[Leica] Geoff, you can smirk now...

[richard at imagecraft.com (Richard Man)]

Well, the M9 is really a perfect camera for what I do: landscape fine arts
more than 500 feet away from a car.

First, the worst flaw: sensor dirt. I think I finally got some really clean
images today. Lots of cleaning and I have to be super careful on how to
change lens (make sure the caps are clean, turn the camera upside down
etc.). I know those are good practices but I have been spoiled by self
cleaning systems. Not a big deal to change my working habits.

The best? All the appeal of the Leica M. While the Mamiya 7II with 3 lens
package is not a whole lot bigger than the M9 and a few lens, the film
changing is a pain. I average ~120-140 pics a day, so not too bad in terms
of equivalent film usage, but I can freely takes shots for their snapshots
"I was there" photos in addition to the fine arts shots I am looking for.
While climbing up rocks or taking a 4 hour hike in the desert with no shade,
I remember Barnack's original vision of "small negatives, big prints." This
is actually one of the reasons why the Zeiss 24 appeals as it has more even
performance across the frame, not just optimal in the center.

I brought a tripod but didn't use it except for the couple waterfall shots
in the Southland2 set.

I took a number of shots where I am going to crop them to horizontal pano,
ala XPan'ish format. Obviously these will have lower resolution (1/2 to 1/3
:-( ). If I pick up a 21 or 18, it will mostly used for cropped pano format,
so the even performance across the whole frame is of topmost importance.

I am doing another portfolio review in two weeks, so I will be doing a lot
of printing in the coming days...

-- 
// richard <http://www.imagecraft.com/> blog: <
http://imagecraft.wordpress.com>
// portfolio: <http://www.dragonsgate.net/pub/richard/PICS/AnotherCalifornia
>
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