Whats up with black tape & M6 cameras?

gb hill

gb hill

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I was at the local book store the other day looking through magazines & in the new JPG mag there's this article about this dude and his M6 or 7?. It's a black model & he has black tape covering the red Leica logo and everything else written on the camera. I have seen others do the same thing. On Chris Webers blog site there is a pic. of a photographer in Paris doing the same thing to his Leica. I've heard it's to hide the camera but that just don't make sense to me. Especially on an already black camera! I think if I had an m6, I would be proud to show off the Leica logo!🙂 Didn't really know where to post this, but sense I don't see people taping up other cameras...well here I am! Looking foward to your thoughts on this,& btw maybe there is some of you that tape your M cameras too? Hope one day I'll have an M6.😀


Greg
 
I think one does what one has to do to protect one's gear. Paris is legendary for thieves. If I photographed there, I would probably tape all the red dots I could find on my gear 🙂
 
Thieves know this tape trick, it's a good way to have your fed 5 cut off your shoulder.
To make a camera look not worth stealing, affix an old backlit lcd to the back so it appears to be a digital.
 
An old trick to help keep your camera from being cut off your shoulder is to run a piano wire through the strap.
 
I'm about to tape up my black M4-P. No need to draw attention of thieves or have other camera geeks coming up to talk about my Leica while I'm out shooting (no offense to anyone here).

I don't think people would be looking to steal a Leica specifically by what it looks like but someone might recognize the name as something of value. An all black camera may or may not be valuable. Probably move on to the guy with big Canon DSLR with the CANON camera strap.
 
Out of security reasons I never put a valuable camera in a diaper bag! All the rich american tourists here use diaper bags and every pickpocket knows this. My Domke clone on the other hand makes me look like one of the famous war photographers which frightes the pickpockets out off stealing my Contax 🙂
 
nightfly said:
I don't think people would be looking to steal a Leica specifically by what it looks like but someone might recognize the name as something of value. An all black camera may or may not be valuable. Probably move on to the guy with big Canon DSLR with the CANON camera strap.
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what Nightfly said.

Thieves are more likely to look for better known Nikon and Canon DSLRs. But no reason to let the red dot draw extra attention if you don't want it.
 
I don't give a rat's a*s about someone stealing my camera. That's what insurance is for. I cover the red dot on my M6 because it's a HEADLIGHT. If the camera is all black, it doesn't look like much of anything and people ignore it (and me).

I permanently blacked out all the white writing on my M6, painted the red lens release dot black and put a strip of black gaffer tape over the big red zit. Now it's visually and audibly quiet. 🙂

rs
 
gb hill said:
I think if I had an m6, I would be proud to show off the Leica logo!🙂

Greg
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I'm with ya, show it off...like a 42 y.o. lady with a new Boob job 😱.

Todd
 
You know, not be cross or anything, 'cause this is really not that important to me, but reading replies to this frequently raised topic, one would think that every other RFF photographer is 7 feet tall, has a black belt in martial arts, is packing a Magnum in his back pocket, has a million-dollar insurance on his gear, and generally doesn’t give a rat's a...s about nothin', did I get it right?

Just out of curiosity, has anyone responding ever been mugged? Any short and frail photographers out there?

Just curious…, please don't hit me :angel:
 
andy,
i'm not making fun of the people here but i do think that's it's funny that people, any people, put tape on their camera.

i'm 56 with a heart condition, 5'10'' tall and weigh in at about 250 pounds.
do i think about getting mugged, sometimes, mostly depending on where i am shooting.
but i think the very act of photographing tells the world that we have a camera in our hand.
a good and knowledgeable thief will know what your camera is worth if the red dot is covered or not. it's the crack head that wouldn't know a polaroid from a speed graphic that worries me cause he's gonna steal your camera and may hurt you no matter what you shoot with.
tape is not like clark kent's glasses...we all know it's superman.
 
Hi Joe,

Not a big deal, it’s just that sometimes a thread gets started that seems to have potential for a lot of valuable or at least interesting advice for total amateurs like me, but it often gets snuffed out by comments that (purposely or not) tent to ridicule the topic, before, it seems, all the “good stuff” gets posted. For example, the earlier comment that the red dot is a “headlight” made a lot of sense to me. I recalled seeing a couple of pros shooting in the streets – one could easily not notice they even had cameras in their hands. So that’s one interesting aspect. Another one is, if it makes one feel better or safer or invisible, why not tape up the bright spots on your gear? I mean, lots of pros are doing it, they must know something, I reckon. And finally, we don’t live by statistics and averages, I think, so if we manage to avoid one, I mean a single one attack on us or our beloved gear, a piece of black tape or a secret shirt pocket for your travel cash will have been worth it, no matter how statistically unlikely it might have been that we get mugged. So, anyway, just musing here 🙂
 
I tape all my camera logos, the fact is that it's a natural thing for the human eye to read script , so any white name on black draws the eye, an all black camera doesn't ...................try it yourself and see. It really does seem to make it [whatever brand it is] more inconspicuous..
The only problem I seem to get is camera freaks thinking my R D1S are Leicas and then freaking out when I flip out the screen 🙂
Clive
 
rschneider said:
I don't give a rat's a*s about someone stealing my camera. That's what insurance is for. I cover the red dot on my M6 because it's a HEADLIGHT. If the camera is all black, it doesn't look like much of anything and people ignore it (and me).

I permanently blacked out all the white writing on my M6, painted the red lens release dot black and put a strip of black gaffer tape over the big red zit. Now it's visually and audibly quiet. 🙂

rs
Click to expand...

When I tried taping my black M6 several people asked me why I was defacing my Leica.
As for theft prevention...it doesn't work.
 
akptc said:
Just out of curiosity, has anyone responding ever been mugged? Any short and frail photographers out there?

Just curious…, please don't hit me :angel:
Click to expand...

Mugged? Yes. Held up with a handgun in the entry foyer of my apartment building when I lived in NYC.

Short? Yes.

Frail? Not really. But I don't go out of my way to get into a physical confrontation.

But as I said, I'm not blacking out my cameras to ward off thieves. I just want them to be discreet.

rs
 
I guess i've become a nieve person, because I never thought of taping over the logo to hide the brand name from theives. But of course I don't have a Leica either. I think though that any serious theif will reconize what brand it is, tape or no tape! I agree with Joe 100% the crackhead is the one you have to worry about robbing you. Most pawn shops around here won't even take a film camera anymore. If its not digital they don't want it. There is no camera stores around here for a thief to sell to. The closest REAL camera store is 85 miles away in Raleigh. So I guess I worry more about my wallet than my film cameras when i'm out and about.
 
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