Leica à la Carte

Leica M7 à la CarteThis post is for everyone who wishes me the best. In this case, the best à la carte (film-based) Leica M camera. Our German friends @ Leica created a website called 'Leica à la Carte' where you can order a fully customizable Leica M7 or MP.

They have a nice wizard where you can specify every option for the M camera, but in stead of hitting a submit button at the end, you need to download the PDF (containing the customization), print it, and (snail)mail it to a selected Leica reseller, who will order it with Leica.... A real old-skool process for an excellent old-skool film camera.

So for those who want to order me a customized Leica M7; Just download this PDF, where I did all the customization work already. Just contact me for the shipping information, and I'll send you an exclusive un-boxing video of the Leica camera, and a handwritten thank-you-note once it arrives.

The Leica M-Monochrom and More

Last Tuesday (May 10th), Leica announced a couple of new Leica goodies to the world. Of the items, the Leica X2 was the least shocking (IMO). The other two items, a monochrome version of the M9-P (Leica M-Monochrom) and a new 50mm Summicron-M f/2, were quite the news. The Leica M9-P Hermès Special Editions were just overpriced versions of the current M9-P for the filthy rich (@ $50,000 USD).

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Henschotenmeer (Woudenberg) in Black and White

Leica Rangefinder M10 Rumors

Many of you may have heard, that Leica has scheduled an event for May 10th 2012. These events fuel the speculations of the things that may be announced. One of those things being a new Leica (rangefinder) camera called the M10.

Along with this rumor, everyone has (special) feature wishes / requests that this new camera should have. Some of those (IMO ridiculous) features include:

• Auto focus
• Electronic Viewfinder
• Build-in Flash
• Black and White only sensor

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The Depressing Belgium Ardennes

Some depressing photos from the Ardennes in Belgium.... And these 'objects' are still being used by people.

A combination of a store/shop, and living quarters:

Small (literally) house in the village of Boulion:

The following photo was shot during a foggy day on the parking lot of a supermarket:

I definitely wouldn't want to live there, but is it nice to make photos some cases :-)

Leica M and Lens Caps

Normally, I would have posted the following video in the Leica diary section, but that section is about totally serious Leica subjects only ;-). What the guy in this video is demonstrating (I hope) to the videographer, is that it's easy to forget that you put the lens cap back on the lens. With (d)SLR's you don't have this problem, since you're looking through the actual lens (unless you're blind or shooting in pitch black).

Fairness to say that I've had it happen to me a couple of times, but I notice my mistake at the moment I press the shutterbutton (+3sec exposure in broad daylight?? Must have forgotten something...).

Leica M9-P review by a dSLR User

A nice (impression) review of the M9 by someone (Darren Rowse) who uses a dSLR in real life.

(via digital-photography-school.com)

Manipulating EXIF Info

The Leica M9 has no means of determining foreign or old lenses. The newer Leica lenses have a 6-bit (visual) coding mechanism for determining the lens. Problem is that this is only for (relatively new) Leica lenses. There is the possibility to manually select the lens in the menu of the M9, but that's only limited to the Leica brand lenses. No option for Carl Zeiss lenses.

For certain characteristics, and in-camera processing of the RAW image it's handy to manually select a Leica lens even though you've attached a Zeiss lens. This can be automated by coding the lenses yourself (or have Zeiss do it for €100 a lens).

All this is nice, but it still generates photos with faulty EXIF information, because you shot the photo with a CZ C-Sonnar 1.5/50mm and not with a Leica 1.4/50mm Summilux ASPH....

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Leica Blog

After I acquired a Leica M9 with peripheral equipment, I decided to document my M9 learning experiences on a seperate blog on my website. I don't know if I'll keep it like this. I might move the content to this blog. Don't know yet. Time will tell.

Anyway, in the mean time I've added some content to the new Leica blog. Check it out. I hope you'll find it usefull.

Why I Should Buy a Leica M9

Updated on Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 21:01 by Willem

Since the Leica still lingers in my head, these videos aren't really helping. Thankfully, my bank account isn't cooperating at this moment.

Or so is this blogpost (by the same author).

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