2nd body: Identical or Different?

Once I moved to shooting rangefinders I found having a second body indispensable for working. Back in Iraq I carried two Leica M bodies, One an M2 with rapidwinder, the other an M4 with MR4 meter. Usually they both had the same speed black & white film though occasionally, one had color slide film instead. M2 had a 28mm mounted for the whole deployment, M4 had a 50mm DR Summicron or 90 Elmar.

That method of shooting got me spoiled and I always want to have two bodies available with different speed lenses if I'm working.

Now that digital has arrived, I used an M8 and an M9 together and they fit perfectly. Wide on the M9, 50mm or longer on the M8. I've since gotten rid of the M8 and now going between an older film M and the M9 can be just a bit weird since the shutter speed dial on the M9 goes the "wrong" way.

I do still use two film bodies when I'm not shooting digital. I have the war horse M4 that went with me to the sandbox and a highly modified Leica M4-P that is the absolute smoothest camera I've ever used (thanks to Youxin Ye.)

Phil Forrest
 
Thanks to all of you for the insights. I realize now that I should have posted this in the "RF gen. disc." section, as I got a lot of responses from SLR users.
But no matter, I've decided for a different camera as a second body (got a terrific offer on a used R4A with one year warranty). And I've always wanted to shoot my 21 without external finder...
So, I'll see how it goes with different film in the different cameras...
 
Two different bodies that compliment each other. It's not hard to get used to using two bodies at all, and you can benefit greatly from having separate strengths. For instance I had my 5d and an x100 - complete opposites. Perfect match.
 
I see the answer being dependent on your subject matter. If you photograph things where you have time to contemplate and analyze, maybe swap lenses, then different camera bodies with different attributes work well. But if you must photograph spontaneously, such as people, you would want to eliminate as many variables as possible. Then you want everything identical so your actions will be reflexive.

My personal style gives me time to think only click the shutter or not. So I need everything the same. I am the extreme and always shoot one film, one lens so I never have to use my limited mental facilities deciding which of anything. So I have two identical bodies except for finish (silver / black) with one being a backup.
 
Bob Michaels said:
I see the answer being dependent on your subject matter. If you photograph things where you have time to contemplate and analyze, maybe swap lenses, then different camera bodies with different attributes work well. But if you must photograph spontaneously, such as people, you would want to eliminate as many variables as possible. Then you want everything identical so your actions will be reflexive.

My personal style gives me time to think only click the shutter or not. So I need everything the same. I am the extreme and always shoot one film, one lens so I never have to use my limited mental facilities deciding which of anything. So I have two identical bodies except for finish (silver / black) with one being a backup.
Click to expand...

Precisely describes my situation as well.🙂
 
If the main reason is to avoid film-type changing then I'd certainly go for two bodies that are at least similar. When I was a regular SLR user I had a Minolta XD-11 with transparency and an XG-M with print-film. Same make, similar controls, same lens-set etc but the XD-11 had more capability and was used for more "creative" shots. The XG-M was used for "snapping".

Now I have a choice for RFs since most of mine are LTM, so I could pretty much pick any pair or more for different films.
 
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