travel report: thailand/laos with M6TTL 0.58x, Nokton 35mm f1.2, Provia 400X

[papasnap]

Hello all!

Here's the brief first part of my report on my 4 months travelling throughout Thailand and Laos this year, with my Leica M6 TTL 0.58x + Voightlander 35mm f1.2 + Provia 400X (always pushed +2 stops to iso 1600). I swore I'd wait till I bought a Nikon 5000ED scanner to do it proper justice, I'm sorry but I jumped the gun, these are some VERY rough and quick scans from a basic HP flatbed.

On the flip side, I'm pleased to FINALLY be able to show even just a small section of what I've been shooting for the last 3-4 years on my RF's!

In short: it was amazing. For the equipment: While I still love the ZI (and won't get rid of it), the M6 TTL 0.58x has become my main "accomplice", and is my main choice now. I'll explain why over the next few posts, which might take me a week or so to write (I'm short on time). A month into my travels the ZI got damaged (shattered the RF illumination window late one night in Chiang Mai - not an ZI problem, could happen to any RF I think). This was the start of my relationship with the M6, which I'd purchased earlier, and left in reserve.

Of course, while the body is very important, the real winners are the Nokton 35mm f1.2 (which I really truly cannot praise highly enough - for the last year or so that I've had it, I'm constantly impressed with the nokton f1.2, it's never ever let me down - how many peices of equipment can I say that about?) and Provia 400X film (which is every bit as impressive as the Nokton, really) - I'm extremely lucky that the Nokton + Provia 400X (+2 stops to iso1600) exactly depicts what I'm trying to depict. It's an ever present challenge (with the high contrast + narrow latitude), but truly worth it!

For my next post, I'm aiming to give a comparitive field review of the M6 TTL 0.58x to the Zeiss Ikon, from a 35mm lens shooters perspective. For now, I'll settle with giving you a couple of quick and very rough scans: they are all at f1.2, if I remember right.

(I've made no adjustments to these, so aplogies if they are way too dark etc. I scanned them on my LED-backlight laptop, and they looked correct, but looking on my old CRT they are too dark. I've just ordered a 27" dell lcd which I'll calibrate properly before posting my final scans on the 5000ED).


Surveillance: 10pm, Bangkok MTA, Thailand


Down & Out in Bangkok: 3am, Bangkok, Thailand


Barber Shop: 11pm, Vang Vieng, Laos

 

[papasnap]

ah - these days RFF downsizes them to max 600 pixels wide and very poor quality! Will have to find a different solution for the final scans. In the mean time, here's a couple more:

Ways of Seeing: 10pm, Ko Phagnan, Thailand


Chinatown: 11pm, Bangkok, Thailand

 

[Krosya]

Very interesting - cant wait to read the rest of your story and see more pics!

 

[Austerby]

Good stuff - interested in learning more about your photography style and choice of film in particular: can you articulate the depiction style you seek in more detail please?
Always keen to see others interpretations of both Thailand and Laos.

 

[robert blu]

interesting: I'm curious to see more pictures !
robert

 

[RdEoSg]

Yea we wanna see more!!!

 

[nzeeman]

Ways of Seeing: 10pm, Ko Phagnan, Thailand
View attachment 65284

this is brilliant - i would love to make a photo like this one. can you make it a bit bigger please? i would love to have it...

 

[papasnap]

hello all, sorry to keep you in suspense! It's my birthday (and payday) in roughly 10 days - then I'll finally buy a film scanner, and will post new higher-res scans and finish my story. I just can't wait to do more scans!! In the mean time, I'll talk a bit more about the M6 TTL 0.58x in comparison to the Zeiss Ikon.

What I'll do now is evaluate some of the specific points of interest - the viewfinder, film loading, etc - and give my thoughts on the relative pros and cons of the two cameras. I'll hold off till I can post more scans to talk about the two cameras holistically - ie as the whole of their parts.

VIEWFINDER/RANGEFINDER
This is probably the definative characteristic of the Zeiss Ikon. Someone at Zeiss must have really put their foot down about making a statement with this one, and Zeiss has done a terrific job - with one problem, which I'll go into in a minute.

SIZE: Point Zeiss. The Leica is a perfectly decent size. The Ikon is simply huge. It's a little like the difference between looking at a 35mm slide and a medium format slide. It's not subtle - the Zeiss feels to be at least 50% larger. For me it's not going to actually make better photos on viewfinder size alone - the leica is definately good enough - but the Ikon is very luxurious, and well ahead on this one.

BRIGHTNESS: Tie. They're close enough to make no difference.

CONTRAST/SHARPNESS: Point Zeiss. The ikon wins this easily - it appears that the Ikon has some sort of multicoating, and the view is wonderfully crisp and clear - noticably so over the M6 0.58x. I imagine the MP finder is similarly crisp, although not as large.

RF EFFECTIVE BASE LENGTH: Point zeiss. Big win here - most notable attribute over the sheer size of VF. As a glasses wearing 35mm-lens shooter, the Zeiss has the only viewfinder friendly enough to use with wide angles and glasses, yet also keep a long effective base length for very fast 50mm and tighter lenses. This makes it much more versatile. In my case, it's not such a big deal as I'm only really interested in 35mm and wider lenses, but if I also wanted to use say a 90mm summicron I really wouldn't want to try it on with the 0.58x leica. I ruled out the 0.72x leica after trying it very briefly, it wasn't good enough for 35mm with glasses for me (other's milage may vary of course).

RF PATCH: Point Leica. Yes, despite all the stink kicked up about the M6 flare problem, it's at apparently at it's least worst with the 0.58x incarnation of the VF, and has really not been a big problem for me in all sorts of extreme conditions. The Ikon however has it's achilles heel in the RF's total willingness to dissapear if your eye is anything other than exactly over the centre of the VF. It's true that with practice & sobriety the Zeiss problem becomes nearly a non-issue, but when shooting vertically (or more importantly) late at night with plenty of whiskey under my belt the Ikon's decentreing problem came up more often than the flare problem on the M6, even after many months of use. The only situations that can temporarily disable the leicas RF patch is extreme condensation (common to any RF, Ikon included) - say when walking out of a boiling hot bar onto a cold street - and putting your finger over the RF window (little tip: when I first got my M6, I put my fingers on the window a lot, and it looked like RF flare - I got pretty worked up about the M6 till I realised this, now it's a non issue). I also like the way the leica's RF patch, unlike the zeiss, shifts to stay centred in the frame when doing parallax corrections at close focusing distances, although it's just a pleasantry really. Mind you, the RF patch is the point the two manufactures should most be embarrased about really - the M6 for the whiteout issue, and the Zeiss for the "dissapear on decentreing" issue.


SHUTTER/SHUTTER RELEASE
Pros and cons here.

SHUTTER RELEASE: Point Zeiss. The M6 shutter release is to my mind pretty poorly designed, and unpleasant to use unless it has a softrelease mounted, in which case it's very very plesant to use. The M6 has for me a big achilles heel in that there is no "off" mode for the shutter - the Zeiss (and M7) do not have this problem, thankfully. Basically, because there is no dedicated mechanical means to prevent accidental shutter release on the M6, leica decided to make the release have very long travel - in fact so long that unless your hand/finger is posititoned right, you really have to jam it down, causing extra unwanted jerkiness/vibration. If you put a softrelease (such as Tom A's) on, it transforms and becomes a very very smooth and pleasant experience, easy to handhold steadily, but becomes a hairtrigger for accidental shutter actuations (say when putting it in my everpresent Domke F803 satchel). So I'm forever taking on/off my softrelease. I'm actually not comfortable with my M6 unless it has a softrelease on - it's really truly worth it. The Ikon, by the way, has a very nice On/Off sliding switch around the shutter that works great, and prevents accidental shutter actuations and draining the battery. The shutter action on the Zeiss is perfectly adequate, not as pleasant as the M6 when using a softrelease, but does the job very well.

SHUTTER SOUND: Point leica, but really not by much. I was expecting a much bigger difference here - if I recall right, the actual decibel levels of the M6 and ZI are the same, it's just that the Ikon has a slightly more metallic sound. Really, to my mind, it would be nuts to pick one or the other on basis of shutter sound - if you really care that much, use a Hexar AF (a truly quiet camera).

SHUTTER MECHANISM: Tie. I like the Zeiss Ikon for it's extra stop of speed at the high end (ZI 1/2000 sec vs M6 1/1000) and the fact that it's not susceptible to burning in the sun if lens is left at wide aperture. I like the Leica because aside from risk of burning in bright sun the cloth shutter seems to be bombproof - on my first ZI, the shutter once locked in the open position and I had to release it with my fingernail, no such concerns with the M6.


FILM LOADING

Ease of use: Tie. Boy was this this an over-hyped issue! I thought I was going to have to be a master of physics, biology and thermodynamics just to load film into the Leica. I can't really remember any specific reason why, just general doubt and insinuations, but I'm sure I'm not the only person to have felt this way (if they haven't actually tried it). The only downside to the leica is that you have to detach the base from the body, which is a shame, just in case for some crazy reason you dropped it and it fell down a ravine. Aside from that, they are both very easy to load.

Reliability: Leica. Aside from the potential risk of dropping the removable base, the leica film loading appears to be bomb proof. I actually had to have my first ZI replaced due to a mechanical problem with the film winding mechanism. That said, it was speedily replaced by the wonderful Noriaki from matsuiyastore on ebay, under warranty, so I can't really get too mad about that.



Well - I'm afraid I've run out of time for tonight. Next time will talk about metering - which is a big deal for me, and probably my main decider between the two.

Here's a couple more low res poor quality scans from thailand to tide you over!

catnashi


joe on the job




Cheers!
papasnap

 

[Rayt]

So far I like what I see. Looking to forward to more. Impressive film that 400x!

 

[papasnap]

So far I like what I see. Looking to forward to more. Impressive film that 400x!

It really is - Provia 400X and the f1.2 nokton go together like hot weather and beer 😉

 

[papasnap]

this is brilliant - i would love to make a photo like this one. can you make it a bit bigger please? i would love to have it...

Thanks! I'm a sucker for a) reflections and b) double exposures. I don't do the latter often though. After I put up the higher res scans, send me an email/PM and I'll send you a scan of it.

Cheers!
Papasnap

 

[papasnap]

can you articulate the depiction style you seek in more detail please? Always keen to see others interpretations of both Thailand and Laos.

will try and do more of that in my following posts! 🙂

 

[Debusti Paolo]

Great Work!!!I'm waiting for more pics...just for information I think that my bronica has a better viewfinder than my m6 titan,and when i used with delta 3200 i've got great pics.