[Leica] S2 envy...

[jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)]

Geoff,
Of course you can. My view is that if I have to stop down to f5.6 or f8,
then any current equivalent Nikon prime (and some zooms) would deliver
results that would be 95+% of the quality of Leica M. A 50mm Nikon lens, for
example, can be had for USD120 or so. The big advantage with Leica M lenses,
as I see it (and have always seen it from the film days), is that unlike any
other manufacturer, they are optimized to be used wide open. That is what
makes it worthwhile to pay $$$$ for a lens.

I really would love to have a M9 equivalent with Nikon-level low light
performance and with autofocus. I would buy it like a shot, even with new
lenses for street shooting! I have been trying the micro 4/3 cameras to try
and achieve this, but universally their low light performance is abysmal and
the lenses, barring a few exceptions, leave a lot to be desired, and
manually focusing Leica M lenses on EVFs wide open is not for the faint
hearted. The Nikon D700, despite its weight, always comes out ahead by the
end!

Cheers
Jayanand


On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Geoff Hopkinson <hopsternew at 
gmail.com>wrote:

> Yep your Nikons make perfect sense for what you do Jayanand and an M9 would
> be the wrong tool.
> But Ive never followed this 'religious' position that M lenses must only be
> used wide open (nor the commandant about thou shalt not use a tripod)!
> Most of mine are fast and I use them wide open if I want/need to but much
> of
> the time do not. They don't perform worse when you stop them down a couple
> of f stops!
> They do allow you to control the depth of field exactly as you want and
> they
> will still do a superb job if I need them to be fully open.
>
> Cheers
> Geoff
>
>