only planned expense is servicing my two Hasselblad backs.
chuckroast
Well-known
I don't collect cameras just to own them. I accumulate them to use them. In some cases, I have duplicate capabilities with multiple bodies (Nikon, Leica, Hasselblad) to protect my investment in glass should a body ever fail beyond repair.
That said, I'd love to add a chrome 3 lug M5 to pair with my 50 Jahre black M5 just ... because. But I doubt I will spend the money.
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