Re: Leica - starter camera


With all the M6 TTL bashing that's going on at the moment, I thought I'd offer an alternative perspective---and because it allows me to confuse the matter further without causing any actual injury ;)

I have, use, and love the M6 TTL 0.58x for one simple reason: the 35mm frameline sits by itself. This most glorious trait it shares with the venerable M2. With a 35mm lens mounted (which, for many Leica rangefinder photographers, amounts to a large proportion of the time) the 35mm frameline is present in full, uninterrupted glory without any additional distracting framelines. Unfortunately, the .58x has 75mm framelines (which it could loose) that clutters up an otherwise excellent 50mm view, and also 90mm framelines (which, at 0.58x magnification is about as close to useless as is legally possible without actually crossing over the line). The 90 frameline is shown together with the 28, but I find that these are so different that it doesn't make much of an intrusion: although given a choice, I'd certainly lose it in an instance.

To me, rangefinders are the perfect moderate-wide-angle-to-normal-focal-length cameras. I find the 0.58x magnification to be a perfect 28mm/35mm/50mm camera. While I never use the TTL flash function, the extra 2mm height doesn't bother me. Nor does the shutter speed dial which rotates in the opposite direction of my M2. I find that the M6 TTL and M2 are sufficiently different cameras that in practice it is not an issue.

I can't rember if the non-flash-TTL M6 was ever made with the 0.58x viewfinder magnification, but if it was, it was probably only a few hundred examples, pricing it into the ionosphere, way above the stratosphere where most Leicas are found. The .58x M6TTL is, by comparison, relatively common and should be affordable.

The best advice though is probably this: get your hands on a few different rangefinders and shoot a couple of rolls of film with each one, perhaps over an afternoon or so (LUG meets, local Leicaphiles, or the LHSA gatherings are good opportunities for this; second hand stores with a humane return policy would be another). The only person who can really tell you what camera you should buy... is you.

M.


=========================================================
To Unsubscribe: Send email to leica-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in 
the Subject field. The acknowledgment that you then receive MUST be replied to 
per instructions. You may also log in to the Web interface to unsubscribe.

Other related posts: