Leica M8 - is the lens mount THAT expensive?

Chris Loffredo wrote:
Are you impressed by the sound of a Stradivarius, or is the typical MIDI
synth sound good enough for you...

One might also ask if you are impressed with the prints from a 4x5
camera or
is 35mm good enough for you...

Scott

"Scott W" wrote:
Chris Loffredo wrote:
Are you impressed by the sound of a Stradivarius, or is the typical MIDI
synth sound good enough for you...

One might also ask if you are impressed with the prints from a 4x5
camera or is 35mm good enough for you...

Unlike violins, however, 35mm _IS_ good enough for smaller prints. At 8x12,
at its best, 35mm can be flipping amazing, just as 8MP digital can be. By
12x18, however, it's another story. That's medium format (and 12.7MP
digital) territory. 4x5 starts to sing at 16x20, where it's a mere 4x
enlargement from the filmg.

(Actually, violins aren't all that different. The reason you want a Strad is
to be heard at the back of the hall over the orchestra; a good violinist can
get a wonderful sound out of a Vuilllame or a Cuypers or any of a dozen
other second-string makers (cheaper instruments in the US$30,000 to
US$100,000 range) but for bigger halls, you need the more expensive
instrument.)

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

That would be the experience of using a $10,000 camera outfit to take the
same mediocre photos you could take with a Canon Rebel?

Doug


I was referring to the Leica experience.

David Ruether wrote:


20 years use of a Nikon FM, F, F2 & FE2 with (often) the 35mm f/2.0 lens. I have to disagree...
:-)
(Ehm... No size fits all?)

Guess so........, if you say so, but I'll wager my 40 years experience
agin yer 20 years they I'm right...! 8^)


Hmmm... I notice that you actually *do* have a "bit" of experience using
Nikons...
:-)

Cheers!

Scott W wrote:

Nicholas O. Lindan wrote:
There are very few true dogs in camera land. 99% of the
cameras work better than 99% of the photographers using them.
BTW this is total nonsense and you should know it. For the vast
majority of photo their camera is a bit limiting factor on how good
their photos look.

Very true and most are so automated there is nothing you can do as a
photographer to change this. 90% are as uncontrollable as a brownie was.
I've been teaching photography classes and most of the cameras my students
bring are useless for trying to teach photography with.
--

Stacey

Stacey writes:
Very true and most are so automated there is nothing you can do as a
photographer to change this. 90% are as uncontrollable as a brownie was.
I've been teaching photography classes and most of the cameras my students
bring are useless for trying to teach photography with.

The most manual camera in the world has no settings to adjust the
composition of a picture, or its subject matter, or its lighting
(beyond firing or not firing a flash). These factors almost always
determine the quality of a photo much more than any manual departures
from an automatic camera's focus and exosure settings would.

Paul Rubin wrote:
Stacey writes:
Very true and most are so automated there is nothing you can do as a
photographer to change this. 90% are as uncontrollable as a brownie was.
I've been teaching photography classes and most of the cameras my students
bring are useless for trying to teach photography with.

The most manual camera in the world has no settings to adjust the
composition of a picture, or its subject matter, or its lighting
(beyond firing or not firing a flash). These factors almost always
determine the quality of a photo much more than any manual departures
from an automatic camera's focus and exosure settings would.

Clearly we approach photography in a complete different way, I always
control the setting of the camera never letting the camera guess what I
want. I know what DOF I want, I know where I want to focus. I know
the sweet spots from my lenses if I want the sharpest photos. I know
how steady I can hold the camera, the setting of the camera is going
to be way different it I have it on a tripod vs. hand held vs. standing
on a pitching boat.

Beyond some cameras not allowing control of the setting most cheap
cameras do not do well in low light, and many cameras has not provision
for extern flash units.

Also a good camera will allow for the use of much longer lenses hand
held.

As I said before you can get a good photo with just about any camera,
but a good camera allows you do shoot a much wider range of subjects
under a much wider range of conditions.

Scott

In article ,
Chris Loffredo wrote:

Scott W wrote:
Paul Rubin wrote:
"jeremy" writes:
Ah Ha! Now we get to the truth! So it's NOT about taking better photos
after all, it's about the sense of gratification that comes from using the
equipment!!!!!
Well, yeah, that's what most of us here on the newsgroup are here for.
Of course that gratification can show up in the pictures, just like
you may be able to get a better musical performance out of yourself on
a really good instrument than on a cheap one.

This guy expresses the Leica situation pretty well:

http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy/leicaslacker/

Yes he did sum it up and pretty much what he said was there was little
if any
reason to ever buy a Leica.


LOL!

Film- and Leica-bashers really are humour-challenged (to put it mildly)...

I imagine some exec at Leica thought
"we need to offer some digital thingy, Hassy has so why not us? We know
our 'Leica or nothing' users will snap it up no matter what so let's
just cobble something together and put an outrageous price tag on it"

In article ,
"William Graham" wrote:

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
...
"Paul Rubin" wrote:

If you want to try a rangefinder, you can get a Yashica Electro on
Ebay pretty cheap. Using it will be a little bit more Leica-like than
using an SLR.

Even more Leica-like than that would either be a used Minolta CL (US$300
to US$600 for the body) or the (Cosina made) Voigtlander Bessa, both of
which are fake Leicas with the Leica M mount.

Like the Leica, both of those produce postage stamp sized negatives or
slides in the subminiature 24x36mm format.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Is this rec.photo.equipment.subminiature ?

I think he's confusing 35mm with 16mm, or then again he could be a time
traveller from the days when 5x4 was the standard

"Stewy" wrote:
"William Graham" wrote:
"David J. Littleboy" wrote:

Like the Leica, both of those produce postage stamp sized negatives or
slides in the subminiature 24x36mm format.

Is this rec.photo.equipment.subminiature ?

I think he's confusing 35mm with 16mm, or then again he could be a time
traveller from the days when 5x4 was the standard

The latter. I use medium format for anything that doesn't need to go larger
than 13x19.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan