Category: Links

Why I think the M6 is the best Leica rangefinder

Japan Camera Hunter (aka Bellamy Hunt) tells us why he think the M6 is the best Leica RF (digital shooters will disapprove).

I have been through a lot of cameras in my time, and I have owned a few different Leica bodies. I have also got the enviable position of being able to try out more cameras than you can shake a stick at, and I have come to a conclusion that may put a few noses out of joint.

I think that the Leica M6 is the best M-series analogue rangefinder camera that Leica ever made! Now that I have your attention let me explain myself.

Cultivating my Leica envy I have to agree with that specific point, now that we can get them for less than 1400$ on the used market (body only !), even though I am an aperture priority kind of guy. I wish I actually had one.

Leica M6 TTL Summicron 50mm f2
Leica M6 TTL Summicron 50mm f2 by Xavier León — Some rights reserved

Buck the Nonexistent Photo Guild

James Duncan Davidson has a lengthy post Buck the Nonexistent Photo Guild (dead link not archived) about how photography for money has changed, mostly driven by technology.

One of the constant messages in photoblog circles is “Don’t work for free!” There are a bunch of arguments for this, from the formal to the informal, but they all pretty much boil down to the fear that if the market is served by others who undercut your prices, they’re reducing the amount of money you can make.

Photography for a living isn’t dead. It is just different, sometime harder because it is more accessible than ever, with cameras that makes things easier to learn and do, digital the make shot virtually cost-less, the Internet that allow spreading all of this knowledge even more widely.

Personalised and unique iPhone cover

No, I’m not trying to pimp a specific brand of cellphone and its accessory, but Say hello to iPlate is a awesome DIY project where the author uses wet collodion glass plate, and old photographic process, to make a personalised iPhone cover. This could work for any device that uses glass, or something that can be replaced by a glass plate.

Digitising film with a DSLR

Scanning Film Negatives With A DSLR – A Maker’s Guide by DIY photography.

Right now I can get higher resolution and better image quality that what street labs give you on CD.

It is not just a matter of photographing the film with a digital camera. There is must much work behind the scene, and given the price and rarity of film scanner, and the performance of even high end flatbed scan with film support like Epson V600 and V700, it might be worth it. I have always thought I good do it that way, but never went the extra effort to actually do it properly. It is probably way easier with black and white.

Remember, slide duplication was done that way, albeit with a specialised duplication film that had some very specific characteristics.

When I build one of these rigs, I’ll let you know.

Fujifilm X-Pro1 8000 frame user review

Prophotonut: Fujifilm X-Pro 1 ~ 8000 frame user review, by Damien Lovegrove, where he took the camera on a trip.

The X-Pro1 is a camera that I believe is best suited for street, travel and portrait photography. It’s not at home in a flash lit studio and it’s not fast enough for any sort of action photography. It’s definitely a niche camera and one I will love using on a daily basis.

“Some Thoughts on Digital Camera Lifespan”

Minh Thein on Petapixel has some thoughts on digital camera lifespan”

In the film days, the camera body and lenses lasted a long time; you invested in glass, got a decent body — one that fulfilled your personal needs as a photographer — and then picked the right film for the job. In that sense, image quality differences between brands were down to the lenses and the photographer.
[…]
Bottom line: the camera body now plays a much more critical role in the imaging chain because it also contains the “film”, and this isn’t something you can change when the equivalent of a new emulsion is released.

Before you increased the technical image quality with better lenses and better film. A 1950 Leica M can use modern Leica glass and modern film. Still the same camera body.

Also another point Thein raise is how digital camera are obsoleted by unavailability of things like batteries, and the risk of losing ones archive with file format incompatibilities, *cough* RAW *cough* , as well as storage solutions.

This is something to be thought about with our society being more and more throw away. I wonder if the amount of e-waste isn’t worse than the chemicals used for film processing and printing.