Did you buy a Leica only to find that the shutter was not as quiet as the hype?

krötenblender said:
Until now, I don't know any film-camera quieter than my Olympus XA. Just took pictures yesterday in my japanese learning class from two people that sit about 2m away from me, facing me, but looked in another direction. I took 8 pictures, until they noticed...
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Interesting. I mean - the shutter of the XA is really silent, but the mechanical film transport not that much.

I never had a Leica M camera, but had Bessa R3A for a while. The shutter was not all that loud (comparable to common SLRs), but the sound was very mechanical and steel-crushing-like.
 
Scientifically, higher pitched sounds stand out more easily than lower pitched sound. Leicas are 'loud' in absolute terms of dB yes, but in terms of pitch they are much lower than most DSLRs out there, and thus much 'quieter.'
 
Also, we need to remember that when we shoot our Leicas, we are holding them practically right next to our ears, so they sound louder than they would to somebody standing a few feet away.
 
I find my CL incredibly quiet in real-world usage. often times subjects will ask me if i've taken the picture after i've already released the shutter.
 
My MP is the quietest camera I have ever owned. Very quiet "click" and nothing more. In certain circumstances, I couldn't even be sure the shutter fired, as I didn't hear anything.

Re the "stealth" factor: it's not only the quietness of the Leica, but also its size and appearance. Yes, you are "in the action,' but given a Leica's general unobtrusiveness, people aren't likely to notice it--or if they do, to react to it. I think they tend to think you're not a serious photographer. You certainly get a different reaction if you point a big SLR with a huge honking lens at them (in one case, it attracted the unwelcome attention of local law enforcement.)

And like peter n, I found a Leica to be just the camera I needed for a lot of the work I do. Found out a long time ago that an SLR is NOT the kind of camera you want to use to shoot solo acoustic acts in a very small club--and especially not with a motor drive. It's why I got into Leicas in the first place.
 
Versus a Contax T3 -- um, really? That is one **loud** camera. Click-Chunk-Whirrrrrrr.

Quietest modern non-SLR cameras I've ever used are the Mamiya 7 and Konica Hexar AF.
 
One other thing: re the comment hat dong street photography with a Leica is "complete nonsense" these days, because "everybody know" what camera you are using:

Would that it were so. Might happen in NYC or some other urban area, but : No one's ever "noticed" that I'm shooting with a Leica. Where I'm from (flyover country), 99 out 100 people don't even know what a Leica is...or have even heard of it....

'Course, I'll confess that I DO tape over the "red dot" and all other identifying marks so the camera looks as scruffy and nondescript as possible...
 
I tested several M's before I bought my Hexar RF, and it occurred to me that the M's with a cloth shutter were quieter and had a less high-pitched sound than those with metal shutter blades. Among those with metal blades, the ones with the fastest top speed were the loudest. This is probably due to the fact that these metal shutters need to use a higher curtain blade velocity, thus producing more vibrations.

Of course, leaf shutters are hard to beat in this area, with the Hexar AF being the most silent, even way less obtrusive than an Olympus XA.

Re stealth factor: I think blending in with the environment is a much more important factor than camera noise. Avoid making large and/or fast movements. Keep your camera near your eyes, and don't jerk it up, but work using slow, fluid movements so as to attract less attention. Watch Garry Winogrand taking pictures in any of his videos - that's quite an eye-opener.
 
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Well, there's pixel-peepers and then there's audio-peepers and I feel it's basically the same issue.

Just as one should not judge a print at 3 inches length, one should not judge a shutter in a silent room.

When taking a few steps back, individual pixels become indistinguishable and in a non-silent environment the shutter sound blends in quite easily.

And should you need a really silent shuttered camera, get that Hexar mentioned before. People hand them back worrying about having broken it and it turns out they took four shots without even noticing it. It really is that silent.
 
I was disappointed. At the time I bought my M6 it was really a lot of money for me. I admit that I was infected by some myths, because I never had one in my hand before. So quiet you could use it in a theatre an no one would notice it. Wow.
And then I got it and then this loud shutter. It was far from what I expected. But the handling and rangefinder were good enough to compensate the disappointment. And it's not really loud but when you have expectations fired by some myths.....
 
It's no hype...they are quiet. Compared to most SLRs, it is quiet. Perhaps expectations weren't realistic? Leaf shutter cameras live up to the hype completely. That's why in the digital world, P&S and cameras like the Leica X1 or Ricoh GXR (once you turn off their fake audio shutter noises) are super quiet compared to even the Leica M9. You can use these in a theater.

By the way, I would use an M in a theater no problem.
 
Did I buy a Leica only to find that the shutter was not as quiet as the hype?

No.

I think Leicas are very quiet cameras. There are quieter cameras, but IMO, Leicas are the quietest cameras in their class of cameras (35mm, large VF, interchangeable lens). HOWEVER I think the *sound* of the shutter is a big reason for that. Leicas do not give off that 'camera-shutter sound' that people instantly associate with a photo having been taken (I think the CLE has a similar sound quality). Decibel-wise they might be as loud as a ZI or HRF, but the sound is distinctly different. As Peter noted in his example, people can hear it once they know the sound, but it's far less obtrusive and disruptive than the sound of an SLR or other RFs. From my experience, I've noticed that even after a subject has identified/recognized the sound, they often forget about it completely. YMMV.




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Agreed. Leica M's should be compared to equivalent 35mm SLRs. From personal experience, they're much less noisy than a Nikon F or Zeiss Ikon Contarex & still noticeably quieter (though not by as much) than the modern dSLRs (e.g., Canon 5D Mk II, Nikon D700) I've handled or been around. On the slow speeds, my M bodies are also quieter than my old "Barnack" screw-mount bodies.

Beemermark said:
The "hype" is from the film camera era when you had two prominent professional type 35mm cameras - the SLR and the RF. The RF without a mirror is far quieter than the SLR cameras of that bygone era. A leaf shutter camera without a moving mirror - like a TLR, View Camera, or little Contax T - is always going to be much, much quieter.

A luxury car may be quiet to compared to a compact car, but it is not as quiet as my bicycle.

You have to compare apples to apples.
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none of the Leica M's i've handled/used/owned lived up to the hype, if "hype" refers to the stuff-of-legend references, whether shutter noise, handling, and so forth.

very nice cameras, yes. relatively quiet, sure. transcendent, no.
 
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