Leica Some photos from Miami

Great pics, Christine! I'd like to hear about how you got along with the "M" versus the Sony, but even more about the trip. Like Brian, we're deluged with snow and plummeting temperatures. :rolleyes:
 
The trip was essentially for the "boys" to run a half marathon in Key West. I say boys but Janine, the wife of one of them also ran :) We flew to Miami and drove to South Beach for one night, sampled the night life and a couple of hours after breakfast the next day, drove down to the Keys where the race was run. All did respectable times and no injuries so then we were free to relax. Spent another couple of days taking in the sights at Key West, Hemmingway's house, the lighthouse etc. We then drove back to Islamorada crossing the 7 mile bridge. We had to make a stop here as the boys had run the Keys 100 relay in May 2012 and Mike wanted a picture taken on the bridge as it was the longest single run and the most taxing. You have to run the whole 7 miles, no stopping or receiving any back up from your support team. I believe this trial befell Mike who was half dead from the heat afterwards. Remember, we live in the UK and there's no chance of training in that sort of humidity! We had lovely sunny weather although the breeze was distinctly cool. Unfortunately it rained on our last leg of the holiday. We booked into a really nice hotel with it's own beach "The Ocean House" but we still managed to picnic outside under an awning. In any case, it was nice to see the sun and we arrived back in the cold rainy UK at 6.30 a.m yesterday.

As to the Sony A7R v the M. I had mixed feelings. I was expecting to use the 7R much more than I did. I also took the Sony RX1 and relied on it almost exclusively for it's 35mm f2 lens. I wasn't overly impressed by the A7's 35mm 2.8 and decided to leave the 55 1.8 on as I think this is a lovely lens. However, looking at the pictures on my iMac I'm surprised to see how much nicer the M's pictures actually are. Maybe just the rendering (this is the thing I was most hesitant over when comparing it with the M9 output) but using the Zeiss 25mm Biogon as my wide angle and the 50mm Summilux for almost everything else I feel I got a better set of pictures than those that came from the Sony A7R. In fact I confess to being a little disappointed in the Sony. Certainly, I found metering with the M quite difficult and had a fair few badly exposed shots but by and large I consider it much better than I expected. On the minus side, I notice dust spots on my sensor already :(
 
Great pic Christilou. That is an interesting observation between the A7r and M. BTW, were you using a M9 or M 240?

I remember using a M8.2 in the beach one time. Even though I never took the lens off, at the end of the day, I saw dust on my sensor. Not even sure how it got in since the lens mount have such a tight tolerance.
 
Ahh, sounds and looks like it was a superb, sunny, *and warm* trip. :)

"Certainly, I found metering with the M quite difficult and had a fair few badly exposed shots but by and large I consider it much better than I expected."

Interesting. Metering is where the X Vario helps me a lot. Perhaps Leica have had a chance to work through this for the X Vario. One of its live screen modes has a "-||||||||0||||||||+" metering bar that works brilliantly for manual control: Set the ISO to what's appropriate to the general lighting, then go back and forth between shutter speed and aperture to get the DOF and exposure that I'm looking for. Works really well, let's me make the trade-offs quickly and intuitively. Generally when working that way, I watch for the metering bar to point a bit to the left of center, that's often helps with the feel I'm looking for.
 
Unless I'm missing something (and I might well be :confused:) I have only the histogram to use on the M. I don't use the live view feature so I'm using the RF to focus and usually checking framing and histogram in the evf. I have it set as suggested by Thorston for metering.
 
I don't see a histogram with the X-Vario (though it may have one down in the menus). When aperture and shutter are set to manual, the metering bar appears in the lower live-view. Histograms are OK, but when I'm out with the sun and wind in my face, I appreciate a metering bars simplicity - if it works well. (The X Vario's does work well ...)
 
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