Leica Camera: Uni Research Brief

[m-waters]

1. fastest camera on earth
2. she lets you get closer to your subject and view the subject more directly
3. she is a beauty in your hands

Let me explain:
1. the delay between pressing the button and actual shutter release is about 10 ms. Compare this with the best professional SLR: about 50 to 70 ms. Because of this, it is easier for the photog to pick the right moment (as in "decisive moment")
2. she doesn't scare subjects, she doesn't look bulky, subjects usually think she is a not too serious P/S camera. The rangefinder is almost a window, there's just glass between the subject and the eye of the photog, no mirrors/pentaprisma, no delay because of an electronic viewfinder. These two combined allow the photog to get closer to the subject and to view the subject more directly. In fotography the "seeing" is the most important.
3. crafted like jewelry, it affects the photog, therefor it increases the fun. If the photog has fun, (s)he makes better photo's (i assume).

 

[former member]

Leica M3 with Type I Rigid 5cm/2 Summicron, @F4.

Maybe some RFF'rs will let you use some of their example pictures to back up the words. This one is my example of low-latency.

 

[ducttape]

Quality - reliabilty - beauty of design.

Although I own an RD-1 and I just popped for Nikon D200, when all is said and done I expect my M7 to be the one they stick in my casket with me. It's gorgeous to look at, a dream to use, so comfortable in my hands and clearly just a wonderful item.

To put it in perspective, I signed on for a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula next Feb. Sure, I'm bringing the D200 for ease of digital and long, long zooms (200mm gives perspective of 300mm on 35mm). But when push comes to shove, I KNOW my Leica will be working and functional in the wet and in the cold. Last year at Hudson Bay it was -40C and the Leica never missed a beat (which isn't what the techies at Leica told me would happen!)

I can rely on it. I wish I could say I feel the same way about the RD1 and D200.

 

[amateriat]

1) Enduring design principles

2) I shoot mainly with a pair of Konica Hexar RFs, and secondarily with a fixed-lens compact 35 (Konica Auto S3). Both these cameras, as well as the vast majority of other rangefinder cameras made over the last fifty years, have to a greater or lesser extent been influenced by the Leica M3. Leica gets its share of cat-calls these days, and some might argue that if Leica hadn't created the M3, someone else would have had to (to the guy waving his SP in the back row: pipe down, I'm trying to make a point). Leica did make it, however, and its design principles are proving their durability time and again (no less than Zeiss has, in it's own way, paid homage to the M3 by incorporating its VF/RF design in the new Zeiss Ikon rangefinder).

I can think of yet another three-word couplet to describe the Leica M principle (also applicable to most of the other cameras which share the M lens mount), lifted from the Macintosh computer community (of which I'm a long-time "resident"): It Just Works.


- Barrett

 

[kmack]

Leicas are kinda sorta like Lamborghinis, it means even if you look like a toad you're rich enough to get laid.

 

[vizioneer]

Simple, intuitive, performance.

 

[vizioneer]

Oh yah, #2: there's no other camera system like it.