Re: [Leica] lower classes don't use leicas?

[Tarek Charara <tarek.charara@wanadoo.fr>]

le 04.09.2001 10:59, Mxsmanic à mxsmanic@hotmail.com a écrit :

> Tarek writes:
> 
>> If I understand you correctly, you use
>> Nikon for professional work and Leica for
>> your (p)leisure?
> 
> For the most part, yes.  The need to manually adjust a camera for each shot is
> slow and error-prone, and for many types of work this is unacceptable.  The
> limited conditions under which a Leica can take photos (shutter speeds, for
> example) are another problem.  The lack of speedy service is also a potential
> problem, although Leica gear is generally reliable enough and simple enough
> that
> I should be very surprised if it failed at a critical moment (but if I were
> truly working against a deadline, this risk would be enough to exclude Leica).

In my experience, errors came when I didn't control what I was doing.
Anything automatic (Exposure or focusing) is only reliable to a certain
extent. AF and AE can be fooled.

There is no way around knowing your camera and meter (tools). There is no
way around practice. And no way around learning from your errors.

As for the limited conditions under which a Leica can take photos... Sorry,
but you'll have to be more precise on that one. Shutterspeeds are not a real
problem unless you have the wrong film in your camera (nothing a ND filter
won't solve), what else? lenses?

As to the lack of speedy service, the Atelier 102 is pretty speedy. As to
deadlines, any camera that breaks down will delay you. It's always better to
have a spare body at hand. A friend of mine who used to work with AP had a
very nice technique: He had a couple of C***n T90 bodies to work with. If
one failed he'd throw it away and buy a new one. He used to work manually
for that matter and covered most of the big war events between 78 and 85.
Before having T90's he had Ftb's and F1'S... that's pretty manual and with
limited shutterspeeds.

> 
> A Leica is much more useful for exterior portraits, some types of journalistic
> work that do not involve time constraints, and street photography where
> simplicity and discretion are important (but time is not).

It's a wonderful tool for travel photography, indoor portraits, any kind of
journalistic work (I've seen M6 bodies that still worked after losing the
viewfinder glass!), involving HUGE time constraints. I understand that this
cannot be your case if you need 90 seconds alone to load film into the M6.

> 
> Overall, Leica cameras are a pleasure to use and they are optically second to
> none, but these do not outweigh their disadvantages for most professional
> work.
> The exception is freelance "on spec" photography without time or performance
> constraints, such as that of HCB and other famous Leica photographers.  At one
> time Leica was the leader in photojournalism, but that was before SLRs came to
> offer superior performance for PJ use; if it were not for SLR competiton, of
> course, M rangefinders would still be the leaders (they are certainly
> improvements over Speed Graphics).

Being a freelance, I disagree. The whole issue about what camera is the best
for a profession or such is total BS. In the end it's the picture that
counts. Clients pay me for pictures not for using a Leica. I happen to feel
at ease with the Leica M system and use it most of the time, to make money
and for my pleasure. This reminds me of the time when computers came into
the publishing. Lot's of people thought that buying a Macintosh would simply
eliminate a professional layouter or art director... It's not the tool that
counts, but the person that's handling the tool. Being un-experienced or
un-creative is hardly compensated by a tool.

Tarek