Leica Film to Digital (and back) - Info Request

My 2 cents..

I had a bunch of film gear which I considered selling because I decided to give up black and white photography. I was developing and printing myself but work and life got in the way. had this idea, if I wasn't going to shoot B & W, then why bother with film.

However... i was rather attached to my black paint M4. So, sold all my lenses and got myself a 35mm Cron IV and decided to give colour film photography a go. Went to Japan with this 2 combo and a bunch of Portra 400 and it was fun!
Reminded me of the joy of film / rangefinder photography.

I think colour film photography still has a place in film photography. I have them processed and scanned and am lucky to have a good lab nearby.
Sure it may cost a little more BUT with film, I give a lot more thought into every frame.. therefore I get a lot more variety of shots in a roll of 36. Portra is a wonderful film, great latitude and colour - no time wasted post processing.

With film, there is just shutter, aperture, focus and shoot..... simple. I hate choices and menus that comes with digital cameras.
 
"With film, there is just shutter, aperture, focus and shoot..... simple. I hate choices and menus that comes with digital cameras."

That's pretty much the way I shoot on my Sony anyway.... 'cept add COMPOSE and FOCUS - which I do manually. I set exposure manually... yeah, I could use AUTO ISO, but I don't. All manual, and about 95% shot on prime lenses. Sony let's you set the controls where you want them for the most part. If you don't do that, it's a nightmare. I guess some want all the skin soft, eye focus, blah blah blah complication. I pay for all that.... I just don't use it. I prefer to use my Sekonic 758 handheld meter when it counts... I grew up with a Sekonic Cine and shooting Bolex cine cameras (all manual, all primes) so by comparison still shooting is simple. Hard, but less to fuss with or about. In cine shooting you worry about the angle of the shutter blade's opening your camera rotates for capturing motion the way you want it. Stills? Not so much. Fewer variables.

What I "HATE" about contemporary photography - digital - has nothing to do with the quality of the hardware, but with the prospective obsolesence. At some point, a sensor goes bad and there will be no replacement, or no one who knows how to replace it even from a junker camera. I don't like focus by wire lenses... which is why I shoot Zeiss Loxia. Might this all magically become Leica? That's the question.

The way I shoot... might as well be a Leica. But that's not going to happen now. My interest has been in a Leica M as a 2nd camera. I still have that interest, but for now my 1st camera and working camera has to go to the shop. So the Leica money will go to a replacement body... a Sony A7RII 'cause I already have a full set of lenses for what I need. Leica may happen and remains on the radar screen, but there are any number of options. I may even follow through with ex-Leica shooter Paul Roark's approach to converting the old A7II when it gets back to B&W with a Kolarivision Astrophotography H-Alpha glass replacement to pick up red sensitivity. Stranger things could happen.
 
Last edited:
Is that typically digital? I had to dump an Olympus OM set in the early 90-ies because it could not be repaired - lack of spare parts...
 
I think it explains why folks have two digital bodies. Don't have to be exactly the same, but it helps hold down the lens investment. Did they used to do that with film? Dunno. Maybe. But yeah... with digital you need a back-up body. My back-up body was Fuji, but I've traded all that out in recent months.
 
Last edited:
roscoetuff said:
... Stranger things could happen.
Click to expand...


In mid thirties Dmitry Debabov took Leica to the Arctic expedition. It was only one camera available with shutter working in Arctic cold. In 2016 I read how another photog went to the Arctic with digital camera and solar charger. No problems to get it charged and operate during three weeks on the snow and ice and slipping in tents.


Almost all of the digital cameras we have purchased since 2003 works. Even those made before 2003 and we have found them for free or they were given to us works. Without service and on original batteries or on AAA.
Most of film cameras I have needed CLA, some were better to let go before they fall again...
 
Hmmm, my M9 and my Digilux-2 went back and for the same reason, and where can I find a film camera made since 2003? ignoring Leica, please...

Regards, David
 
My lenses are all "low" tech. Either they're current Zeiss Loxia or old film Zeiss Contax CY. I came to Sony to get away from Fuji's electronic lenses. Firmware upgrades in the lenses were "good" on one hand, but unnerving on the other. Meant to update lens firmware so the lens could work with firmware upgraded in the camera, but eventually... they stop upgrading camera firmware for new lenses. Well intended as it is in the whole Kaizen thing, their lenses were getting bigger and bigger. I found Olympus OM Zuikos were just as good, much smaller and less expensive. From there, it was on to Zeiss for nicer handling, and that pushed for a Sony body with IBIS. Digital's appeal is "clean tech" and lower variable costs per shot. Fixed costs are much higher for the hardware, but the hardware itself is not necessarily better per se except to the extent (in my opinion) that high ISO performance now allows some amazing low light / non-flash stuff. Electronic anything... always has a trade off between power and ease of use, and ruggedness. Electronics at consumer prices aren't typically built for ruggedness. There's a reason a military coffee pot went for $30,000 a decade or so...(I think we all remember that) and that's the ridiculous conditions for which they were designed as though cost were no object. Aircraft, boats, normal people ...we get our ruggedness with "spares", following the old saw that if you want something to work you have a backup plan, and a backup for the backup.
 
Rangefinder lenses to Sony A7II

Rangefinder lenses to Sony A7II

So I'm sitting here waiting impatiently for FedEx to deliver what B&H promises to be a functional Leica M to Sony E mount lens adapter. The A7II camera and 28-70 lens arrived a month ago. Along with the Canon FD and what was supposed to be the Leica M adapter. Alas, a massive web ordering foul up in the B&H computers sent TWO Leica M to Fuji X adapters.
In the meantime I am really enjoying the Sony A7II and my assortment of Canon FD & FDn lenses.
Theoretically, on Friday next, I will finally be able to use my Konica, 28mm & 35mm, Leica, 50mm & 90mm, Nikkor 50mm & Canon 135mm lenses on the Sony A7II camera.
No doubt that I will be back with questions.
For now I am keeping busy with Canon 24, 35 (2 total), 50 (I've lost count) primes and a couple of zooms that cover from 24 to 200mm.
Saving up my pennies for a Pentax 6x7 to Sony E-mount adapter.
Cheers!
Wayne
 
roscoetuff said:
Got my attention on three accounts: 2 favorite prospects: M2 and M262 and potential for scanning film. Thought occurs that an M2 could be an entry point... a platform for lenses. Then step up to a used M262 whenever that begins to happen. The other thought is what sort of scanner are folks using: 36 pics commercially scanned can run $14. Run through some film and you've got a chunk of the way to an M262... over years. But what sort of scanning depth do folks typically use for 17 X 25 printing? Any clues?
Click to expand...

If you go for a used M typ 240 (typically between $2500 and $3000 on Ebay these days) and any film M you like ($800 to $2000 for decent models/condition), buy a couple of your favorite focal length lenses (or just one for that matter), as well as a 50mm lens and a Leica BEOON copy stand, you have a complete system. Shoot film with the film M, capture it to digital with the M typ 240 and the BEOON with 50mm lens.

An inexpensive 50mm lens like a Color Skopar 50/2.5 does a fine job of this with the BEOON.

That way you have 24Mpixel digital and 24Mpixel scanned film, you can pick and choose whatever you like. And it all works together, a complete film and digital system.

(I have this setup almost exactly but I use an M-D typ 262 body. My film M is an M4-2. That Color Skopar 50mm f/2.5 cost me about $390 new, and the BEOON was $260 when I got it. It works brilliantly.)

G
 
roscoetuff said:
...
What I "HATE" about contemporary photography - digital - has nothing to do with the quality of the hardware, but with the prospective obsolesence. At some point, a sensor goes bad and there will be no replacement, or no one who knows how to replace it even from a junker camera. I don't like focus by wire lenses... which is why I shoot Zeiss Loxia. Might this all magically become Leica? That's the question.
...
Click to expand...

I dunno. My Olympus E-1 was manufactured in October 2003 and is still going strong. It works even better than it did then because raw processors have advanced so much in the past 15 years that it now has more dynamic range and less noise than it did then...

I've had bunches of pro-grade cameras that turned over 70000 exposures and not one ever had a bad sensor, or any problems at all other than the sensor on the M9 that went bad ... and Leica paid to replace.

My current Leica digital cams are an M-D and a CL. Both are outstanding performers, have had zero problems since I bought them (4 and 1 years ago respectively), and work brilliantly. I use a couple of M lenses on the M-D and a bunch of R lenses as well as the M lenses on the CL I really don't need anything else...

The M-D is kind of special: It has really no features at all other than aperture priority exposure and auto-advance over an M6. :)

Buy a quality camera that does what you want and use it for a very very long time. There's really nothing to be afraid of.

G
 
First, I am retired but shoot images almost every day..
If I was a pro, it would mainly be digital..
I love digital for color with small toy cameras.
I super enjoy BW film in my Leica M's, less SLR, Nikon-Canon-Pentax..
Develop in kitchen and scan on Canonscan with XP (off line).

If i was Pro, no way pay Leica prices as profit is major rule.
Digital in Nikon-Canon..whatever.
I have done occasional pro work using digitals that nobody here would consider..
The quest for super monster MP and lenses size of Bazookas is almost funny.
Yes I have made huge prints( from 35mm and 6x6) .
Go simple, have fun even as pro work..
 
Nothing like stating the obvious; there are a lot of Leica M9's about that have had the sensor replaced and are being sold off for silly/low prices.


Assumming 300 dots per inch is exhibition standard and that one pixel and one dot are the same then 12" x 18" is easily printed...


As for them wearing out, that's a matter of luck. I've digital cameras that are 19 or 20 years old that I bought for the price of a cup of coffee for the media cards. They are all working, albeit that some of them are only 2 or 3 megapixels. I am waiting for a Digilux-2 to turn up at tha price level.



Regards, David
 
Like a lot of us, I've been through this rigamarole of how and when and whether to shoot film or digital and what equipment I should choose for which tasks. I use digital for most of my paid work and film for most of my personal shooting. Selecting lenses and (to a lesser extent) bodies that allow me to do everything I need with a maximum of compatibility and minimum of expense and overlap has been somewhere between a fun puzzle to work out and a complete pain in the rear.

For film, which I prefer to work with, I use everything from 35mm to 8x10, with a ridiculous range of cameras I have acquired over the last 40 years from Leicas and Nikons to old folders to Hasselblad and Mamiya gear to studio view cameras and folding field cameras. For digital shooting right now I am using Sony FF mirrorless cameras. I don't love the camera handling of the Sonys, but they are small and will accept any and all of my lenses (even the LF ones, with some hacked together adapters), which was why I jumped into Sony soon after they brought out full frame bodies. Most importantly the files look good, as long as I have done my job correctly. I much prefer to work with manual focus prime lenses, but for lots of the jobs I shoot, autofocus zooms are far more practical, which means I've had to invest that way for work.

Settling on a decent hybrid workflow for film has been the biggest chore for my transition to using a digital darkroom alongside my tradition wet darkroom, specifically scanning film. At first, I wanted to get large, clean scans of every image so I'd have one large root file for each image, to use for everything from simple cataloging to making large prints. Of course I soon discovered the impracticality of that approach, in both time and file storage. So I decided to try small, lower resolution scans just to view and organize, and from which I could select what I wanted to really work to finished images, so I tried a Pakon scanner. But I'm not a digital tech wizard by any stretch, and I couldn't get it to work reliably to my satisfaction, so I went back to regular film scanners. But now I am moving to "scanning" film with my Sony bodies, which I find much easier and more streamlined - and frankly, the results look better than what I was getting out of the film scanners. Settling on a method of organizing the several thousand images I make each year has been the most important step, both with negatives and digital files. Knowing where things are and being able to find them easily is an equal part of this puzzle.

I would love to have a fully integrated Leica system with a couple of film bodies and a couple of digital bodies and a stable of lenses that behave correctly and predictably across both capture methods, but even if I could afford that I'd still need AF and zoom lenses for some jobs, not to mention macro and telephoto work. So the Sony bodies work well enough for my digital needs. I like having full frame bodies that will work with all my lenses, and it can be fun to play around with different combinations and resurrect some funky older lenses that would otherwise be orphans. I learned to accept the fact that I am still playing with what equipment works best for my needs, and that some gear and some ways of working will come and go, but being flexible and open to new methods and techniques is the most important thing. That, and organizing my negative storage and my digital files. Streamlining that process is also as much the journey as the destination.
 
drewbarb said:
I would love to have a fully integrated Leica system with a couple of film bodies and a couple of digital bodies and a stable of lenses that behave correctly and predictably across both capture methods, but even if I could afford that I'd still need AF and zoom lenses for some jobs, not to mention macro and telephoto work. So the Sony bodies work well enough for my digital needs. I like having full frame bodies that will work with all my lenses, and it can be fun to play around with different combinations and resurrect some funky older lenses that would otherwise be orphans. I learned to accept the fact that I am still playing with what equipment works best for my needs, and that some gear and some ways of working will come and go, but being flexible and open to new methods and techniques is the most important thing. That, and organizing my negative storage and my digital files. Streamlining that process is also as much the journey as the destination.
Click to expand...

I've been at this for the last two years and I've basically decided it's a journey and I'll probably never reach the place where I'm done because I really enjoy the process. I like trying out new gear and thinking about new ways to explore photography. For now I've settled on a Leica M3/M4/M9 and a Sony A7RIII for most of my 35mm/full frame work. I don't really like the Sony for an everday camera (the files are huge) and while the camera is great it's like shooting a computer. When I need it for low light and AF it's hard to beat. With the cost of film being what it is I didn't think shooting film everyday made much sense either. Having tried and not loved a M240 I finally settled on the M9 recently and couldn't be happier. It's the closest to a film like experience I've had shooting digital. The film cameras I save for personal projects. It's refreshing to hear your perspective cause I think it's easy to get a little out of perspective about gear and to see it as some sort peak to climb rather than the journey it should be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom