[Leica] Best Learning Camera

[leica_r8 at hotmail.com (Aram)]

As a former teacher, perhaps you should check with her teacher first.  A 
rangefinder might not be something they would want her to start with as they 
may be totally unfamiliar with one and not be of much help.  Just thinking 
out loud from a teacher's perspective.  I know it was always a challenge 
when I had 15 students all with different cameras and I had to learn how to 
help them with all of them.  But at least in the film days, they were all 
basically the same and when you put them in manual mode or even A or T 
metering, they all worked the same.  I can really see a nightmare situation 
with a class of digital cameras where they are all different with all those 
buttons and menu options in different locations all over the camera.  Some 
with f-stop rings some not.  Some with shutter speed rings, some not.  How 
to change ISO?  Focus modes?  Metering modes?   Whew!!!  And then toss a 
rangefinder in the mix, which the teacher most likely has never handled.  Of 
course, the teacher could look on it as a learning experience and really 
like it.

Of course, as has been said, what better teacher than Tina, but Tina will 
not be with her at school.

So, that is just my 2 cents worth.

Aram



-----Original Message----- 
From: Adam Bridge
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 9:57 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] Best Learning Camera

If I were me I?d go the M8 route with an affordable 35mm or 50mm lens. 
She?ll 
learn to make her own decisions because she?ll have to. The controls aren?t 
fussy, the camera is a brick.

Rangefinder instead of mirrorless? Good to know about framing, about seeing. 
The camera will help her.

AND the camera has history - it?s connected to you. You?ll get to tell her 
about using it. It?ll have a meaning that a new camera could never have. 
Brassed? Even better.

Great presents connect past and future, giver and receiver.

The M8 would make a wonderful gift. Then use the extra money to find a lens 
or two on e-bay or somewhere. They don?t have to be fabulous optics, just 
good enough to learn.

And no matter what decision you make she?ll always have grandma to talk to 
about her photos: priceless!

Adam

> On 2016 Nov  29, at 8:44 AM, Tina Manley <tmanley at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> LUG:
>
> My granddaughter is 15 and into all things artistic.  She is taking
> photography in high school and is very interested, following me around
> asking lots of good questions.
>
> I'd like to get her a good camera for Christmas that she can use to learn.
> She's very interested in f stops and focal lengths and the differences 
> they
> make.
>
> One choice would be to give her one of my old M8's but the disadvantage to
> that is that she will not be able to afford extra lenses for it.  I have 
> an
> old Elmar 65/3.5 that I would include but I don't have a lot of surplus
> lenses.
>
> Is there another digital camera out there that would be good for learning
> apertures, speeds, focal lengths?  Most of them are so automatic you don't
> ever have to know what those are but she wants to know!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tina