Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/09/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Rocky Mountain National Park is wonderful--but you are right, it wants you to use longer lenses! As for R bodies, it depends on what you want to do and what you have to spend. All from the R3 forward have DOF preview. The R6, R6.2, and R7 have mirror lifters, which are important if you want to shoot REALLY long lenses or macros, since the R cameras suffer from excessive mirror slap. All of the R cameras (R3 forward) have integral metering (averaging), so there's no relevant difference there. All have spot metering too, very useful if you shoot slide film in difficult lighting situations. The R6 and 6.2 are totally manual (no automatic exposure modes); all the others have at least manual and aperture preferred operation. In addition, the R4, R5 and R7 have shutter preferred and program operation--neither of which is really needed by landscape photographers, who want after all primarily to control depth of field. The R4 had serious electronic reliability problems--I would avoid it, and its running mate the R4S. As far as I know, the other R cameras are OK. In my opinion, the R3 is a great bargain, but it is of course an old-fashioned match needle camera, and heavy. The R4SP and RE (which is in effect an R5S) are good buys, if you can get along without program and shutter preferred. All from the R4 to the R7 can take the same drives and winders--the R3 can't take drives and winders, except for the R3-MOT, and it has only a winder, and its winder is different from the other R's. As for lenses, the older (Minolta made) ~70-200 zooms (there are 3 of them) are not good with doublers. Leitz claims that the new f4 lens of that sort (Kyocera made) is good with the 2X APO converter, but then you are looking at a maximum aperture of f8, not too hot with the RMNP elk! Of course, if money and weight don't matter much, then the new 70-180 f2.8 zoom has already achieved legendary status, and is said to be excellent with the APO doubler. Of course, there are lots of vastly expensive Leitz APO long lenses, too! If you buy used equipment, the older non-APO Lietz doubler is certainly good, but needs to be used with single focal length lenses. One interesting possibility is to use it with the 180 2.8 (new series); performance and speed with the doubler there approached that of the old 350, and the lens is small and light. Also, the 180 2.8 will take the 1.4 converter, unlike most Leitz long lenses. Hope this is helpful. Good luck! See you in Estes Park! At 12:12 AM 9/30/96 -0400, you wrote: >Hi folks. > >First of all, I just got back from Rocky Mountain National Park -- >absolutely beautiful! Just waiting for the labs to finish processing all >the photos. > >While in Colorado it became clear that the time has come to begin using >longer lenses for some of the photography I want to do. As far as I can >tell, this means using R lenses on my M6 or getting a R body. > >I was hoping to elicit your opinions on either option. If I do end up >purchasing a separate body, I'd like one that offers some D of F preview >(ruling out R4, I believe) and some metering that will allow pseudo-point >and shoot use. Looking at R7 literature, that would mean "integral >metering", I think. Of course with all the R8 hype, the discounted R7 is >attractive, but still expensive. Maybe an R4-R6, ~70-200 zoom and 2x >converter? > >All comments appreciated. I'm trying to make a decision on how to spend a >reasonable amount (whatever that means nowadays) on equipment for a >December trip to India. > >Thanks! > >-Anand (time to search more lug archives) > > Charles E. Love, Jr. 517 Warren Place Ithaca, New York 14850 607-272-7338 CEL14@CORNELL.EDU