A Little Story: What I Learned About Leica This Year

[chuckroast]

By way of background, I've been shooting on everything from 35mm to 4x5 over the past 50 years or so. I mostly have worked with Hasselblad and either a Wisner Technical Field or a 4x5 Graphic for the large format stuff.

I owned all manner of Nikon as a tribute to my misspent youth. I even had a really nice Leica IIIf with a 1945 uncoated Elmar that was a bunch of fun to take for a walk or out skiing. But, for many years, my attitude was, "Oh, 35mm is fun to throw in your bag, by I must, must, must have a larger negative if I want to do serious work. There ain't no substitute for square inches."

Last year, I came into possession of a couple of Nikon AI-S lenses that made me rethink this doctrine: the 35mm f/1.4 and the 85mm f/1.4. Both were (are) razor sharp with an absolutely wonderful microcontrast in the resulting images. I began to realize that there is 35mm and there is 35mm and that there was a wider range of performance than I realized. More specifically, the limitations I'd seen with 35mm were not ALL about the negative size.

Now then, back in 1974 when I was but a callow youth, I bought a Nikon FtN Photomic Apollo with a 50mm f/1.4. But I wanted, really wanted was the just announced Leica M5. After all, it was a professional camera, by golly, and it would make me a great photographer. But, the nosebleed prices for body and lenses kept it completely out of my reach. Fast forward to six months ago or so when my long dormant "I want a Leica M body" kicked in. That was rapidly followed by "I want the M5 I saw 50 years ago" jones.

So, I saved and shopped and slowly built a 4 lens kit - 3 Leica lenses and one Voigtlander - and an M2 body and M5 body, both CLAed by DAG. But this isn't about long dormant equipment lust ... well, it's not just about that. Armed with my new iron, I left Hassy and big negs behind for six months or so and dug really deep into the Leica ethos and equipment capabilities.

Here's what I learned - YMMV:

1. Leica's reputation for whisper quiet cameras and superb optics is 100% deserved. This stuff is just flawlessly executed.
   
   
2. The nosebleed prices are only partly justified. Leica has managed to transform themselves into a lifestyle brand in which owning the thing is a sign of your status, not actually using it well. This drives the prices, but it also puts a lot of fine used equipment into circulation when the FHWTMM get bored with their status symbols (Filthy Hipsters With Too Much Money).
   
   
3. I can't speak for the pixel peepers, but -on film at least - there isn't THAT much difference between older lenses and newer ones. There is some difference of "look" but it's subtle. I have a 50mm f/2 collapsible 'cron in LTM and a V3 50mm f/2 and they are both superb performers even though they are separated by several decades of manufacturing.
   
   
4. Nikon - and I'd presume all the big name Japanese SLR film manufacturers - made some lenses in their lineup that are every bit the equal of Leica's best of the same generation. I see no significant difference between the aforementioned AI-S lenses and the Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH and Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 respectively.
   
   
5. FIlm size does still matter. With the benefit of 50 year experience, I know how to squeeze 35mm to as good as it's gonna get and - even with my now beloved Leicas - the larger formats perform visibly better.
   
   
6. BUT... and this is important ... the Leicas with their Rangerfinderness ... make me shoot in the moment and shoot more - even when compared to my fine stable of Nikon stuff. The quiet and lightweight Leicas free me to participate in the world more as I photograph it. That ain't nothin' ....

Signed,
Happy But Broke

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Demand for quietness decreasing with amount of confidence.
Nikkor or even some Vivitar lenses are just as good, but size.
Collapsible and v3 are not really far apart as long as it is bw.

Wide angle Vivitar lens on Nikon EM was my last film tool for quick and easy film photography.
Leica rangefindrs are nice as long as they working. Once they do not it is pile of money, another country service and very long wait.

 

[chuckroast]

Demand for quietness decreasing with amount of confidence.
Nikkor or even some Vivitar lenses are just as good, but size.
Collapsible and v3 are not really far apart as long as it is bw.

Wide angle Vivitar lens on Nikon EM was my last film tool for quick and easy film photography.
Leica rangefindrs are nice as long as they working. Once they do not it is pile of money, another country service and very long wait.

We're fortunate here in the US to have a number of top tier Leica repair people. I bought my M2 right after it had a DAG overhaul, and I sent my M5 to him right after buying it.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

By way of background, I've been shooting on everything from 35mm to 4x5 over the past 50 years or so. I mostly have worked with Hasselblad and either a Wisner Technical Field or a 4x5 Graphic for the large format stuff.

I owned all manner of Nikon as a tribute to my misspent youth. I even had a really nice Leica IIIf with a 1945 uncoated Elmar that was a bunch of fun to take for a walk or out skiing. But, for many years, my attitude was, "Oh, 35mm is fun to throw in your bag, by I must, must, must have a larger negative if I want to do serious work. There ain't no substitute for square inches."

Last year, I came into possession of a couple of Nikon AI-S lenses that made me rethink this doctrine: the 35mm f/1.4 and the 85mm f/1.4. Both were (are) razor sharp with an absolutely wonderful microcontrast in the resulting images. I began to realize that there is 35mm and there is 35mm and that there was a wider range of performance than I realized. More specifically, the limitations I'd seen with 35mm were not ALL about the negative size.

Now then, back in 1974 when I was but a callow youth, I bought a Nikon FtN Photomic Apollo with a 50mm f/1.4. But I wanted, really wanted was the just announced Leica M5. After all, it was a professional camera, by golly, and it would make me a great photographer. But, the nosebleed prices for body and lenses kept it completely out of my reach. Fast forward to six months ago or so when my long dormant "I want a Leica M body" kicked in. That was rapidly followed by "I want the M5 I saw 50 years ago" jones.

So, I saved and shopped and slowly built a 4 lens kit - 3 Leica lenses and one Voigtlander - and an M2 body and M5 body, both CLAed by DAG. But this isn't about long dormant equipment lust ... well, it's not just about that. Armed with my new iron, I left Hassy and big negs behind for six months or so and dug really deep into the Leica ethos and equipment capabilities.

Here's what I learned - YMMV:

1. Leica's reputation for whisper quiet cameras and superb optics is 100% deserved. This stuff is just flawlessly executed.
   
   
2. The nosebleed prices are only partly justified. Leica has managed to transform themselves into a lifestyle brand in which owning the thing is a sign of your status, not actually using it well. This drives the prices, but it also puts a lot of fine used equipment into circulation when the FHWTMM get bored with their status symbols (Filthy Hipsters With Too Much Money).
   
   
3. I can't speak for the pixel peepers, but -on film at least - there isn't THAT much difference between older lenses and newer ones. There is some difference of "look" but it's subtle. I have a 50mm f/2 collapsible 'cron in LTM and a V3 50mm f/2 and they are both superb performers even though they are separated by several decades of manufacturing.
   
   
4. Nikon - and I'd presume all the big name Japanese SLR film manufacturers - made some lenses in their lineup that are every bit the equal of Leica's best of the same generation. I see no significant difference between the aforementioned AI-S lenses and the Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH and Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 respectively.
   
   
5. FIlm size does still matter. With the benefit of 50 year experience, I know how to squeeze 35mm to as good as it's gonna get and - even with my now beloved Leicas - the larger formats perform visibly better.
   
   
6. BUT... and this is important ... the Leicas with their Rangerfinderness ... make me shoot in the moment and shoot more - even when compared to my fine stable of Nikon stuff. The quiet and lightweight Leicas free me to participate in the world more as I photograph it. That ain't nothin' ....

Signed,
Happy But Broke

Great cameras.... BTW the M5 was introduced in 1971

 

[wlewisiii]

Regarding your points, IMO & only mine:

1) Sort of in the sense that it's good but not that much better than several other makers.
2) Not even close. I only buy used and look for the cheapest possible. Admittedly this has gotten me burned with, forexample, my 50/2.8 Elmar with an unrepairable element damaged by haze. DAG tried but was unable to help. I never should have sold my Summitar and my Canon 50/1.4 blows away the Summicron I owned.
3) See #2, especially on digital since I'm using a M 240.
4) My Canon and Nikon LTM lenses are, I would argue, superior, to anything that came out from Leica until the Asph and even then you have to like that look.
5) Digital has surpassed 35mm. Sad but true. that's why kiddies like Lomo. If you really love film, stick to 120 & above.
6) This. I carry my M 240 with me. Every. Day. I make a images every day. There is always a 50mm lens on it and a wide and a short tele in my bag. With that in hand, I can do what I enjoy doing, when and where I am.

Sometimes I even get lucky and make a decent photograph... this one was with a Nikon 28/3.5

 

[Richard G]

Orville Robertson, long gone from here, used an M5 and dismissed the “it’s all about the glass” mantra. Leica shooting is all bout the body he assured us. (I’ll come back to the ‘glass’.)

The simple controls, scale focus, no mode menus or problems, a range/viewfinder which so often need only be a viewfinder - if you even need that for the next shot. Quick, compact, unobtrusive. The M5 is not so big as many SLRs.

Then the tiny lenses. Even a 50 and 35 Summicron are tiny compared to SLR equivalents. And in black, quite light. I hiked in the hills in New Zealand with a 35 Summicron and 25mm ZM Biogon and the 90 Elmarit M and two bodies and never felt much the weight of the bag.

Now I’ll have the collapsible Elmar M 50 f2.8 and the Summaron M f5.6 28 out on a walk and I’m in danger of being unable to find the smaller lens in the bag with next to nothing in it.

As you get older, a Leica makes sense.

Last weekend I was unwell and went out with the large ball head Leitz tabletop tripod, legs folded, as a steadying mass attached to the camera, aiding framing and helping keep the camera still.

It’s a great system.

 

[Michael Markey]

M3 and M2 for 25 years and never had a problem with them M4 for slightly less time and its still ticking along.
Sold the first two and moved into digital Leica with a CL .
Same form factor as a Barnack and the CL still remains a favourite.
I then moved further away from the M form factor with an SL2s and whilst its much more versatile than an M (obviously) I don`t get the enjoyment using it as I do when using an M.
So that had to be fixed with a 246.
So unless I need the reach an M with a fifty is still ,after all these years, what I feel most comfortable with and what I enjoy using the most.

 

[sojournerphoto]

I think (6) is the key for me - the camera gets out of the way.

As for 35mm, I like the look but would never suggest it’s better than digital. All my digital cameras will out resolve 35mm and give cleaner images (why I like 35mm?). Digital cameras also throw up lens issues, both as a consequence of resolution - 60Mp doesn’t hide much - and cover glass that causes field curvature and degrades performance. So, modern cameras and lenses are amazing, but they tend to be very big and or very expensive.

My favourite cameras to use are my M-A or M4, which are basically the same thing, but 50 years apart.

 

[DownUnder]

My utmost congratulations to the OP, for having articulated so well what it has taken me a long, at times panful and often expensive to learn.

Late in life we all of us come to the relaisation that, overlooking the brand name camera marketing media hype (okay, let's honest about it, bullshit), we can best make the images we want to with the cheapest available equipment.

One example. Most today with an up-to-date iPhone camera, can do 90%+ of what we try to do with our expensive gear. Disagree with this you may, but the obvious truth of it is that it's true, however much it hurts our egos (or our bank balances) to face up to it and accept it.

As I have found in my stock photo shooting over the past decade, amateurs working with an Iphone can often shoot whatever I do with cheaper options, and often as not clients will buy the lesser price rather than the better quality images I make with my Nikon DSLR and top of the range lenses.

Needless to say I don't like this, but I am forced to accept it. And to try to find away around it. So far, as Krushchev once said, nyet yet...

As much as this may annoy or even emotionally (= ego) hurt to realise, it's the way it is in the modern age. And we have to live with it.

 

[Richard G]

I’m programmed Leica RF for almost 50 years. I wouldn’t have half the good shots of my small children in the ‘90s without the M6 and 35 Summicron. Those kids were so incredibly fast. And I would have thousands more with an iPhone and probably none printed. I will miss an easy shot with my iPhone in my pocket still. No camera, I was thinking. I take lots of photographs with the iPhone and I love it. But it’s a very different thing. I’m not going to pull it out on the street and frame with it up in front of my face. Indeed, us traditional photographers no longer look like we’re taking photos at all anymore.

 

[sojournerphoto]

My utmost congratulations to the OP, for having articulated so well what it has taken me a long, at times panful and often expensive to learn.

Late in life we all of us come to the relaisation that, overlooking the brand name camera marketing media hype (okay, let's honest about it, bullshit), we can best make the images we want to with the cheapest available equipment.

One example. Most today with an up-to-date iPhone camera, can do 90%+ of what we try to do with our expensive gear. Disagree with this you may, but the obvious truth of it is that it's true, however much it hurts our egos (or our bank balances) to face up to it and accept it.

As I have found in my stock photo shooting over the past decade, amateurs working with an Iphone can often shoot whatever I do with cheaper options, and often as not clients will buy the lesser price rather than the better quality images I make with my Nikon DSLR and top of the range lenses.

Needless to say I don't like this, but I am forced to accept it. And to try to find away around it. So far, as Krushchev once said, nyet yet...

As much as this may annoy or even emotionally (= ego) hurt to realise, it's the way it is in the modern age. And we have to live with it.

I’m still using an iPhone XS and it makes some things easy. I don’t actually like using it though, it gets in the way. Here’s a snap from yesterday



Only minor tweaks. But I’d struggle to get this depth of field with 35mm frame.

There’s also the point that the world moves on and the work that gets attention is increasingly from younger photographers, whether film P&S or iPhone. This is logical - they’re connected to the target generation of the marketers and are marketable themselves.

 

[JohnWolf]

What I hear you saying is, “35 mm, particularly with Leica Ms, is wonderful and hard to beat for in the moment or so-called snapshot photography.”

I agree. But I think that ethos has been carried even further today, most notably by cameras like the X100 and GR lines. If Barnack were around, I think he would be wowed by where they have taken his vision.

John

 

[Richard G]

I still miss with autofocus with my original X100, mainly eyes, at a distance. It is a great camera and concept. It is so quiet I’m not always sure I’ve taken the shot. Exposure Ccompensation dial is great element. Aperture and shutter priority. I got this shot with a set up in seconds switching to 1/30s and aperture ring to A.



1/30s in Collins St by Richard, on Flickr

 

[chuckroast]

Regarding your points, IMO & only mine:

1) Sort of in the sense that it's good but not that much better than several other makers.
2) Not even close. I only buy used and look for the cheapest possible. Admittedly this has gotten me burned with, forexample, my 50/2.8 Elmar with an unrepairable element damaged by haze. DAG tried but was unable to help. I never should have sold my Summitar and my Canon 50/1.4 blows away the Summicron I owned.
3) See #2, especially on digital since I'm using a M 240.
4) My Canon and Nikon LTM lenses are, I would argue, superior, to anything that came out from Leica until the Asph and even then you have to like that look.
5) Digital has surpassed 35mm. Sad but true. that's why kiddies like Lomo. If you really love film, stick to 120 & above.
6) This. I carry my M 240 with me. Every. Day. I make a images every day. There is always a 50mm lens on it and a wide and a short tele in my bag. With that in hand, I can do what I enjoy doing, when and where I am.

Sometimes I even get lucky and make a decent photograph... this one was with a Nikon 28/3.5

View attachment 4838190

I would go deeper down the digital rabbit hole if there were a reasonable way to produce silver prints from the original. Yes, I know about digital internegatives, but the process is already complex and time consuming enough, I don't want to add to it.

 

[chuckroast]

My utmost congratulations to the OP, for having articulated so well what it has taken me a long, at times panful and often expensive to learn.

Late in life we all of us come to the relaisation that, overlooking the brand name camera marketing media hype (okay, let's honest about it, bullshit), we can best make the images we want to with the cheapest available equipment.

One example. Most today with an up-to-date iPhone camera, can do 90%+ of what we try to do with our expensive gear. Disagree with this you may, but the obvious truth of it is that it's true, however much it hurts our egos (or our bank balances) to face up to it and accept it.

As I have found in my stock photo shooting over the past decade, amateurs working with an Iphone can often shoot whatever I do with cheaper options, and often as not clients will buy the lesser price rather than the better quality images I make with my Nikon DSLR and top of the range lenses.

Needless to say I don't like this, but I am forced to accept it. And to try to find away around it. So far, as Krushchev once said, nyet yet...

As much as this may annoy or even emotionally (= ego) hurt to realise, it's the way it is in the modern age. And we have to live with it.

The one thing you cannot do - at least with any degree of convenience or ease of process - it produce silver (or platinum, or carbon, or palladium ...) prints from images taken with the digisnapper. Yes, it can be done, but creating internegatives from digital source material never much appealed to me.

To my eyes, at least, a silver monochrome print cannot be touched for sheer beauty by any of the digital print alternatives, at least when done right.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

The one thing you cannot do - at least with any degree of convenience or ease of process - it produce silver (or platinum, or carbon, or palladium ...) prints from images taken with the digisnapper. Yes, it can be done, but creating internegatives from digital source material never much appealed to me.

To my eyes, at least, a silver monochrome print cannot be touch for sheer beauty by any of the digital print alternatives, at least when done right.

I absolutely agree Chuck. I know there's been lots of heated discussion since the dawn of digital. If it doesn't matter to you.....choose whatever. But if the undiscussed practice of darkroom printing (we always talk about gear) is in your blood....

 

[wlewisiii]

I never cared about the process of printing.

Printing is a BORE.

GETTING the image is all that matters to me. Being there. Forcing the light, forcing the camera, forcing the lens, forcing the film/sensor to do my bidding ... that is what matters to me. The print? It's nice. Last Christmas I bought a stupid expensive big framed print for the best shot that I made in 2023 for my hated stepmother because she liked it. It was _good_ and she liked it.

That was enough.

I gave other prints to coworker friends recently just because they expressed enjoyment in what I've done. That was enough.

I love it when it turns out pretty, even better when a loved one likes it but if I capture the perfect image but no one else ever sees it but me? I can still die happy. Because it will have still been captured.

That is my aesthetics.

That is my Art.

That is what I. Live. To. Do.

I doubt anyone else really gets that.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

I never cared about the process of printing.

Printing is a BORE.

GETTING the image is all that matters to me. Being there. Forcing the light, forcing the camera, forcing the lens, forcing the film/sensor to do my bidding ... that is what matters to me. The print? It's nice. Last Christmas I bought a stupid expensive big framed print for the best shot that I made in 2023 for my hated stepmother because she liked it. It was _good_ and she liked it.

That was enough.

I gave other prints to coworker friends recently just because they expressed enjoyment in what I've done. That was enough.

I love it when it turns out pretty, even better when a loved one likes it but if I capture the perfect image but no one else ever sees it but me? I can still die happy. Because it will have still been captured.

That is my aesthetics.

That is my Art.

That is what I. Live. To. Do.

I doubt anyone else really gets that.

"Forcing" may be your modus operandi, but printing for some is like playing a musical instrument instead of hitting the button on Spotify.

 

[chuckroast]

"Forcing" may be your modus operandi, but printing for some is like playing a musical instrument instead of hitting the button on Spotify.

In the words of St. Ansel The Most Righteous ... The negative is the score. The print is the performance.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

In the words of St. Ansel The Most Righteous ... The negative is the score. The print is the performance.

On the other hand, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.... 😛