Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/05/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Tue, 18 May 1999 08:50:57 -0500, you wrote: > Recently, I have been thinking about adding a basic Leica M kit >for times when the virtues of this system would be suitable. Compact, >quiet, unobtrusive, reliable, etc. I am interested in "user" gear, not >collectability. I would probably get a 50mm or 35mm lens. The canonical suggestions (you should pardon the pun) would probably be: an M6 (for the meter), an M4-P or M4-2 (for the price), an M2 (for the lack of 135mm frameline clutter in the 35mm frame) and the M4 (cause it's just such a gosh-darn great camera). My personal preference is the M4, but that's mainly cause I got one for the price of an M2. It (along with the other 4's and the 6) has faster loading than the M2, which to me is more important than the extra effort of ignoring the 135 frame :-) I've never used the others, but I suspect that any of them would make fine entry points into an M system. After all, may photographers better than us have used them all! My advice would be to read what you can on the net including: searching the LUG at http://lq.corenetworks.com/lq/search.html?ln=leicausers and looking at Hans Pahlen's site: http://www.komvux.skola.mark.se/hp635.htm and Stephen Gandy's site: http://cameraquest.com/classics.htm then handle a few if you can before you make your decision. Once you decide what features are (and aren't) important to you at the moment, buy the best condition camera you can for the cash you have available. Good luck, and welcome to the dark side... Paul