[Leica] M7 and "Laziness"

[Alan Weinschel <alan_weinschel@yahoo.com>]

I am new to this group, having gotten my first Leica just a few weeks
ago, an M7.  I have used Nikon gear for years and tried out Contax G2
for a year and a half. The issue here, I submit is what do you want to
control -- not laziness. I gave up the AF of the Contax for the
increased control of the Leica -- knowing precisely where you are
focused and being able to look at a DOF scale. Any built in metering
system, whether AE or not, can cause laziness if what you end up doing
is using the camera as a point and shoot. Thinking that if you just
twist the dial until you're matched that your exposure is "correct"
won't give you a good image if you don't think about the scene's
brightness or lack thereof or precisely where you want to take your
measurement -- so its possible to be lazy with any system. Indeed, when
I was learning photography (which was before good built in meters, the
ultimate laziness was not using a meter but relying on a sort of sense
of what the scene needed for exposure -- of course that led to many
improperly exposed frames. At the other end of the spectrum, the Nikon
F5 metering system may be the best I've seen in terms of not having to
think too much and being allowed to concentratre more on composition.
It has an uncanny ability to look at the scene and expose properly even
when it is way off of 18% gray.  But even that system requires thought
about where to meter, where to focus, etc.  The point is I don't
consider myself lazy because I have an M7 or because I sometimes use an
autofocus, auto everything. Just that my limited brain cells are doing
different things with different cameras. 

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