Leica M6

Seems funny revisiting this blog to add a new post. I’ll admit, it’s been a while since the last post. That said, it seems like a fitting place to add this post since it follows on logically from the last entry. The Zeiss Ikon and Biogon lens have long since gone, sold off in part to pay for my transfer out of the UK and also to fund an Apple laptop. There are regrets though what regrets there were have been compensated by my latest photographic purchase, a (the?) Leica M6.

There have been a number of cameras in-between:

1. Lumix GF1
2. Ricoh GRD4
3. Ricoh GR1s

The M6 probably doesn’t read like the logical next step but here’s how things panned out.
The GF1 was in a way the digital camera that many fans of rangefinders were craving (well, at the time). It was compact and it had a high quality sensor but the most exciting thing about the GF1 was that it had an inter-changeable lens mount. And not only native micro 4/3 lenses, even Leica M mount lenses could go on via a special adapter. A lot of people were excited about the GF1 at the time.

The GF1 was camera enough for at least 3 years and the only reason I even considered another camera was the picture a day project I’d undertaken at the beginning of 2012. Enter the GRD. This was the camera that ticked all the right boxes for the picture a day project – It’s compact enough to carry around constantly, it has a high (ish) quality sensor, and combined with the excellent Ricoh viewfinder is a real joy to use.

I can’t put my finger on why I was drawn back to film but I found myself hunting around for a compact 35mm film camera. The GR1s had a good reputation and a lot of avid supporters so I kept an eye on eBay for a couple of weeks and soon enough was the proud owner of a fairly weathered GR1s of my own. Since that day I’ve become far less likely to pick up the GRD. I guess thinking about it, a number of blog posts put film back on the radar for me. I really enjoy using the GR1s even though results have been mixed. There’s also the hassle of going back to the scanning – a tediously slow process. But still, it has been said, film is magical.

But!! The two Ricoh’s have just one shortcoming, and this is personal preference – 28mm is too wide for most of my use cases.

Looking at it now, the route through to the M6 has been a rapid progression through from the GRD. The GRD viewfinder brought the camera back up to my eye, and I’ve loved going back to film with the GR1s. Additionally, I may have been spurned on by a recent blog post extolling the virtues of shooting film and in particular, shooting film with a Leica M6. And so the stars seemed to align: I had a couple of glasses of shochu/happened across an excellent looking example of an M6 in the RFF classifieds/there was money in the bank (albeit earmarked for something else) and within 30 minutes the camera was mine.

Today

A short trip out to Japan has delayed my receiving the camera. I’m excited about taking it out and running though a first roll of the new Kodak Portra 160. I’m down to just a Voightlander 40mm and Jupiter 50mm on the lens front. These should suffice until I can afford some Leica glass, the 50mm Summicron is first on the list.

August 2012

First roll

So, a few things of note.. I was (and still am) besotted by the ZI. So much so that I decided to sell the R-D1s. I assumed that I wouldn't be using it now that I have the ZI. That and the feeling that the value of the R-D1s would deprecate rapidly over the next couple of years. I went as far as putting an ad up on RFF and fielding a few questions before realising that I was making a mistake. I changed my mind when I started going through some of the shots I'd taken, in particular with the 40mm Nokton Classic. I realise that I've overlooked the quality of this lens (which I've not really given much of a chance in the couple of months that I've owned it) and was so impressed by the image quality of some of the shots that getting rid of this combo seemed like a mistake. One particular image (below) stood out for me. What if the R-D1s does become outdated in the next year or so (say, with the arrival of a digital Zeiss RF), it will always be capable of producing outstanding images.





Anyway, onto the ZI. The scanner arrived today which means I can actually start posting some sample images. I have one roll done (samples below) and three more rolls of film to plough through. This could be a long evening! I've run a different film type through the ZI each time thus far so it'll be interesting to see how they compare.

Roll 1: Ilford Delta 400













I'm pretty happy with the results from this first roll. The contrast and dynamic range of film is clearly superior to digital (in my experience) and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the neg's scanned. A quick word about the Plustek scanner too; it's not too bad at all, certainly a lot nicer to use than the Minolta neg scanner I had a few years back. The supplied software is painful though - luckily my Vuescan license is still valid.

Finally, if anyone thinks the images I'm uploading are too small then please let me know. I think blogger.com have a limit on data uploads but I'll try to link through to Picassa or something.

Processing film costs

Having run the first roll through the ZI I've run up against a painful difference between film and digital – processing costs. An often overlooked (well at least by me) benefit to shooting digital is that once you’ve bought the kit you have zero additional running costs short of the occasional print. I had hoped that having shot the first roll yesterday I'd be able get the film developed and the images scanned to CD. Looking at the options we’re talking approximately £20 to £30 (Metro, Peak Imagine) for such a service. Depending on how much film I go through that’s going to add up to serious money in next to no time. Needless to say, it was immediately apparent that I needed to do things myself.

Fortunately I’d won some Amazon vouchers recently which almost covered the cost of a scanner. I opted for the Plustek 7300 for a couple of reasons – the scanner has had some positive reviews and its Mac compatible. The next and hopefully last hoop to jump through is getting a hold of the processing gear - developing can, chemicals, etc.
And then it’s all about getting out with the ZI. The plan is to run through a couple of film types over the weekend, possibly a roll of TMAX 400 and a slower Ilford film. Hopefully the weather carries on as is, that is temperamental. A moody sky works wonders for photography. Granted, getting the exposure right is a little tricky and you have to be ready to dash for cover occasionally but when the clouds break and the sun comes streaming through the images can really start to come to life.

Update: I picked up the processing gear earlier. Just the basics but I'm close to being self sufficient.

Second Roll: Ilford FP4 Plus 125 ISO

Headed out Saturday morning and ran off 36 shots in a couple of hours. Weather not too bad, mostly sunny though hazy. I felt that I may have grabbed a couple of good shots but took a chance and decided to process the film myself (for the first time in more than 10 years).

I’m pleased to say that the processing seems to have been successful. Until the scanner arrives it’s hard to say for sure but the neg’s look good. I realised that I forgot to pick up any neg storage sleeves so the film is going to have to hang from the light shade overnight. Ho hum..

[Images to follow]

A return to film

Last week I made the somewhat impulsive decision to purchase a Zeiss Ikon ZI. I'd been mulling a return to film for some time but had no idea how to go about it. Let me begin with a little background:

I've been a keen photographer since my early twenties (I'm in my late thirties now). I was comfortable with an old Minolta SLR, enjoyed processing my own black and white film and spent many a weekend ensconced in a tiny darkroom at the top of an old theatre in Clapham. They were good times. Then along came digital and like so many, I bought myself a point & shoot and forgot all about film. Never mind that the quality was poor - the convenience factor and then the web (flickr et al) meant that for me the pros far outweighed the cons. I also thought that in a short space of time the quality of digital files would surpass film and that film would pass into the realms of history.

But wait.. fast forward a few years and here I am, the proud owner of a beautiful black Zeiss Ikon. How did this happen?

I must confess that I'm not entirely new to rangefinder technology. My love of photography resurfaced a year or so ago and through the recommendation of a friend I decided to purchase the worlds first digital rangefinder - the Epson R-D1s. And what a camera. The R-D1s has proven to be a joy to use. So why the need for a film body?

Well, being a big fan of Flickr I began to notice that the quality of some of the images being uploaded by users of non-digital cameras looked significantly better than the digital files I was producing. Of course composition and technique play a big part but there's no getting away from the fact that film images have far more definition than digital images - and that's after being scanned, a process that surely reduces image quality.

Added to this is my suspicion that shooting film aids the creative process. By this I mean that when using a digital camera we all have a tendency to 'chimp', that is take a peek at the results of our shot as soon as we've taken the photo. Personally I feel that this breaks up the rhythm of the shoot and impacts on creativity. I guess it's worth mentioning that the R-D1s has a flip screen that lets you hide the screen away but I find that there's still a tendency to peek. Frequently.

This realisation led me to look at the options. My requirements were:

1. I wanted a rangefinder - if nothing else so that I could use the lenses that I already have.
2. I wanted a well constructed camera that would last for many years.
3. I had a budget and the M7/MP were outside of it.
3. I wanted a the camera to look sexy, to be a camera that I'd want to pick up and use.

I whittled it down to two choices: The Leica M4 or the Zeiss Ikon. Since many have labeled the ZI a direct competitor to the Leica M7 (which comes in at more than twice the price of the ZI) the ZI began to look like the obvious choice. Without further ado I hopped onto eBay and ordered one from Matsuiyastore. Five days later the camera had found it's way from Kanagawa, Japan to a happy new owner in London.

Roll 1: Ilford Delta 400 (purchased at a souvenir store in Liechtenstein).

[Images to follow]

Having spent the afternoon taking the Ikon out for it's first spin I'm now convinced that chimping is bad. The shooting felt far more fluent than any I'd undertaken for a long time.