DPR Forum

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User comments btil June 2003

Juston wrote:Hand rewinding can be faster than by motor. When Leitz introducted the Leicaflex, being the first camera with a crank rewind, they cautioned against rapid use likely to cause static streaks on the film. It has only occured to my films in very dry climates.<<

Justin..
Thank you!! I live in Colorado (USA) and it is VERY dry here. I have had static streaks on my old manual wind cameras, but never on my motor drive cameras.. Thank you for the insight!!
Colorado Jeff
 
Hi Jeff,

Central Australia can be as dry as Colarado which is where my static marks occured with a Leicaflex SL. I learnd my lesson.

Journalist may need the rapid rewind so they are always ready, however that type of photography has gone digital. Of interest, for a man in a hurry Cartier-Bresson carried two cameras.

Personally I have never been that rushed and did not find the rewind crank of the M4 or M5 any great advantage. I still use the M2 as my favourite M camera, however may after thirty years upgrade the M5 to the MP.

Regards,

Justin
 
I enjoy following this conversation. Listening to the talk makes me feel good about "slow journalism", meaning longer term documentary projects. It'll be interesting to see where film photography continues to go as digital evolves. Being a library worker has shown that the traditional book is not simply disappearing. While much is going on-line there is also a strong emergence in book-arts. Like painting, I don't think film is dead, especially if there's this many people enthused about it.
P.S. Not to mention the pencil
and pad of paper next to the computer
where I do the real brainstorming!
 
Garth..
I agree. I got onto the digital boat but then found, like so many other things, that it was quick and disposable, like so many other things.. I find anymore I am truly enjoying film cameras, good books and an excellent pen.

Colorado jeff
 
Even if 135 still format dies a slow death, I can't see 36 mm moovie film being made totally obsolete by digital, not for many years if at all.
We will just be back where Oskar B. started in 1914. Now there's history turned on its head for you. Maybe there is a point to the 'O' Leica after all.

Also long as Leica keeps producing mechanical CRFs. (Someone out there will be able to repair them.) Can't be so sure about electronics. Any way the more photography goes digital the less silver used, all the more for all us folk that still have a use for film.

craig
 
I always enjoy this talk about film and digital. As an emerging Photojournalist, (I graduated a year ago) I have had to fight alot of demons about what camera is going to make me money and what type of photography i actually like to do. i have just saved up some money and am now at a crossroads. Do I purchase the D1x so I can hopefully get some work in a highly competitive field and do alot of siren chasing, then send images immediately by deadline to my editor? Or do I purchase the most superior mechanical film camera made, buy a film scanner and do the shooting I like best, inconpicuous street photography and documentary work? (Oh yeah and I have to convince my fiance that I will make money doing the latter). Exciting times!
joe
 
joseph,

I feel sorry for folks like you. I talked with our newspaper's photo intern who is still in college about this same question. What do you buy today, film or digital? Right now you have to think of Digital cameras as you would a computer -- soon after you buy it the camera will be replace by a better version.

First, it sounds like you are conflicted. Do you want to be a street/documentary photographer or a hardcore photojournalist? Find the answer to that question first. If you buy Leica and the paper wants you to shoot a night high school football game an M camera with a 35mm lens is not going to do you any good. If I wanted to tackle an in-depth story about a family adjusting to a crisis in their life I would probably want a Leica over a huge Nikon D1X.

In the short run I would say to get a film scanner. Let the digital dust settle for a while and you'll save a lot of cash in the short term.
 
For a forum that's nominally just about a retro camera, this thread is very interesting.

First, the MP - I want one. I had a previous M3 "Frankenstein" that had been modified while I owned it beyond recognition - M4-P viewfinder (I used the 35mm lens rather than the 50mm as my primary lens at the time), beat up old brass top plate painted roughly in black, Tom's Rapidwinder in black, M6 claw loading system, M4 advance lever & one of those aluminum rewind attachments on the rewind knob. I loved that camera.

To me, the MP has all the features that I had put into my old Frankenstein M (except the M4 type advance lever) plus internal metering. This is the camera that I've been waiting for.

To questions about the old style advance & rewind controls - I'm currently using an unmodified M3 (well, it's actually an old double stroke that was converted to a single, but that was done before I bought it). If you're using an M4 or newer Leica M, it's pretty easy to adapt to the old style controls. Altho' I do prefer the M4 advance lever, the M3/2 lever is still shaped very nicely. Adding the rewind accessory (as on my old M3) helped a lot on rewinding, but even on my plain, unmodified M3, it's really not that slow. Also, supposedly the MP's rewind's knob has built-in friction, so if you let go of it accidentally, the film inside won't unwind. That is an annoying trait with the M3/2, so let's hope they've fixed that on the new MP.

I'm looking forward to getting both the Leicavit M & rewind attachment, in addition to a black MP. I think Tom's Rapidwinder is great (& he's a nice guy on top of everything else) & is an extremely well-made, reliable product. If I had to nitpick, the only minor disadvantage on using the Rapidwinder is it would make the regular advance lever (if you switch back to it on ocassion) heavy to pull. I'm wondering if the Leicavit M will do the same thing.

As some of you mentioned, it would've been nice for Leica Camera to have offered an MP 0.58x in black. But since I don't use the 35mm focal length anymore, the 0.72x probably makes more sense for me. The 0.90x M3 is a great finder for the 50mm, but sometimes with glasses it makes it difficult to see the framelines.
 
Onto the question above about film & digital for photojournalism. I think Jim's reply pretty well answered it.

To that I would add that if you think you're going to be doing documentary as well as photojournalism (it's extremely tough to make a living on just the former, so you may have to do both) & you can only afford one system, I'd go digital SLR. While a big, honkin' digital SLR may not be the ideal rig for shooting quiet, documentary situations, you can still press it into service by attaching a fast, fixed focal length lens & deleting the use of flash.

As Jim said, shooting a sports event from the sidelines with a 35mm lens on a Leica won't cut it (and even the 135mm I have is too short for most sports applications).

Jim also made a good comment that you have to think of a digital camera like a computer, in the sense that every few years you're going to be replacing it. While that's true, if you stick to one of the big pro systems (Nikon or Canon), don't forget you'll be able to keep using your lenses & possibly some of your accessories for years. So the investment for that equipment won't have to be amortized in as short a time period as you would for the digital camera.

In the studio I run, we're still using the same stands, strobes (Speedo), lenses & bodies (Hasselblad)that we bought 4 years ago. During that same time however, we've upgraded the digital backs twice (from the Leaf triple pass, to the Phase1 LightPhase, & now to the Phase1 H10 Upgrade-HiRes).

Currently, I use only digital for work & the Leica M3 plus a point & shoot digital for personal stuff. I haven't used a Leica M for commercial work since '97, but that's because most of my paid work is studio assignments.
 
> I don't think film is dead, especially if there's this many > people enthused about it.

=============================================================== RE: digi future. You must think like a manufacturer, ie., where the numbers are. I have watched several excellent stores in the Chicago area disappear because their volume customers were the commercial studios, most of which serviced the manufacturers and the catalog markets. The studios disappeared and so have the large camera stores which could afford to inventory quality equipment for the much smaller hobby market.

The attrition process will continue all the way up the chain.

Now "point and shoot" and throw-away cameras constitute the largest part of the film market. As consumer digital cameras take a larger share of this market film costs will increase, and availability will decrease. It will become a spiral.
 
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