adamdewilde wrote:
coogee - Was it the way the blacks and whites rendered or something else that drew you back to it? Nice shots with the M246 either way.
Thanks Adam. Partly the CCD thing, partly realising it was a GAS 'need to upgrade' when I was perfectly happy before. There's no doubt the M246 makes taking photos far easier, just like the M9 - M240.
Love my original MM. It does everything I need it to do and doesn't have all the stuff I don't want. It is better at 3200 and 6400 ISO than my new M 262.
If you are referring to the 262 I like it because it's lighter, quite and doesn't have all the things I don't want and would never use on a camera. I think I read it is the quietest digital M Leica has made. I know first hand that it's quieter than the M 240.
The MM is a lot of the same in regards to weight and operation. I just like it and have no reason to upgrade for the way I see and work.
airfrogusmc wrote:
If you are referring to the 262 I like it because it's lighter, quite and doesn't have all the things I don't want and would never use on a camera. I think I read it is the quietest digital M Leica has made. I know first hand that it's quieter than the M 240.
The MM is a lot of the same in regards to weight and operation. I just like it and have no reason to upgrade for the way I see and work.
Did this answer your question Adam?
Yes Allen, thanks. And I was referring to the original MM. But interesting to note your thoughts on the M262.
Still pondering torturing myself with a black and white only trip. Obviously that would involve booking a trip and buying a Monochrom (whatever I decide on).
I have shot my personal work exclusively with my MM for just over 3 years now that includes all vacations. It just fits the way I see. For me it's heaven not torture. When I travel it's the MM and 35Lux FLE, charger, extra batteries and cards. Thats it. I find that very freeing in all ways.
That will continue because the M 262 is really for my commercial work. I am moving from Canon to Leica M for everything. Sold 1 of my 5DIIs and my 200 2L and still have a 5DII and a 24L, 35L and 85L, some flashes Canon 580 and Metz 58 and other stuff I will be dumping and I will be picking up another Leica M 262 or used M9 or M-E. Hopefully by spring.
The original MM is going for really good prices lately. I think you will really be surprised at the low light capabilities. The new one is even better form what I understand. Because there is no color the original 18mps files have been compared to 36mp output from a color camera. The new MM has been compared to a 48mp camera.
I can tell you the old MM is better in low light than my 262 at 3200 and 6400 ISO. I can only imagine what the new MM is like.
A few images from the Leica Q taken the last few days in the proximity of my house in London. I have recently upgraded the firmware and it looks like Leica has quietly addressed a couple of annoyances such as the viewfinder brightness not being calibrated properly when compared to the LCD screen and recorded raw file. This initially resulted in me dialing in exposure compensation when in fact it was not needed. Distortion compensation also appears to have been refined further but I do not have any before/after shots to substantiate this. In practice I have found that after the upgrade I no longer need to fine tune straight lines though which was an issue for me previously.
The banding issue also seems to have been addressed and the quality of the DNG files is fantastic.
Dan Sin Khon is a small Thai border town at the Sing Khon pass across the Tenasserim Hills on the border with Burma. It's the narrowest point of Thailand, 13 km west of the main highway to the South. The border checkpoint has numerous shops selling Burmese handicrafts, jewelry, fossils, orchid plants from the forest (illegal in Thailand) and tourist gewgaws.
The two young Burmese women in the first picture realize that their shop sells tourist junk of little interest to most people, amd were bored because they had no customers. The one in the foreground called out 'Hello, darling", one of the handful of English words that she knows, as not many foreign tourist (Western or Chinese) come here. Then, when they saw we could communicate in their rudimentary Thai, they wanted to continue to joke with me just because they were so bored.
M-Monochrom | Summicron-35v4 | ISO 1250 | f/3.4 | 1/1000 sec Dan Sing Khon
M-Monochrom | Summicron-35v4 | ISO 1250 | f/8.0 | 1/1500 sec Dan Sing Khon
airfrogusmc wroteI can tell you the old MM is better in low light than my 262 at 3200 and 6400 ISO. I can only imagine what the new MM is like.
The M246 didn't even blink at 10,000 ISO but I like the light, not the dark(!) and found I really didn't need this added capability at all. It was tempting to have better tripod capability (with Live View) but that really is too much of a niche of a niche (to me.)
Well, I'm not even halfway through reading this thread yet, but I'm going to contribute because I've got a new camera (M9 and 35 FLE) and I'm excited about it. I know I owe Luka some ducks, but I'll get to that when I find some.
Damn this kit is worth it. Worth over a year of rent + utilities to me, but who's counting? I can't remember having this much fun with a camera, and cameras are how I have fun.
First drafts on edits from today:
All black and white, but what stuns me about this camera is the color. I looked at pretty much every Leica DNG I could find before buying this thing, so I had an idea of what to expect, but I'm still startled and pleased. Now I get to start learning how to incorporate color into my compositions.
Scenes from Hailing Island off Yangjiang in far southern China.
There's a massive beach resort and vacation home complex here, but it's very quiet in winter. Some of the construction seems to have been abruptly abandoned, including a walkway along the coastline, making me wonder if President Xi's anticorruption policies have something to do with this. We're here mainly to see a museum devoted to the wreck of a Southern Song-dynasty (ca. 1250) trade ship perhaps destined for Africa.
