Leica Leica M Landscape?

dornblaser

New Member
Location
Chicago-area
Name
David Dornblaser
Greetings:

I am a semi-regular on Amin's m43's site. I am settled with my video needs. For stills, we grew up with the Olympus OM-1, etc., and we were easy converts to the Oly PEN and OMD series. We do a lot of travel, urban photography, etc. We also do hiking, outdoors photography but we are not birders and rarely reach for a lens over 90 FF equivalent unless we are in Yellowstone, Africa, etc. My query is this: I see relatively few landscape shots with a Leica M system, why is that?

- David
 
Actually, most of my landscape shots are with the Leica M... usually with the 24mm Elmarit or 35mm f/2.5 Summarit. Then again the vast majority of my library is with the Leica M.

Only recently did I do a lot more with the micro 4/3rds because frankly its easy to loose stuff when you are juggling a 6 year old and a pair of 5 month old twins... plus all the junk... er.. necessities required. There was one case that I walked off with my bag a few feet behind when a nice fellow yelled out to me about my bag. My bag never leaves my shoulder but I just couldn't juggle everything. Little did he know that that kind stranger just saved me a potential loss of many thousands (well not exactly... they are insured.. I still would have been really upset).

When I'm out on my own, I am usually carrying my Leica.. especially for landscape.


I will say one thing... Live view rocks for pure comfort... especially when paired to a tilt screen. The OMD E-M5 did WONDERFULLY! with landscapes. Some of which you can see posted on the sister site m43. One of the advantages of Leica's modern optics is their corner to corner image quality at wide open... for landscapes, I'm typically at f/8 to f/11... not really that important.
 
Hi usayit,

I certainly know your posts on m43s site, thank you for replying. I am happy with my OMD kit, O12, O17, O45 plus the normal zooms along with the V17 and V25. I recently posted a similar thread about asking about the OMD with good glass vs. a Leica system on the m43s site. I wish that I had a friend that had a Leica system that I could play with .........

- David
 
Greetings:

I am a semi-regular on Amin's m43's site. I am settled with my video needs. For stills, we grew up with the Olympus OM-1, etc., and we were easy converts to the Oly PEN and OMD series. We do a lot of travel, urban photography, etc. We also do hiking, outdoors photography but we are not birders and rarely reach for a lens over 90 FF equivalent unless we are in Yellowstone, Africa, etc. My query is this: I see relatively few landscape shots with a Leica M system, why is that?

- David

David - see this other thread I started last week.

https://www.leicaplace.com/f28/grea...photographer-sebastian-salgados-new-book-111/
 
Hi David,
If you are looking at shooting wider than 28mm you also need to mount an external finder on the shoe mount (or guess the frame) as the M's do not provide frames for lesser focal lengths. I do a bit of hiking and do not use an external finder on my camera as they stick out from the body and can be easy to knock off. It is also more time consuming for each shot as you need to compose the shot in the external finder then focus in the camera's finder. It does not worry me because I don't really go wider than 35mm anyway. What does irk me is the minimum focus distance (usually 70cm - 1.5m depending on focal length) of the M system, I have bought into the R system as well for added flexibility.
 
Hi David,
If you are looking at shooting wider than 28mm you also need to mount an external finder on the shoe mount (or guess the frame) as the M's do not provide frames for lesser focal lengths. I do a bit of hiking and do not use an external finder on my camera as they stick out from the body and can be easy to knock off. It is also more time consuming for each shot as you need to compose the shot in the external finder then focus in the camera's finder. It does not worry me because I don't really go wider than 35mm anyway. What does irk me is the minimum focus distance (usually 70cm - 1.5m depending on focal length) of the M system, I have bought into the R system as well for added flexibility.

That's been one of the downsides, for me, about using the M-E. I knew before I got into it though that I would have to use an external finder if I wanted to go wider than 28mm, but I love to shoot UWA on m4/3. Having to focus with the rangefinder than compose with the external finder seems very tedious but I haven't tried it myself so I'm not really ruling out the wider lenses until I have a chance to actually go hands on.

I have the 28mm Elmarit and I really like that lens for landscape, the frame lines are just barely visible on the edges of the rangefinder.
 
I did not realize that you needed a finder to go wider than 28mm. That's probably why the 28, 35 & 50 are so popular. I do use my O12, 24mm equivalent, lens a lot for landscapes.
 
I have another, not quite related question, that I thought I would post here instead of starting a new thread. I have always heard that Leica digitals do not work well 90mm and beyond, do I assume correctly that is another limitation of the rangefinder needing an external finder?

Thanks in advance.

- David
 
The main issue is the base rangefinder length... many also find the smallish bright lines for 90mm and further too small. Again not the camera for everyone. I often shoot with a 24mm often previsualizing the composition.... its pretty fluid.. incorporating a bit of peripheral with what I already observe.
 
I use a 1.25x magnifier for longer lenses, this is with a Nikkor 10.5cm F2.5 on the m Monochrom:

330-l1001529.jpg


I'll put up some shots with a 135 soon.
 
I have another, not quite related question, that I thought I would post here instead of starting a new thread. I have always heard that Leica digitals do not work well 90mm and beyond, do I assume correctly that is another limitation of the rangefinder needing an external finder?

Thanks in advance.

- David

I've been enjoying shooting with my 90 Elmarit on my Leica M-E. I have a few examples here:

gasblowing-5.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)


and here:

jeff-sipe-trio-9.jpg


There's more on my blog.
 
I have another, not quite related question, that I thought I would post here instead of starting a new thread. I have always heard that Leica digitals do not work well 90mm and beyond, do I assume correctly that is another limitation of the rangefinder needing an external finder?

Thanks in advance.

- David

As you know, the view in a rangefinder camera viewfinder does not change. Frame lines corresponding to some focal lengths (28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm, 90mm, 135mm) are overplayed in the viewfinder to help with composition. The 28mm frames take up almost the entirety of the viewfinder. So if a wider lens is mounted, an external viewfinder is required for composition. The proper focus is still achieved with the built in viewfinder. At the other end of the focal length spectrum, the 135mm frame lines are barely bigger than the focusing patch, which makes composing difficult. An external viewfinder can once again be used for composition. A magnifying eyepiece can also be used to help with focusing and composing with 135mm lenses.

Leica has addressed these concerns in the new Leica M (aka M240) which features Live View capability.

Another area of concern for landscape photography and Leica rangefinder cameras was lack of weather sealing. This too has been remedied in the new M.
 
If your rangefinder is calibrated longer lenses are fine. I use the 135 APO telyt all the time.

8327407454_62500b59a7_b.jpg

141-k&j_by_FlashGordonPhotography.jpg by Flash Gordon Photography, on Flickr

Gordon


I have another, not quite related question, that I thought I would post here instead of starting a new thread. I have always heard that Leica digitals do not work well 90mm and beyond, do I assume correctly that is another limitation of the rangefinder needing an external finder?

Thanks in advance.

- David
 

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