Re: [Leica] R future

[Bernard <5521.g23@g23.relcom.ru>]

drodgers@nextlink.com wrote:

> I'd be interested to know how many people own both an R7 and and R8,
> and which they use more often. That's usually a pretty good indication
> of which body they like more.

There me, for instance. I own both, and I have winders for both. I
bought them virtually simultaneously and both were new when I bought
them. In the studio, I prefer the R8 mainly because of the auto-rewind
function. For the rest, you don't really need "features" when blasting
strobes at a model. I will even use my R6 with winder in the studio,
because all you need to do is set it to X and fire away.

I never take street candids, but I do take photos of streets I find
picturesque and of architecture in general. Of course the R8 beats the
R7 hands down. I really need the 16 sec you can set manually, and I love
the way the camera slides through MLU into B with the timer on the back
display. That is suberb. With the R7, I cannot see all the info in the
viewfinder at once; I have to move about a bit to catch a glimpse of it
all (and I don't even wear glasses). With the R8, I see everything at a
glance. The R8 shows me the frame counter in the viewfinder too, which I
find very important for studio work (I go through a roll rather quickly,
and I need to see what I've got left, so I can guide the model
accordingly). I never use EV compensation, but of course the way it's
done on the R7 is pretty inconvenient; on the R8 it's so much easier.
Then there's matrix metering. I normally use the spot, but not always,
and the matrix gets it right more often than the intergral metering
function. Again, the R8 wins. Then there's the obvious argument about
how well the controls are placed on the R8. There is more I could say,
but this is what comes to mind immediately. Oh, there's one minus to the
R8: I *love* the leather strap that comes with the old R-winders.

Conclusion: the R8 is a major feat. Hooray for Leica.

Bernard