Besides a Leica

Returning from digital

Returning from digital

I sold off a lot of film SLR equipment and went to a DSLR. But something was missing... the feelings of 'artfulness', craftsmanship, and simple pleasures that come from using a film camera. The DSLR just had too many bells and whistles between me and the subject. So I've purchased a beautiful Voigtlander R4A for use out on the streets. And I keep an old Nikon with one of their really nice old 105mm portrait lenses for quiet moments with family and friends. And, to keep up on the digital world, I carry around a Ricoh GX-100.

Over the past 6 months or so I've struggled to figure out what equipment really suits my needs. The wonderful digital equipment advances are very tempting. And I might return to it if someone would design a full-frame sensor rangefinder camera that's much more like a film camera.... no LCD*... a few dials on top, a small body, a big clear viewfinder and interchangeable lenses. Essentially it would be a film camera with the film plane replaced by the digital sensor.

*Regarding the LCD: I know a lot of people think having the instant feedback of an LCD screen is a great step forward. I find it to be incredibly distracting. One is constantly tempted to spend time on in-camera editing of all sorts. Without one, maybe we could be using all this editing time to be thinking about subject matter.
 
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On the Digital Side, Fuji F30 for a carry all the time

DSLRs, Fuji S5 and D80, for wedding, portrait and macro work. Workflow especially with Adobe Lightroom is 2nd nature to me, probably due to my age and my growing up with computers

A Yashica T4 for fun opportunities, sharp lens, powerful flash

Polaroid 4x5 rail camera, for still lives
 
For Digital (work and pleasure): Canon DSLRs and Leica M8.

Film: Various M's and Hexar RF, Nikon mf SLRs, Canon EOS. Medium format Mamiya 6's, SWC, Mamiya 645 (hardly ever anymore). Large Format Sinar p & f, Ikeda and Cambo Wide.

Panoramic: Fiji TX-1, Cambo Wide with 6x12, Horizon 202, Noblex 150U and Roundshot 28/220.

80% of my shooting is now digital, so the film stuff has to get whittled down.

Henning
 
Interesting thread. When I'm not using a Leica (M4P, M3 MOT, or IIIf) I use a Contax IIa. Or an Olympus OM1/OM2 with long fast lenses.

Most often though I use a Hasselblad 500C or 2000FC/M. I'm a MF guy.

When I really go retro I go out with my Grey Rollei 127 4x4 (modded with a Maxwell bright focusing screen! 😀 ). Lots of fun! For retro 35mm I love my Contaflex Super & Rapid cameras. The 50mm f/2.8 Tessar has it's own look.

I also have a Cambo 6x9 view and a 5x7 view that I don't use enough but will never sell. They are too much fun!

For digital I use a Panasonic 'Leica' Lumix DMC FX07 with an 8 GB SD card. I shoot everthing at 7 MP.
 
Well, I only have one Leica body, so almost everything for me is "besides Leica" - in fact Leica is the last camera I've bought, because I wanted an 0.85x viewfinder for the 50 mm lens and a quiet shutter for shooting indoors. So, the Leica is my "specialist 50mm" body, I use the ZI for the 35mm lenses (and the 50mm and 90mm at times), the R3A for the 75mm and 90 mm, R4A for the 28, 25 and 21 mm and the Bessa L for the 15mm. Alongside a RF 35mm camera, I use a Nikon FM3A. mainly with lenses from 85 to 135mm, although I also have the 20-50mm lenses for it.
When I need a quick shot, I use a Fuji S3 Pro DSLR - a pretty good digital camera even today - it still has unsurpassed dynamic range and colour rendition out of the box, and can make beautiful colour portraits. In fact, although I would enjoy having a full frame DSLR, I am going to skip the D3 in favour o a full frame Fuji sensor, when it comes...

When I have more time and a possibility to pull out a tripod, I try to use the MF: I have a SWC/M, a Hasselblad 503CW for the longer lenses, the 500C/M for the shorter lenses and an 500 EL/M for makro work with the 135 Makro Planar on a bellows.
 
My main cameras are a Leica M6 and Voigtlander R4A (with a CL as a backup/pocket M) for RF (with mostly CV lenses), and Olympus OM1n and OM2n with a bunch of Zuiko lenses for SLR.

But I have a number of other cameras for occasional fun use, including a Bronica ETRSi for when I feel strong enough to hump MF gear around (which isn't very often), an Olympus XA and an XA4 for carrying round in my pocket (one of them goes everywhere with me), several fixed-lens Japanese RFs including a Ricoh 500G (which I think is wonderful), A Retina IIa (another wonder - oh Kodak, how could you have abandoned such quality?), a Pentax MX with a 40/2.8 pancake, and a number of FSU RFs.

And I *don't* have a collection 😉
 
I've gotten back into using Exakta's after quite a long hiatus. I started out with a VXIIa when I was 12, and quickly got used to the 'left handed' approach. After a 30 year absence, Exakta's are part of my collection again, and when you find a good one, they are really great. I actually took an Exakta II (Version 1) to Dresden a couple of months ago while on vacation, and it felt magical to work with it in its 'birthplace'.

Funny, I just picked up an Alpa 6c, which is kind of a reversed version of an Exakta, and it feels totally uncomfortable!
 
Missed this one first time around. I went from full-time pro shooting film to teaching rather than going digital. So I'm shooting M's most now. Before it was all SLR for $, and Contax G2's, an 810 Canham and a Frankenstein 1114 (part Kodak part Deardorf? B&J? nobody can tell) for fun. Since getting the M bug tho I've seldom shot anything else. Oh, and T2's and a Tvs for snaps. Coolpix for equipment porn.
 
Only work I've been paid for has been shot with film and digital SLRs Canon and Pentax , ranging from Canons Rebel G to Elan 7ne, Pentax Spotmatic F and the new K10d. So thats what I shoot with besides leica. Some of my best photos have been taken with the simple, inexpensive gear that makes me think when I shoot.
 
Hey I'm kinda new here and I really liked this thread.

I got allot of cameras in my toolbox because I end up getting new things for specific projects. A year ago I got an M6 and a CL for a handheld lowlight thing that's ongoing and now they've kinda taken over as most used tools. An 8x10 Deardorff has been my main thing for a long time along with 5x7 and 7x17 and then I keep a few Rolleis around because nobody thinks you're taking their picture when you're looking down.

I always had bad things to say about Leica and small negatives until I found a need for one and saw what can be done.
 
I've always liked small, unassuming cameras. I've bought and sold a lot of small "cult" cameras, but my Lomo LC-A and Olympus Stylus Epic have stayed with me. I like 'em a lot.
 
When not using my M6 I carry either an XA and XA2 or my Panasonic FX12 compact. Sometimes I carry around my OM2N if I want a lightweight slr. If shooting wildlife or landscape digital its Canon 20D and/or 5D with a variety of L lenses, or if using film for landscapes then its a Hasselblad 501 cm or EOS3. Like them all for various reasons.
 
For years, I always carried a Nikon F with an 85 and 105, because for the more deliberate portrait, I could see better than I could with my M4's. This despite taking 80% of my pictures with 50 or 28 mm lenses. For twenty years, and still, I keep a Canon QL 17 in my pocket. It is always there, always ready, and with the little Canolite flash and a sync to 1/500th, I can get a picture quickly even with flash fill and not attract attention. Particulary useful in South America and SE Asia, where I travel several times a year. I really don't want people to snap into "posing for a tourist" mode when I get the camera out, almost always after a spell of conversation. Meter's been dead for years, sadly. The Canolite is just right for fill in cloudy-bright light, with Fuji 100 at 8-12 feet, F 2.8. Useful. I have always boiled the pot with a 4x5: currently, a Technika III, with 120 Apo-Symmar and 8 1/2 in. Commercial Ektar. Transparencies for separation is the gig, of artworks, building facades, groups. Sometimes I do documentary work with it, when I want to inpress/intimidate a group with how we are all serious here...the large unblinking eye of a commercial ektar definitely puts the chill on the "v-for-victory" -behind-your-neighbor's-head syndrome, especially when I don't have the foreign language needed to impress the folks with my own natural gravity 🙂. Finally, a Kodak Medalist. Yep. It's fast for 2x3 camera, it's like using a number two pencil when you get used to some of its fussy ways concerning film advance and shutter-cocking mechanisms, and yes, it is built like a tank. What folks may not know -- they all know about the great lens -- is that the film is flat, flat, flat in the film plane. I generally use it handheld on a tripod or on a Tiltall with a Norwood Director, and I can get a view-camera quality neg in about two minutes per shot. And I don't have to go under a darkcloth to do it, or carry a Polaroid back or a reflex viewer or .... you get the picture. And yes, I soup these Tri-X negatives in Rodinal 1:50 for an edge that will cut the paper, and out-of-focus highlights that don't bleed all over. When the contrast is murder I just add that sodium sulfite and up the dilution to 1:100. I keep it simple, rolling Tri-X off of 120 spools onto my stock of 620 spools before I leave home. I don't want to modify it because I don't want to risk losing that beautifully flat film in the filmgate quality. That's my list. I don't carry more than one extra, ever.
 
Well I don't own a Leica M yet. Sadly it is but a pipe dream for me at the present time as funds definitely won't allow. But besides that would be my 1939 Leica III and Summar 50/f2.

My main camera at the moment is a Samsung GX-10 w/grip. That is almost always paired up with either a Sigma 50-500mm and a Sigma 10-20mm. I'm a shipping photographer so I need the extra reach that a RF camera just wont give me. Shots of at least 135mm and quite a few >300mm are pretty much the norm for me these days.

The GX-10 is joined by a Pentax Z-1 and a Pentax MZ-S which still see a fair amount of action. I guess I don't really NEED to shoot with these whilst I have the digital around as well but I feel that I don't want to let go of film just yet. So I shoot these usually loaded with Fujifilm and a whole slew of SMC-M and SMC-A primes just because I can.

RF wise, other than my Leica III which I still haven't fully gotten to grips with yet. I use a FED-3a that I got fully CLA'd from Yuri @ Fedka. Also a 1976 KMZ Zorki-4K that I was gifted from an old man who was moving house. The Zorki is particularly nice since I releathered it with a kit from Aki-Asahi.

As my everyday pocket camera I carry an Olympus Trip 35 loaded with a roll of Ilford XP2.


Of all my camera's i'm particularly fond of my Yashica Mat-124G and would like to get out with it a whole load more. My only issue with it is the same as my RF's - the focal length is not really suited to what I shoot but when I do get out and shoot other stuff i'm blown away by it. I do need to find a reliable processor for my films as the major high-street photographic people here in the UK didn't have a clue as to what to do with my last load of films I took in to them 🙁
 
I just got into film last month after starting up photography with a Canon 350D DSLR three years ago. As with others, cost constraints have precluded any procurement of a Leica, but I picked up a Bessa R2M, which is very enjoyable. As I was already converting all of my digital images to monochrome, the quality of the Tri-X prompted me to replace the 350D with a Canon Elan 7NE, finally giving my Zeiss lenses a proper "full frame" format, and for less than US$400.

Now that I moved to film, I am excited about trying other systems, including a Holga and Mamiya 330 TLR.
 
I've been doing about 90% of my work lately with my M6. I realize you can't do everything with one camera. I'm starting to lean more towards medium format for all my other work.

I have a Rolleiflex TLR I've started using more and more. It's great for portraits. The scans from my Epson flatbed are amazing.

I have a Hasselblad 500C/M kit that I use for more serious set up type of work. I want to get a wide angle and bellows for that kit.

I use my Nikon F3's for macro work. If I had the bellows for the Blad, I'd probably never use the Nikons.

I used to use a Canon 5D at my last job. I wouldn't hesitate to buy that camera is I needed it for client work, but so far I haven't needed digital.
 
I second the contaflex series. If folks shoot leica m's, they'll probably like these. Good optics, all metal construction, and my iv's are smaller then my m's. The draw back is that the shutter sounds like a gunshot and limited and slow lenses (35/4, 50/2.8, 85/4, 115/4), but that helps with GAS too. They're outdoors cameras.
 
I almost always have my M6 with me but I always always have my Iphone with me and the pictures can really surprise me. Looking forward to getting the Iphone 4 with its higher resolution.
 
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