Leica Diary - Everything within Reason

Ever since the release of the Leica M9 in 2009 I wanted one of them. But, at the time I didn't have the funds to acquire such a device…. until recent.

Last week I bought myself a Leica M9 (black) along with two Zeiss lenses and an additional battery. The glass of my (second) choice was the Zeiss Biogon 2.8/28mm ZM T* and the Zeiss C-Sonnar 1.5/50mm ZM T*. These lenses were second choice, because I'd rather had the Leica versions of those lenses, but these are kinda hard to get your hands on (extremely long waiting lists).

UPDATE: In the meantime, I acquired a 35mm Summicron-M f/2, and a 50mm Summilux-M f/1.4 Asph. The Carl Zeiss C-Sonnar 1.5/50mm ZM T* is for sale at this moment.

The following posts should represent my experiences with the Leica M system camera, and I hope to address both the good and the bad things about this legendary camera system.

Note that this 'blog' holds the oldest post first. The reason for this is that you can read it in a chronological fashion. So the updates will be at the end.

Entries from June 1, 2011 - June 30, 2011

Tuesday

Jun282011

Day 1: Unpacking

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 21:39

The unpacking was a real joy. Under every piece of carton was something hidden. Eventually all the usual things;

Camera
Battery
Battery charger
Neck strap
USB cable
Manual (multilingual)

There was also some additional stuff. Something you won't get with other camera's;

Adobe Lightroom v3 license voucher.
Accessible online after registering the camera with Leica.
A free 6-months subscription to LFI
a car charger

The unpacking of the lenses was fairly normal. A box with some foam and the lenses in plastic. I must say that these lenses are absolutely gorgeous. Small, and an extremely good building quality. Even better than my 20mm Voigtländer lens (Nikon mount).

After the unpacking came: the charging of the batteries…. Should have done that the minute I got home…. Now it's off to bed.

Willem |

Day 2: First Use

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 20:36

The experience of not being able to start using the new gear was new to me, but then again; I could have charged the batteries as soon as I got home…. which I didn't. Anyway, time to start using this Leica M9 Rangefinder camera.

The M9 is a step back if you compare its features with those of a modern digital camera / SRL;

No autofocus
No through-the-lens viewfinder (forgetting to remove the lens cap is a reality and the result is a series of black photos)
a very basic menu
incomplete / inaccurate EXIF information since the f-stop of the lens is being 'guessed' by the camera.

So, using a Leica M9 is basically stepping back into the stone ages of photography… for most of us.

Using the viewfinder needs some getting used to (understatement). The illuminated frame-lines, and other information in the viewfinder is strange. Especially, when you're used to a dSLR. But practice makes perfect, and in this case; practice is mainly getting used to the M9 interface.

Some in-house (test)shooting with the M9 showed that focussing is not that hard, but that an aperture of f/1.5 required some serious steady hands. Before you know it the focus plain has shifted a couple of centimeters. Normally not an issue but with a depth-of-field of several millimeters……. It's a whole different ballgame.

The following photo was taken with an aperture of f/1.5.

Willem |

Day 3: Focussing and Tripod-usage

Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 22:45

Holding the M9 in the landscape / normal 'mode', and trying to focus on e.g. horizontal bars is hard. This has to do with the focussing mechanism of the M9. In those cases you need to rotate the M9 90 degrees to the portrait 'mode'. Doing this should make it a whole lot easier to get the horizontal bars in focus.

The M9 has a tripod mount point (screw) at the base, but since I have an Arca-Style bullhead this is not that handy. Fortunately, I still had a Wimberly Arca-style camera plate (P-5 Camera body plate) which fits just perfectly under the M9.

Willem |