What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

@Well_is_it Bro

£500 ONO in London. That looks like a very good price to me...
I won't buy it but if someone else does I can stop looking at it.

Following up on the Leica talk, I had the m8->m9p then got the Sony a7r when it first came out and shot it side by side with m9, then changed to the m240 and shot that side by side with the a7r until I sold the a7r.

I preferred the Leica with Leica lenses and since I had more money invested in lenses than bodies it helped sway the decision. I would have kept the a7r and added the native 50 that you've had if the choice had been against the m9. The m9 is missing the evf which is really useful at times, the ccd sensor on the m9 is lovely but you can emulate it with an m240. M9 low light performance is poor, and there's no high speed sync for flash. Bodies are heavy, batteries will be weak by now, shutter is very noisy and you need all the extras like covers etc. If you do decide to get one, try to get the m9p in black, it's gorgeous, still miss the looks.

If you are mostly shooting in bright daylight, I.e. Daytime abroad, you can get away with a 3 lens kit 28,50,90 for travel with an m9 or m240. That's about £4K for a second hand set of 28-2.8/50-2/90-4, the idea of a single 35mm originates in photojournalism and I've found a 3 lens kit is more like the minimum although you are going to want a 35 too so that another £1k.

The bodies lose around £500 p.a. But you can buy low and sell high occasionally. The m9 has an issue with the sensor and Leica will replace the sensors for free but it can take 2 months to get it done.

I'm thinking about getting an a7rii and 50mm despite owning the m240 and a dozen lenses, the 2 kits are quite complimentary. If you pick one you'll probably still want the other. You'll always want a monochrom as well, we all do!

Oof. That's tempting. I'm trying to miniaturise as much as possible though so will leave that one to you!

To add to the whole Leica or Sony talk, Leica wide angle lenses (35mm and wider) have really bad colour shift and vignetting at the edges when used on the Sonys. It's something to do with the thickness of the glass on the sensor. Basically, it's not a magic bullet camera but that's always the case with anything.

Thank you all for your input.

I won a ebay auction for a Leica M9. Now the seller says he cant ship outside the UK. I told him that i have relatives there that he can sent to or a courier address i'm registered to. He refuses as he wants a verified paypal address of the buyer.

Is it really that hard to go to a DHL office and sent a package??

He's obliged to send it to the PayPal address registered to the account that pays to protect himself. I sent an m9 to the us, it was expensive and a pain the arse.

That was a reason for my decision. It's fairly minor longer than 35mm, but the edge smearing from 35mm down is nasty. It's pixel peeping realms but once you see it!

The 50mm for the Sony is supposed to be pretty good though. Autofocus is nice sometimes. I've had some great results from Leica kit but it's changed the way I take photographs.

Good choice! Hope you can sort out the postage situation

so 2100 euro is a good price for a used M9?

Yeah man. You haz lenses already?

just a voigtlander 21mm. will probably sell for a 35mm or save up for a 50 and keep the 21

Oh, sweet. Hang on to that one. I really like their 40mm pancake.

i've read great things about it but apparently Leicas don't have 40mm frame lines in the rangefinder!

True dat. It will still work though, right? At least in live view if the rangefinder won't line up.

I'm considering the 35 1.2 more or the 50 1.1. If i eventually get an M9 i know that is useless at high ISO so a fast lens may come in handy when needed

The 40mm summicron-c which was not built for the M series (hence the c) is great as a lightweight walk around lens but it does suffer from Chromatic Aberration, so you can have problems shooting anything with the sun behind it. It's a high contrast lens and has a vintage look to it, I love mine but it's sometimes disappointing, B&W conversions are usually great with this lens. The 50 1.4 asph is a superb lens, if you can get along with the 50mm length the rendering is superb.

The 50 1.1 is not an easy lens to focus as it has a tiny depth of field wide open, so small that the eyes could be in focus with the tip of the nose blurred. It's also very heavy. You would probably do better to shoot medium format if this is the look you want all the time. There are variations in quality and you need to make sure the rangefinder and lens are calibrated and match to get the best from it. The 35 1.2 I've never tried, personally I'm not a 35mm shooter, I prefer the 28 for wide and the 50 as a normal, each to their own on that one though.

It's a journey of discovery, I'm at the stage where I use a flash with high speed sync indoors/at night for portraits because despite the speed of the lenses you can get great results that way. I tried for years to combat less than ideal conditions with candid low light photography but it lead to a lot of frustration.

If you want to find out about Leica lenses without spending thousands there's a great book by Erwin Puts called Leica Lens Compendium. There's an early version pdf knocking about the web. It's well worth reading.

There's no live view on the M9. You get used to framing the 40mm using the lines that do appear in the rangefinder. With the M9 you can always switch to the 35mm lines and compose just inside those.

.

1 Attachment

Thanks @Airhead for your input. To be honest i never had a 35mm lens. If i do get to keep the 21mm i will go for the 50. If not i will get a 35. Leica lenses are a bit out of reach for me financially. I will go with voigtlander lenses for the moment and i like the format i will continue from there.

Btw just paid for a black M9 :)

Lol

It's practical for some of the odd lenses, 135mm/90 macro/wider than 28mm.

The Zeiss 50/1.4 is one of the cheaper fast 50's. It suffers from focus shift when you stop it down to 5.6 on an M though. OK once you get used to adjusting for it. Very nice lens for portraits.

The Zeiss 50/2 is a great lens, no focus shift and small, you can get them second hand for around £400.

Congrats on the M9, if it's not had the sensor replaced yet then have a look at the status of the replacement program. I'm pretty sure they are going to cover them for life but it's worth checking.

I will look into the zeiss lenses. i've heard good things about the 35 1.4.

The seller told me it was checked in Berlin and it didnt need the sensor replacement. I will contact them in Cyprus to have it checked again sometime. Its a good thing it is not changed yet and i helped my decision to get it.

Awkward...

Some ridicoulous prices for an X-pro1. Found three at £200. Thinking in getting one as backup. Evf and peak focus mean you can put any lens on.