Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/04/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> I primarily do street shooting with 24 mm f/2, 50 mm f/1.4 and 85 mm f/ >1.4 lenses on the FM2. Occasionally I'll stick a 200 mm f/4 in my pocket, >At one time I also owned a Contax G1. I loved the small size, being able to set >the exposure manually, and the photos those Zeiss lenses took had a wonderfully >different quality compared to the Nikkors. If you are in street photography and you can work without automatic exposure and without autofocus, go for the M6. Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Klein, Winogrand, Mary Ellen Mark, Robert Frank, Salgado, etc. probably wouldn't disagree. You may keep your FM2 and a telelens, but how useful is this for street photography? You judge. I have a Nikon F3 with lots of Nikkors and an M6 with 21/35/50 and 90mm lenses. I have not touched the F3 for years until a recent trip to Senegal, where I had to take the F3 as the M6 was being repaired. At that trip I realised how much more fun it is to photograph with an M6. In addition, the Kodachromes were not as good as the usual M6 ones, they lacked spontaneity. They were overcomposed, probably the result of using a focusing screen. I also preferred the color, the contrast and the sharpness of the Leica glass. I guess that the F3, in terms of handling, is somewhat comparable to your FM2. The only problem with a new M6 will be that one needs 50-or-so rolls of film to learn to work with it. Disaster is programmed for the first rolls. Gerard Captijn, Geneva, Switzerland. Fax: +41 (22) 700 39 28.