The MM made me go out with my old (2006 from the very beginning) M8, seems like the Leica virus has hit again , though i have right now an other virus ( = a bad cold).
The M8 is still great, used to work with 36mp files it is a little strange in the beginning, but the files are amazing in its color and sharpness. I printed the first one in BW on A3+ and you can not tell the difference to the Sony A7R.
OK, wow. Too many great shots to not comment, so here goes!!!
Dgenx24 - The stairs shot is superb. Love your perspective in these photos ... what city? I feel I should know, but don't.
Gary - Holy ZM 18 shot!!! Your work lately has blown me away. I guess you guys will be getting snow soon, huh? Also, we both will have a LONG wait for the ZM 35 1.4 lens (which I think I will be getting also).
Edward - Your color work is so consistently good. Great focus, color, and composition. But an open air dentist in public? How many people were screaming?
Werner - so nice to have your work on here. The monochrom work is wonderful ... I am a wide angle fan. So, you thought the M8 prints were comparable to the full frame sony prints? That is good to know!!
Rirakuma - great shot of the food, the fish looks so yummy; but the beer is probably more tempting for me. The focus here is perfect; nice and soft!
Zhangyue - that first shot of your daughter on the (train?) is AMAZING. Wow.
Uhoh - great work as always. I don't think I realized you were in Idaho. I am quite unobservant it seems...
Nico - such fantastic shots - I need more time to look at them!
Allen - sun flare. My favorite. Just gorgeous.
Pingflood - what a brilliant catch with the list. It's the little things like this that always capture my attention and keep me thinking... I wonder who that was and if they had completed everything on that list
Mitch - that shot is STUNNING. I read it twice thinking that must be shot on the MM, but knowing an M9 sensor can produce a B&W like that will keep me from having to buy one!
Ok - whew! Now, I did a few shots of my housekeepers daughter, who is a senior this year. ARG. Makes me recall why I quite doing senior shoots in the first place. They want the craziest stuff shot (like junk they find on pinterest!) and it never looks like they thought it would. I complied, but the shots all look rediculous to me. I, of course, did some standard portraits of her as well - and while I feel these are way superior to the goofy shots of her blowing glitter or wrapped in caution tape (yes, really) - I'm sure she will pick the latter instead of the former for her yearbook shot.
Here's a few - all processed in LR5 from the M-E and 50 Lux ASPH.
Finally, Karaagon WO at dusk L1020985 by unoh7, zm35/2 f/2
Can't believe I took no shots with the 28 cron! (Still my fave lens), but the ZM35/2 and SEM 21 are wonderful combo.
Edward, how did you code ZM35/2?
For landscapes on the fly, the M9 is light years faster than the Sony A7 non-native. Why? Infinity stop. Priceless Even closer in, I find the M9 is much faster to focus. Guess I'm getting used to it
KatieInTexas wrote:
...Mitch - that shot is STUNNING. I read it twice thinking that must be shot on the MM, but knowing an M9 sensor can produce a B&W like that will keep me from having to buy one!...
Katie, thanks for the kind words. I love your photography: you've got great color sense and your B&W is also good. I do have an MM, but when I arrived in Paris last month I had some dead pixels and the dealer suggested that the camera should go to Wetzlar because there were only two days left on the warranty. That's why the photo you're referring to was shot with the M9. No, you don't need to an MM just to improve on what you can do in B&W.
That raises the question of, "why get an MM?" In my case, I shoot the MM and M9-P in "binges": 3-6 months with one and then 3-6 months with the other. While I love the MM, I can't sty that I "need it because the type of high-contrast look, with a good mid-tone range, is also achievable with the M9, as the shot you refer to shows. So what does the MM give me? What I like is that the MM forces me to "think in B&W" because I don't have the option of choosing color or B&W at the post-processing stage. But, let's face it, rather than spending a fortune on the MM, I could impose the discipline on myself of limiting myself to B&W on the M9 during a three-month "B&W binge."
The MM has greater resolution and can have finer gradation than the M9, but that is more useful for landscape than for street photography. Interestingly, Jonathan van Smit, who shoots grungy, high contrast raw Hong Kong night life, wrote on the Leica Users Forum that he switched back from an MM to an M9 because, even with the 21 mm lens that he mainly uses at 1.0–1.5m distance, focus with the MM was more critical, so that he had more keepers with the M9 — he generally pre-focuses and shoots "no-finder shots" from chest level.
So the MM is not really better than the M9 for all types of B&W photography. I certainly wouldn't want the current M-Monochrom 18MP sensor to be replaced with a 24MP or 36MP sensor — that would have more resolution than I need and add a level of critical focus that would detract rather than add to my photography.
Switching gears, here is a color picture (M9-P + Summicron-28). Perhaps this is an example of the following statement sent that Charles Peterson in Seattle sent me, "the best piece of advice I ever read was by Larry Clark, who said his teacher told him to "shoot into the light" - i.e. literally but also figuratively, do the wrong thing vs the 'rules'." But shooting into the light literally with the M9 is like shooting with slide film and one has to expose for the highlights and be prepared to loose some detail, as in the picture below, but I like the general look, which I tend to visualize in terms of silhouettes when looking at the scene before looking through the viewfinder and pressing the shutter.
@Katie: I would NOT generalize my statement about the prints. In this case i printed the door shot "Structures.." in BW from the M8 at the size of A3+ (Epson 3880). The print looks fabulous and in clear competition with a 36mp print from my Sony A7R. I do not think that this is a general rule, there are just to many variables in printing, shooting, etc.
My M8 was for years in the vitrine collecting dust...i enjoyed the megapixel hype (i still do, the A7R is great).
Working in PP with the 10mp files from the M8 is at first a little strange as is shooting the M8 with all its limitations. Still its a lot of fun and i will pick up the M8 from time to time.
The MM however is a camera on its very own and a clear addition to my Sony:
Katie, thank you so much for your comments! Greatly appreciated!
Werner, I'm starting to really appreciate your shooting style. Love all of your recent work!
Nico, great landscape series! I can also see the similarities with your urban shots.
Katie, all the shots are wonderful. I'm sure she will be extremely happy with them.
Charlie, love the colors of the season. You captured them very well. I don't code my ZM 35 as I don't think it needs any. I kind of like the vignetting
Here is an other one with the M8, btw M8 where shot in RAW mode (not DNG) and converted to DNG using the m8raw2dng App.
Works very good and the files are a lot better with 14 bit instead of 8 bit color (more headroom in pp).
uhoh7 wrote:
Can't believe I took no shots with the 28 cron! (Still my fave lens), but the ZM35/2 and SEM 21 are wonderful combo.
Edward, how did you code ZM35/2?
For landscapes on the fly, the M9 is light years faster than the Sony A7 non-native. Why? Infinity stop. Priceless Even closer in, I find the M9 is much faster to focus. Guess I'm getting used to it
very nice, love the last two.
all my a7 lenses have infinity stops, what's wrong with yours?
all my a7 lenses have infinity stops, what's wrong with yours?
Dang! I never realize there's a problem till the warranty has expired!
I just need to adjust my hawks CF v3, then I can stop whining about that anyway
@Gary loving your recent graffiti and walls, indoor and out
@Werner Oh! Your last MM is killer!!! Love to see more M8 stuff, that can be a crazy sharp camera
Philber turned me on to the zm18 for the nex-5, with which it's like a 28, and the 5 and 5n really love that lens Now this is my first fall with zm18 and M9:
Nice Charlie. Have you (or anyone else) experienced any light leak issues with the ZM18 or other Zeiss lenses? I have seen this mentioned on other forums but didn't pay it much attention until it recently happened to me. During longer exposures (>20sec), there is a light leak issue at around the 7 o'clock position. I wrapped a lens cleaning cloth around the mount and the problem went away. I have also heard of others using a scrunchie or something similar to cover the lens flange to the body flange connection. I will contact Zeiss about this but first wanted to see if anyone else here has experienced this issue. My prior copy of ZM18 did not have this issue but it had a coded Milich brass mount installed which may have been better machined...
Gary, normally the light leak happens at 5 o'clock which coincides with the coding reader on the mount. Anyhow, I'm sure if you check your lens, you will find that the leak coincides with a screw position. Zeiss have changed the screws position 3-4 times already on some lenses to avoid such light leaks. It depends on the age of your lens. All my ZM lenses are pretty recent production and none suffers from light leaks. I'm confident that Zeiss will find a solution for you.
Thanks Edward and yes, you are correct. If you are looking at the image, it is at the 7 o'clock position. If you are looking directly at the mount of the camera body, it is 5 o'clock. It is not a huge deal but one which I would prefer not to have to deal with.... I will let you know what Zeiss says.
Out for a walk on the beach this morning and came across a guy surfing or more accurately skimming I was told.
All shot on the M240 and 90mm Summicron, save the last one.
Gary Clennan wrote:
Thanks Edward and yes, you are correct. If you are looking at the image, it is at the 7 o'clock position. If you are looking directly at the mount of the camera body, it is 5 o'clock. It is not a huge deal but one which I would prefer not to have to deal with.... I will let you know what Zeiss says.
If I'm not mistaken, the 7 o'clock position coincides with 1 o'clock position on the sensor plane. That would indicate a light leak from the VF, which is very common with Leica M bodies. Of course, the most probable reason of the leak is a screw position.
Btw, M bodies have never been a good option for long exposures. The VF light leaks have been well documented since the early M film bodies.
, though i have right now an other virus ( = a bad cold).
about that anyway 
