[Leica] My first week with Leica

[Nathan Wajsman <nathan.wajsman@euronet.be>]

Dear all,

I thought I would share my experiences with the M6, which I have now
owned for about 10 days. While I have been taking pictures (always as a
hobby) since 1985, I am completely new to Leica. I have until now always
shot mostly with SLRs (Pentax); I also owned a Hasselblad 501 for a few
years but sold it last year because I was not using it enough. I have
now shot 4 rolls of film with the M6, transparencies and black&white.
Mostly with the 2.0/35mm Summicron which I got first, but also one with
the 1.4/75mm Summilux which I got a few days ago.

The things that I really like about the M6:

1) The beautiful finish and general air of fine craftmanship;

2) The back-to-basics approach. While shooting mostly autofocus SLR the
past year or so, I had forgotten the joy of carefully composing an image
in the viewfinder, to think about things like hyperfocal distance,
exposure etc. The M6 encourages this kind of approach, which for me has
brought back the fun in photography.

3) The superb lenses. When I looked at the first slides shot with the
Summicron, I was floored by the sharpness of the image, corners and
centre. I also shot a very familiar scene, namely the view from my
backyard, which faces fields and often looks very beautiful in the
morning as the sun rises and burns off the fog. The Summicron captured
the mood of the scene like no other lens I own. Last weekend, I walked
around Brussels' Grand'Place, taking pictures of the tourists and the
beautiful buildings on Ilford XP2. Again, the sharpness of the images is
amazing. I will put some of those on my web page, but of course the
scanner and monitor resolution will not do them justice.

4) The smallness of the outfit compared to an SLR.

5) The short shutter lag which allowed me to capture an image of a
Japanese tourist trying to get his little son to pose, an image I doubt
I would have gotten with my autofocus SLR (the scene did not last very
long at all).

6) The fact that everything except the meter works even if the batteries
die. With my autofocus motorized SLR, no batteries=no pictures.

7) The helpful people here on LUG (and on Compuserve's photography
forum), who answer questions quickly, point me in the right direction
for information, and provide a supportive, mostly flame-free
environment.

The negative aspects are few. Of course there is the price of the stuff,
but I do not mind paying for this level of quality. Focusing with the
rangefinder is not always easy, but I am sure it is a question of
learning and getting used to it. The meter is nice to have and seems
very accurate (I have compared the readings to those given by my
Seconic, which I know is accurate), but I wish that the indications in
the viewfinder were more comprehensive.

I look forward to many years with this little gem and hopefully also of
hanging out on this list.

Nathan Wajsman
Overijse, Belgium