News with the Leica M9.

[newsgrunt]

I had an M9 on loan earlier this year to try out since I was considering adding it to my next mass gear purchase. While I liked it overall, the hi iso performance is perhaps two generations behind and the buffer is too low to be practical. No spray and pray shooting but single shot firing and anyone who has shot any type of news event of significance will know, 8 frames, shot in single mode, will get eaten up quickly.

Significantly improve the hi iso performance ( ie-3200 without batting an eye kind of quality) and increase the buffer likewise and maybe the fringing as well and the camera would easily be worth the coin they're asking. Enough so that I would spend my own $ on one.

 

[Colin Corneau]

The OP set up the context of this thread by stating he makes his living as a photojournalist, and that the pictures posted were examples of photojournalism using an M9.

Posting images in this forum by definition invites discussion and criticism (not attack, criticism).

That said, I'm with filmfan and newsgrunt...I'd be curious to know where he works.
And, I'm sorry I can't gush -- the pics are entirely standard, unremarkable images. Some are nice, all are competently made. But it's nothing that can't be done with an LX-3 and as newsgrunt mentions, Leica's digital M's are at least a generation behind technically.

I do like the idea of slowing down, in a news environment, and taking a more thoughtful approach. Rangefinders are useful for that.
But so is using a film camera, so is using a P&S, so is setting your MarkIV on single-shot...the list goes on.

 

[uinku]

Yeah, I'm still not understanding the OP's original photos and intent. If swoop brought up this NYTimes photo as a comparison

to his:

I would say the comparison is one of contrast and not of similarities. The former NYT shot was done in better light, composed much stronger, and the idea of using shadows to signifiy the is a nice touch. Props to Chester Higgins.

Yes time and securing access are factors when it comes to assignments, but that's part of the job and sometimes one needs to be more aggressive or clever to get a better shot--hence the Capa jokes on page 1.

Was the original intent to show that one can shoot news with an M9? If so we're past that discussion ever since newspapers published amateur shots from cellphone cameras. Furthermore, these photos haven't represented the M9 in good light.

 

[Frontman]

First, I would like to express my condolences on the stolen camera. Terrible news.
I like a few of these photos. However, a lot of them look very much like snap-shots. A point and shoot camera would do you just fine for photos like these. Looks like you need to get closer. Just some friendly critique. I am guilty of the same thing quite often as well and since I value critique very much, I thought I would reciprocate.

Agreed. I used to work in law enforcement in the city, and I regularly ran across news photographers. The best of the (for the quality of their photography) were the kind who were always in my way, and pretended to be a little hard of hearing if I asked them to "please step back".

HCB himself was a photojournalist, and he was fearless enough when he wanted to get a good shot. If an officer tells you to step back or to move along, you are probably in a good spot to take a picture.

As for the technical quality of the pictures, they are impressive, but the Canon would have gotten "closer" due to it's longer zoom lenses and faster operation. Personally, I dislike DSLR cameras, but I must admit that they are well-suited for this type of work.

 

[Colin Corneau]

I want to add that my opinion was in the context of photojournalism...as images on their own there's nothing wrong with 'em. But as I said, that was the context they were presented in.