love/hate my M6

A nice comment, Merkin, and much appreciated. As Ben said, an M6 is a tool, but not for every task. You can't do long stuff and you can't do macro, but as I've only got three lenses that'll fit it (CV28/2, CV 35/2.5, Canon 50/1.8) I make do in their ranges. For everything else I use my new Pentax K20D. The array of lenses for this critter range from 24mm to 300mm, plus a 50mm macro. Also, what I'm leaning toward is the Leica for black and white photography. I can develop B/W at home and scan it into my plustek. For color the K20D works well.

Caveat: I've got a huge chunk of Fuji Provia ISO 100 slide film in the freezer (a gift from my son when he went totally digital) so currently the M6 has that in it.

I went around "downtown" Bisbee the other day - it's the height of the tourist season here - and anticipating some of your suggestions, used the 28mm at hyperfocal. Just banged away with a tri-x handload. The pictures were nothing to send off, but surprisingly, all were in quite sharp focus. Kudos to the CV 28/2.0.

Biggest problem today, after switching to the 50mm Canon, was that infernal infinity lock. Missed several shots. I will disable it tomorrow. I've used it so rarely that I really don't know what it does, though I suspect after learning it that I'll fall in love with it.

Clayne says I can turn the M6 into an M4 (exit battery). He's got a point: no more fiddling with red arrows!
 
Let me recommend this: Preset shutter speed. Focus first. Turn fstop. Arrow on right brighter than arrow on left. Remember Zen. You must function as part of the instrument and without thinking. Keep working with the instrument eventually it will become part of you.
 
Remember Zen... Yes, and your line recalled "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," one of my favorite books back then.

Your recommendation is essentially what I used to do back in the '60s and '70s with my old Asahi Spotmatics. For street shooting I'd select a shutter speed, usually 125th, take a meter reading on the shady side of the street, another on its sunny side, memorize the two f-stop settings, and then all I'd have to do was focus.

And those cameras did indeed become part of me. Some day so will the Leica. I haven't got there yet. But that's not because of the camera, after all it's just a light-tight box like all other cameras, it's really the RF system that's taking a bit of getting used to. 40 years of SLR's is not an easy habit to break. My photog friend Shigley likened it to flying from Kennedy, landing at Gatwick, renting a car, and suddenly the world's gone bonkers: steering wheel's on the "wrong" side, and as you enter the roadway, so are the cars.

A bit extreme for an analogy, but maybe not. The real difference is that I'm not completely sure what the camera's getting when I look through the finder, nor do I have a clue about what's in focus and what's not. Practice should answer those questions.
 
tedwhite said:
Practice should answer those questions.
Click to expand...

it will.
focusing properly with a 28mm at some f/5.6-8.0 you will probably use in daylight at 400asa is not that important anyway. when I'm out for street shots, I often hardly focus at all, especially not at 28mm. neopan 400 or 1600 loaded, 1/250, f/4-11, focus ring set to something between 1 and 4 metres, depending on the environment, and the only thing left to do is compose the shot (I start doing that before I even raise the camera), be as quick, unobtrusive and efficient as possible and tada. it's very hard to missfocus that way, with a little luck and practice, scale focusing can even work at f/1.5!

keep it up and show us some pictures soon!
 
I briefly had an M6 and enjoyed it's build quality, but realized that an M7 would be a LOT quicker to use. It's worth the extra money for the AE. Or just get a Bessa R2a or R3a for a fraction of the money (although my R3a has a nasty habit of making the shutter speeds invisible in the viewfinder if there is any front light at all).
 
I, too, have spent most of my life shooting SLR's. I have always wanted to get an RF and I finally got an M6 not too long ago, mostly because it was being offered for a great price (with lens). I had been looking at M3/M2/M4/M6 and this one just kinda fell in my lap. I am now glad that I got the M6 because of the fact that you can take out the batteries and it basically becomes an M4. I like that flexibility.

Today I was shooting and I also found myself ignoring the meter. My first week with it, I minded the meter somewhat but still trusted my instincts although most of my attention was directed to the patch and the new control layout. I tend to prefer to work in aperture priority and adjust shutter speed rather than adjusting aperture for the obvious reason of having total control over my DOF. It has taken some time to just reach up and turn the shutter dial without looking but I have gotten much better at it in a short time.

At first I thought it somewhat odd to adjust your aperture to arrive at the correct exposure instead of adjusting the shutter speed but it makes sense as an intuitive and quick method for getting in the zone. In any case, my relationship with it so far has been love/love and with my impending purchases of more RF's (M2/M3/M4/R3M/R4M), I think the M6, being my first RF and first Leica, will forever hold a special place in my heart.
 
I agree with Ted on the light meter display in the M6. It is sub-optimal at the very least. There is no comparison between a Canon T90 or Canon F1N meter display versus the arrow display in the M6. Shame on Leica for such a silly choice. At least show a change in color, like in the CV Bessa T or L or ....

I was using my Canon P for the past month,and then yesterday I picked up the M6. I don't like the meter display!

There is no aid for bracketing or for exposure modification such as with transparency film and with snow scenes ... etc.

I would like to see a five light meter display. The one on the right is overexposure while the one the left is underexposure [or vice versa]. The one in the middle is "correct" while the adjacent lights on each side are one half stop over and one half stop below.
 
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Raid,

The meters in the M6 TTL, M7 and M8 behave precisely as you describe, only with three LEDs rather than five. The difference is that when one of the arrows and the central circle are lit, the exposure is within one whole stop rather than the half stop you outlined. With transparency film that can be critical, but overall I'm of the opinion that it's a pretty elegant solution for most metering tasks.
 
I really loved my Nikon FM3a with the needle for metering, I knew exactly how far over or under exposed I would be.... until it got dark, then it was useless (not being lit)

My XPan 2 simply has too much stuff blinking in the finder for my liking.

The M6 is just right...
 
Count me as one who likes the M6 and its meter just fine—of course, the Olympus meter in the OM system works great, and the Canon F-1 meter tells you exactly where you are at a glance, from dawn to dusk. The M6 meter I find works better when you basically know close to where you are exposure-wise, either from guessing, experience, or because you metered your current general lighting situation—then, when you desire it, the M6 meter is available at a glance—the read arrows allows you to fine tune or confirm the exposure, perhaps at tricky times such as when a cloud intervenes between you and the sun, subject in an unanticipated shadow, etc. Also nice, the meter is accurate, even in low light. So, most of the time I ignore and don't even notice the red arrows, but they are there when I want them.

If you just pick up the camera without regard to the settings and start spinning the speed and aperture dials to get the matching triangles, the process does seem awkward, slow, and cumbersome. With the Canon F-1 system, however, even this approach is fast. Either way, I think it pays to have the exposure basically set before bringing the camera to your eye—and this approach certainly works with the M6.

Every Leica model I have tried is great on its own merits, and that includes the M6.
 
I just got my M6 last week and it's my first Leica, so I can't compare it to others, but so far i'm loving it. I was always an SLR user too, still am with mostly the Nikon system. The meter having only two arrows doesn't bother me. I actually prefer its simplicity compared to the modern Nikons little lcd 'dots'. It reminds me a little of my old K1000 needle that just goes up and down when you move the aperture ring.
 
I will play with the M6 meter for a while to get better used to it. If everybody likes the meter in the M6 then it has to be a good meter ... right?
 
Ted
The M / RF thing is something that needs a bit of training.
my first films after moving from nikon SLRs were total rubish, simply because I was so used to press the shutter when I saw "in focus", and there was no AE anymore.
It grew on me, and now I find SLRs very uncomfortable, blind around the frame, blind during exposure, difficult to focus in low light etc...

Good luck!

Oh, and beside all the amazing thing you are doing:
Sir, reporting the purchase of your first RF camera when you have over 2000 posts on RFF is not the least surprizing thing I've seen here...:eek:

Cheers! :)
 
momus1 said:
I briefly had an M6 and enjoyed it's build quality, but realized that an M7 would be a LOT quicker to use. It's worth the extra money for the AE. Or just get a Bessa R2a or R3a for a fraction of the money (although my R3a has a nasty habit of making the shutter speeds invisible in the viewfinder if there is any front light at all).
Click to expand...

"I briefly had an M6 and enjoyed it's build quality, but realized that an M7 would be a LOT quicker to use"

Quicker to use is a M camera like the M2, M4 without internal metering!
 
Joop van Heijgen said:
Quicker to use is a M camera like the M2, M4 without internal metering!
Click to expand...

Not when you really want to use the meter. With my M6 I was slow and missed some shots. The pre-metering for a specific light situation and then using this setting all the time didn't worked for me. When you go through a city street and the sun is shining you normally have two light situations, the bright side and the shadow side. With one setting you have to decide which side you want to shoot. The one-setting thing only works good on a shady day.
 
tom.w.bn said:
Not when you really want to use the meter. With my M6 I was slow and missed some shots. The pre-metering for a specific light situation and then using this setting all the time didn't worked for me. When you go through a city street and the sun is shining you normally have two light situations, the bright side and the shadow side. With one setting you have to decide which side you want to shoot. The one-setting thing only works good on a shady day.
Click to expand...

On the inside of your filmbox of Kodak or Fuji you can see the light metering situations from F 16 till F 2.
And they really work.

I do make mostly my pre-metering with the MR 4 on my Leica M4 (P); after that I can shoot immediately, just at the right moment...
When the light situation changes I move the diaphragm ring one of two stops up or down...
 
I work with MPs, which are essentially the same beast. I came from LF and spot meters, with some modern SLRs thrown in. The LF side helped a lot as you are forced to understand the relative values in a scene.

The way I like to work is to constantly assess the light as I am moving around and in particular paying attention to the shadow values. I make periodic adjustments based solely on what I need as my shadows. I largely ignore highlights, although I may make slight compromises on the shadow values where I can if highlights are exceptionally hot. If I want to let the shadows fall to black or near black, I can do that too, as long as I know what my reading means.

With B&W film (my Leicas have never seen colour film or trannie) I find that by locking in a reading which I feel is appropriate and making periodic adjustments if things change, I am getting some of the most accurate B&W exposures ever with a 35mm system. I get better exposures with the MP than I did with the Eos3s I own, not because the metering is better or easier but because I am thinking about it. The M measures from a central zone in the middle of the frame and can allow for you to take relatively selective readings, so ignoring point light sources or other influences you dont want to meter for.

IMO the 'right'(subjective I know) exposure for mono film changes an awful lot less than your meter will tell you based on what it meters at the point of shooting. Backlit scenes, side lighting etc all cause the meter to twitch, but if you know what your meter reading represents, it is easy to make adjustments. As long as your shadow values are good, you can generally tame hot highlights with reduced development and or flashing the paper.

Be bold and try locking in readings based on known shadows and worrying less about highlights (which will come and go, altering what yout meter says, but very often not influencing the exposure setting you actually need assuming comparable shadows are present throughout). With a bit of practice you will be amazed at the improvement. When metering with my MPs, I spend far less time metering the scene in front of me than I tend to shoot than miscellaneous shadow areas or sections of scenes that will give me useful info. This means that I usually have my exposure set before I bring the camera up to my eye for the actual shot. When a new scene presents itself so quickly that I cannot adjust for anything I just shoot a frame at my last setting and then set about making any exposure changes. I find that the vast majority of the time the first frame is fine (and often far better than if evaluative metering, which is designed for trannie film, was to simply set the exposure for me)!

Try it. If you are shooting mono, think shadows, update exposure when you get the chance, but just shoot a quick frame if you do not. Do not worry about highlights too much, because if you do, you will be losing vital shadows and i would rather try to print down hot highlights than be staring at blank areas on the negs where the shadows should be!

Rate your film conservatively so you are being slightly generous with shadow exposure and if you lose half a stop here and there you will still be looking at a neg that will print fine.
 
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In the beginning (for me), there was the Yashica 5000e Lynx that kept breaking.

I was sort-of impressed that it had a meter, but I noticed how easily it could be fooled under certain conditions. But before I could sort this out with that camera, it broke pretty much beyond yet another repair, and I ended up with another Yashica, a black GTN as part of an outfit. More stuff to play with, more fun! (For a while, anyway.) The metering system was more "interesting" at the time (lights!), but still ponderous in 'oddball" light. Trouble was, I was really into oddball light.

Then came my first new camera, and my first SLR, paid for with my own money: a Canon F-1. (Yeah, that one wa on my list for a longer time than I might want to admit...). Metering with that thing was a revelation and education, forcing me to throw out half of whatever I'd learned–or thought I'd learned–about in-camera metering up to that point. From a technical standpoint, my photos improved considerably. As much as I don't dig SLRs much any more, I have a really warm spot for that F-1 (and, farther down the line. my old Nikon F3). A "pro" camera that was more strightforward to work than an "amateur" camera. Who knew?

Of course, I got sucked into the same technological determinism almost everyone else did: had to have AE, then multi-mode AE, then a fast motor drive, then AF, then faster AF, then "smart" metering...

Switching from my last full-on SLR system seven years ago (Minolta 9xi...in its own way, a fabulous instrument, which was my main tool for about nine years) to a pair of Hexars wasn't as jolting as expected, partly because I'd been shooting with an autofocus Hexar for about five years beforehand, side by side with my kitchen-sink Minoltas, and much prefering the experience. I gave up multi-mode metering, AF, and that crazy VF with LCD overlay, for a rangefinder which was (and still is) crazy-modern in its category, but damned spartan otherwise. Far fewer bells/whistles, but I got on amazingly well from the start. The reduced mental clutter alone was worth the switch.

I was reminded of this anew when I recently got hold of a Leica M2. Of course, on the simplicity front, the M2 goes the Hexar one better, with no electronics of any kind (well, ostensibly...there's the flash-sync stuff, but that's splitting hairs), and framelines that appear one-at-a-time in the VF. And, being an early ('58) model, sans self-timer, which offers a more positive grip on the camera, IMO.

I've sometimes reached for my Sekonic L-428 when deciding to take the M2, but half the time I'm doing the Kentucky Windage thing, and, damn all fish-hooks, it usually works. (I am talking ISO 400 black-and-white film here.) As I've said elsewhere here, the M2 seems the perfect companion to my Hexar RFs...so much the same, and so radically different. And reinforcing my feelings about RFs in general.


- Barrett
 
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