Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/02/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi LUG I was up in North Thailand about 10 days back and I had the opportunity to photograph some of the Karen tribal folks. It was a difficult decision whether to bring my Nikon or my Leica camera but in the end the Nikon won basically for two reasons. One was that I took slides for an important AV presentation and the Nikon F90 allows me to shoot with auto exposure and auto focus. Some of the shots had to be taken on the move and with the subject being unaware. The autofocus did a fine job and almost all my slides were good. The other reason was that I was going to be in unknown territory, and I was more prepared to write off my Nikon rather than my Leica. Most of the hill tribal children were frightened of the big black Nikon and the equally big Tamron 28-200 zoom lens. No thanks to Nippon Kogaku for terrifying the kiddies. The Nikon F90 does indeed look like a menacing piece of equipment to someone unfamiliar with a camera. The slides showed the terror on the kids' faces and that is one major point against the Nikon. I personally believe the look of a Leica M chrome camera would have been better accepted by these folks. The other point against the Nikon is the inherent "slowness" of the SLR shutter compared with the Leica-M. Many of the shots were a split second too slow and showed the expressions wearing off. With the leica, these expressions would have been recorded spot on. We were accompanied by an English speaking Karen young man who did a tremendous job getting the tribal folks warmed up to our presence. We had almost full cooperation. I eventually shot 7 rolls in 24 hours. A great photographic experience! Dan K.