Pevel, you should consider the Canon P/7/7z with the 50/1.2 lens. Alternatively, go with the Canon body and a 50/1.4 Nikkor. This should give a good LTM combination. I really love the old lenses, hence the LTM recommendations. You can also go for a metered M-body (M5?/CL?) and a Canon 35/1.5 or 1.8 they seem to perform very well.
My 2 cents.
BTW, your M6TTL is doing really great.
I am glad you are enjoying my M6!!!
🙂 The price of the Canon P/7 is really tempting. My concern is the quality of the vf. While I actually really enjoy the handling of the fed5, especially its solid body, the vf is the biggest reason I don't use the camera often. I used the Zorki 4k much more often for this reason, though the camera was no where as nice as the FED5 in my opinion. Etched frame lines don't matter too much as long as they are visible. I just wish I was able to handle some of these cameras prior to buying one. Does anybody know of good locations in Kansas City?
If you are a medium format shooter and otherwise happy with what the medium offers and are willing to work within its limitations but wish to acquire something else for ocassional low light use then I would recommend a good digicam like the Canon G or S series, Panasonic LX3 or my favorite the Ricoh GRD III. I just don't see spending the kind of money for a fast 35/1.2, 50/1.5, and a body would be worth it for whatever quality you can get shooting iso 1600 film. If you are going to shoot iso50 film you are certainly going to reach for something else, right?
I am usually not happy with color photos on high ISO. My bought my sister a Lumix fz28 for Christmas and has never happy with its high iso quality. And that is a $500 p&s. The results I've had from film beat the camera, in all iso's in my opinion. Velvia 100, Kodachrome, and even some negative films, have higher quality than the Rd-1 when I had the coolscan 5000 ed. I did like the quality of Rd-1 high iso shots, but again prefered b&w to color. I should also say that color is/was the majority of what i shoot. If it is sunny to overcast, velvia 50 is great. But for general shooting, I am finding that just using slides is too costly and with the narrow exposure latitude, too difficult for fast shooting. The want for this low light 35mm camera is also due to high cost of shooting MF. Since I am not doing my own processing at this time, nor my own scanning, my cost per shot on MF is very high. About $2.19 per frame. That includes film, developing, and scanning. This forces me to be more thoughtful about every frame I shoot and how many times I shoot. By getting a fast 35mm which has much lower film/processing/scanning costs per frame, I am able to use it for shots where I would not bother using MF film. Plus, it would also enable me to use the camera in low light situations. This does not mean that I will only shoot at 1600 of course. I was using my light meter yesterday and calculated the lowest ev value that could be used at 1600, f1.4 at 1/15 of a second. I think the number was 7 on my luna pro meter. I then looked around the house to get that reading. It was very overcast outside, shutters closed. The 7 reading came from a table that was slightly illuminated by my monitor about 4 feet away. The majority of low light that I shoot is probably about 2 or more stops above this. At this point I am able to either shoot with a lower iso to improve overall image quality, get more DOF, or increase shutter speed to capture more action and or reduce possible shake. Giving manual controls to the camera makes it that much more appealing to me.
I love my Mamiya 7 & 7ii. For film in moderately low light I can use my Ikon / Nokton 50mm f1.5, but a modern DSLR and in the near future, cameras like the Leica X1 will be my choice for low light color photography. The right tool for the job.
Indeed, the X1 seems like it will be a great camera. A bummer about the f2.8 restriction though.
