Money Aside: M9 or M-X & Best Scanner

Money Aside: M9 or M-X & Best Scanner

  • Total voters
    500
I'd sooner choose what I have at the moment (M2 plus darkroom) -- but if I had to, an M2 and a Nikon Coolscan 9000. Good reasons for this:
  • I shoot a lot of black and white and I really love the tonality of a black and white negative, albeit one printed in the darkroom
  • I like slides and I like doing projected slideshows
  • And I like the dynamic range of colour negative
In all, for my film holds all the aces; but that's a personal opinion, not an attempt to present them as facts for everybody's tastes.

Also, with the M2 I really can just shoot and go with colour neg or black and white, no fuss or drama, no menus, no exposure meter to override, no ISO dial to remember to set... Suits me down to a tee!

Also the added absolute resolution of an M9 doesn't mean jack to me as I don't live in a masion where I can hand 20x16s like they're going out of fashion, and where I want large prints I have my Autocord which just creates to die for prints from its lovely 6x6 negs -- that said I wouldn't turn my nose up at the M9 if given one. But if it's like the M8.2 which is a lovely lovely camera, my M2 still feels better in my hands; most for the RF patch being contrastier and the film crank being a nice solid rest for my thumb.

Vicky
 
Pickett Wilson said:
Tom, the number of family snaps folks were taking started its decline long before digital. Our cultural values have changed, and younger folks aren't so interested in the past these days. I know a number of folks in their 30's who have few photos of the kids, etc. They just aren't interested.

Will history be lost? Sure. Will most people care? Probably not.
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I doubt that the amount of family snaps have declined as such. It is just that most of them are shot on phones or P&S digital cameras today. Just look at Flickr - loading 4-5000 pics/minute!!! Most of it is mundane and boring for us today. What I am talking about is what happened 3-4 generations ago. It becomes more of sociological fact source than anything else. Most of us dont want to see pictures of what our parents did - and/or embarrasing pictures of ourself from 10-20 years ago. However, when the pictures show a "reality" from our grand parents or greatgreat grandparents they become more attractive.
In doing this show I have talked to several curators for museums and they are worried about documenting the last 20-30 years. There are very few "photo albums" from the 80's and 90's and thus we are loosing perspective of our past - and 50-100 years from now they will look at discs, hard drives etc and "Cannot read the medium" will show up on what is a computer at that time.
 
I have a Nikon 9000 but hate scanning so I'd go for the M9.

If money were no object I probably wouldn't buy a Flextight (Imacon) but I would always order contact prints with my negs and have drum scans done of my selections.

However, if money were no object I'd also hire a retoucher for all my work (both film and digital).
 
I know money is no object for the poll, but for me it would be an M7 and Nikon 5000. Bang for buck it's so damn good even factoring in film and processing costs. The M9 looks amazing but I am yet to see B&W samples as good as a nicely scanned piece of film. In colour the new Portra and Ektar still have a wow factor.

Actually instead of forking our for the digi, I'd also consider a nice user M6, 9000 and 500cm kit.... a year's worth of film and chemicals.... 6K perhaps?
 
Going with the flow

Going with the flow

I made a choice some 15 years ago to give up the darkroom and spend money on scanners, most of which I still own. What kept the pace down was the price of RAM and storage, as scanners have have been relatively good from the get, although pricey. I have l flat beds for large format but never bought a drum scanner, I have a Nikon 9000 now (and my Minolta scanner collection) and I still shoot film for anything serious. Digital to me still is 'toy like', I tend to point and shoot with it and I find myself getting lazy. My best (sober) work is still with film, and I require the ability to choose various films for their individual look.

I do have a Canon 40D and always carry a digital point an shoot in the car with a fist full of batteries. Why would I buy and M8? Because I have a 28mm lens that never gets used. Why would I buy an M9? Because I could better access my Leitz lens collection from the 50's and 60's. The old glass is far more appealing to me. It has romance written all over their images.
 
wjlapier said:
Roger, you may or may not have seen my WB comment above. How is the AWB of the M9? Under mixed lighting situations? Do you shoot primarily RAW? Custom WB?

I would love to have a M9 if I knew I wouldn't have to tinker around in software to get colors right.

Bill
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Dear Bill,

Always raw, + usually custom WB (Kelvin or manual). The latter is less trouble than loading different films and using filters, and faffing around in Lightroom is no worse than doing colour ring-arounds in the darkroom or adjusting WB in scans.

Cheers,

R.
 
Tom A said:
Digital is still very much an unknown when it comes to storage and longevity. Yes, you can "re-format" every 3-5 years - but how many of us would truly do that. Hard drives,CD's and DVD's have a limited lifespan
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Myself I don't trust Hard drives beyond about 2 years which is why I replace mine about that often at about $100-$125.00 per TB a simple DAM system consisting of 1 active drive, 1 local back-up drive and 1 off site drive runs about $17 a month.

As for the old drives those are overwritten multiple times and given to family or donated to a good cause.
 
Tom A said:
There are very few "photo albums" from the 80's and 90's and thus we are loosing perspective of our past - and 50-100 years from now they will look at discs, hard drives etc and "Cannot read the medium" will show up on what is a computer at that time.
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If it even makes it to the computer. Lose your phone and all those photos are gone.

I'm glad my parents took copious amounts of slides while I was growing up (80's). They are still there in the closet.
 
I guess if I had unlimited money I could hire an assistant to develop film and make scans. In that case, I might might might give up my M9.
 
an M8, an M2, some decent glass, a fridge full of Neopan and a V700 works for me right now and still costs less than an M9 or Imacon/Hassy scanner. when someone else wants to foot the bill, I'll gladly upgrade.
 
If money is not a problem, then M9 (black), M3 (chrome of course), M2 (chrome, of course), M7 (black), a Nikon Coolscan 9000, an Imacon scanner, a 1,000 square-feet darkroom studio, and two large fridges (one for film, another for film chemicals).

A black Bentley for when you're wearing the black Leicas, and a silver Porsche for when you're wearing the chrome Leicas.
 
I voted for film with the Imacon scanner.

I shot an M8 and sold it, I got much too trigger happy when shooting digital. Can't help myself.

Film slows me down and I need that to truly enjoy photographing. Plus, I like the look of film, developing etc, but having the M8 ready all the time made me grab the digital rig😕 inspite of all that.

Guess I'm just a lazy b*****d 😀
 
Roger Hicks said:
B+W: Film + wet darkroom
Colour: M9
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I like this line of thinking...then again I may end up never using the M9. I find very little joy in the digital workflow and usually just take whatever comes out by default.

Tom A said:
What I am talking about is what happened 3-4 generations ago. It becomes more of sociological fact source than anything else. Most of us dont want to see pictures of what our parents did - and/or embarrasing pictures of ourself from 10-20 years ago. However, when the pictures show a "reality" from our grand parents or greatgreat grandparents they become more attractive.
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That is a very interesting point of view. My girlfriend does not like me taking her picture (so I sneak them in and you can't delete from film 😉 ). She might not like them for years, but I bet that she'll look back on them with a smile when we get old. Even mundane shots become valuable with time, on some level perhaps even more so than pro or art photography.

Back on the subject though, I like my situation right now. A nice M (wouldn't mind an MP though), a cheap scanner for 'contacts', and access to a large darkroom. If money is no object I would rather work less and shoot/print more 🙂
 
I'm for film and the X5 scanner, would love to learn wet printing though at the moment the space for a darkroom is non existent.

I've got digital cameras just not using them at the moment, I'm to much into the joy of shooting, developing, and scanning in a similar manner as others have already mentioned.
 
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