Curious - why would I buy this, if I already have an 80-200 Nikon lens, which everyone seems to rave about, myself included? The only negative thing, is that it is heavy, and it’s certainly not a “walkabout” lens.
Yes, I take the Fuji with me every so often, and I love it. It might be my most “perfect” camera. It’s the camera I always take with me when I visit India. I enjoy walking around with it, always have.
The more my head spins on all the other choices, the more I like my existing small, light, pocketable 35 that I’ve owned forever. I have a feeling it’s more than “good enough”. Will try again…
Do what you like with the gear that you already own and learn…about composition, lighting etc.
Look at pictures painted by old masters. Most of them provide ample examples of what a little bit of light can do.
Heheheh. It’s really simple - if you want pin-sharp images, don’t use “artistic” lenses. There are certain LF lenses that I could use that have “characteristics” that people choose and use them for. I could even use an old brass barrel lens if I wanted, but if I’m after clean sharp images, then I use my Schneider or Rodenstock or Nikon lenses.
The lens Wolfgang recommends is a whole lot lighter at only 1.5lbs, compared with the monster that is your 80-200, which weighs in at almost 3lbs and is certainly not a “walkabout” lens.
Better still, is my 28-300mm, this is about the same weight as Wolfgang’s suggestion but is a true multi-purpose lens (it even focuses down to 1.6ft)? Like all lenses, it is better at some focal lengths and apertures than others but virtually everything you’ve seen me post here has been taken with it and I wouldn’t hesitate in printing any of those images to 20" x 16" and to stand up to close scrutiny.
It’s no longer available new but you should be able to pick a good one secondhand for around the $500 mark.
I find myself agreeing with @platypus. Stop looking for more gear - it will not improve your photography.
What will improve it is using the appropriate camera for the image in hand. If you want to take landscapes of the bay in front of you, don’t use the Leica, it’s not what it does best. If you are going walkabout, for street style photography, use the Leica, it’s what it is good at. Your Fuji might be “fun” to use but, with an APS-C sensor, it’s never going to produce images of as good a quality as your full frame cameras, unless you want close-up shots with more DoF.
But, whichever camera you use, don’t shoot something that you’re going to have to crop afterwards.
Do you realise that by cropping a 24Mpx full frame image to the equivalent of a DX format, you are not getting ⅔ of the megapixel count, but instead, you are only getting a 10Mpx image? That’s the resolution of my old Nikon D200, which I would never dream of using for high quality shots nowadays.
To my mind, you have to decide whether you want to end up with “artistic” images or high quality ones. Then you have to consider if it is really worth pursuing your (expensive) obsession with Leica gear rather than using your perfectly adequate D750 with some decent glass.
You have already stated that you rarely print your images and that the largest you are likely to want them is for computer screen viewing. So, why would you ever need anything more than the gear you already have? Nobody is ever going to know how good the 35mm lens you used on your Leica is, when you take a shot and promptly crop it to less than half the resolution.
If you love your Leica so much, stop wasting it on landscape and architectural shots and take it to the beach for some real people photography with the shorter focal lengths, something for which which it is so much better suited.
Oh my G-O-D, she wants to get the poor thing polluted with sand grains, or -blyme - saltwater droplets. @mikemyers take care, this is nearly an attempt of assasination of camera material made for clean shelves behind clean glass vitrines. Leicas are always good for some fun… jokes aside, small cameras were always made to not drag too much attention to the photographer. But NOT with the “best image quality of all exisiting cameras” in mind, only with the “best possible” one.
Of the equivalence discussion I try to steer clear, there’s so much rumors and solid ignorance involved in these discussions that I better use the time to bang my head against a cushion. Overloading a brain with this kind of stuff is usually not leading to better images.
Please don’t equivalence low quality with artistic. Even not in quotes. Artists have a hard life, don’t they? And what about artists producing high quality stuff? I mean, in every quote lies also a bit of truth of the quoter?
Sold my 28-300 ages ago. Too “artistic”… oops. Went then for Sigma “Art” series. Hmmm, maybe a discussion about art would keep that thread for another two dozen posts alive? Why not?
Heheheh. OK, artistic vs precise representation then - better?
Indeed. Even I am prone to the odd “artistic” image and am a massive fan of the Impressionist movement that broke the Académie Française stranglehold on art.
I also detest things like the rule of thirds and other compositional constraints.
Interesting. Now I’m going to have to investigate that, even though I am more than happy with the Nikon.
Addenda
I just took a look and they look lovely but, for me, not worth junking my current lenses. But I do like their strapline…
The heart & mind are the true lens of the camera
I know, let’s all go back to pinhole and forget all this fancy glass stuff
In once found an article on DPR about some composition lines in Henri Cartier Bresson’s images, some interesting diagonals included which are not part of the “rule of thirds” (my most favorite ignored rule). It was more about “the golden section” (sorry if this translation might be incorrect) which is not exactly thirds. I need to look up the link to the article and another I found afterwards. The I made a pattern of these lines and overlaid it on some of my images I like or rated higher than “the usual stuff”. It was very interesting how often that pattern was found in the image.
No, that is perfectly understandable. I know it as the golden ratio (if in doubt, use your own language and let Deepl take care of the rest )
There have been a couple of requests for a golden ration overlay for the reframing tool - something that could be quite interesting were DxO to implement it.
DeepL came up with the “section” word , but now you mention it, I think it was the golden ratio. I really need to check for that link and provide some samples.
Yes, it would be cool to have this kind of intersection lines for the cropping tool. I even made me some overhead films to place it on the LCDs, but that’s highly impractical. Although not bad in studio conditions.
That’s the point. You take pictures with focal lengths too short, because you don’t want to carry that heavy lens. Then to counter you ever so often crop, but with standard or even wideangle lenses you simply can’t see (good enough) what’s going on.
Not to forget, that Nikon lens has an optical stabilizer, which enables you to follow the subject ‘handheld’.
For better or worse, I completely, totally, agree with you. I can always make a sharp image less so, but not the other way 'round, and as anyone can clearly see from the photos I’ve been posting here, “pin-sharp” is certainly my goal - but I don’t always achieve it, for various reasons. I love your photos that show every inch of the surface of something as if I was looking at it live, with a magnifying glass!!!
Regarding the lens that @Wolfgang suggested, after a lot of searching, I found I can buy a refurbished lens from Nikon for right around $500. It’s now in my shopping cart, but I haven’t yet clicked on the “buy” button. I might do that later today, but I need to convince myself “why” I need it, when I already own the 80-200?
You’ve done a great job of describing life for me, but I never know what I’m going to find and want to take a photo of until it happens. You also would prefer I avoid cropping. The obvious solution is to use a zoom lens, perhaps my recently returned 24-85 on either my D750 or my even lighter Df.
Why? Considering I’m only creating images to be viewed online, not printed, I can get away with quite a bit of cropping before it becomes an issue. When I suddenly see something I want to photograph, I do the best I can with whatever camera gear I have with me. (If my goal was giant enlargements, I understand things would be very different…)
Why make a choice? Both cameras are best at different things. I love steak, and I love fish, but I see no reason to exclude one, to always have the other. …but if I am going out with a specific objective, whatever that might be, I will take the more appropriate camera. If I am visiting a railroad museum with cars and locomotives all around the yard, I’ll take my Nikon with a zoom. If I’m walking around town, trying to get photos that show off “Miami Beach life”, I’ll take the Leica. But if I want photos of Miami Beach Buildings and Structures, it’s back to the Nikon.
Yes, for the type of photography I mostly do, I already have everything I need. I don’t “need” to buy anything more, until when/if I start doing new things, like bird photography or macrophotography. That’s why the 70-300 lens in still in my shopping cart, not ordered, and ditto for the improved 35mm lens for the Leica. I’m likely to not buy either of them, along with not buying the M11.
Naw, my “heroes” are photographers like Robert Capa or David Douglas Duncan who put their cameras through “hell” to capture the images they were after. I love going to the beach to capture photos, especially of the seagulls, and I try to keep my cameras clean when I get home.
I am convinced I can create the “artistic” look from an image captured with a high quality lens, but not the other way 'round. As to my old lenses, I was reading Ken Rockwell’s tests yesterday, and ten years ago these “artsy” lenses blew out all the competition from Nikon and Canon. It’s just that today, these APO and APSH and all the other tech stuff allows even higher quality images to be captured, for a cost. I don’t see it that way - if Ken loved a lens in 2009, the year of his test, I’m sure I will love it just as much now in 2022. I’ll post a link if anyone is interested. …do I “need” the very latest lenses? Probably not. Do I want them? …not sure.
Yay!!! ???
I ignore all that stuff - I move things around in my viewfinder until I find a composition I like, and I’ll probably adjust it later in PhotoLab. I want my image captured "inside of" the frame, allowing me to fine tun it later. I suppose if I had a view camera, on a tripod,I would be much more precise.
Not correct - that’s not why I don’t walk around with the big, long, heavy telephoto. Since I don’t know what I’m going to find to photograph, walking around with a long telephoto means I can’t capture most of the things I see. I guess a zoom would be the most convenient, so it can do “everything”, but I enjoy using a smaller, lighter, camera that I can wear inside my jacket. Everything is a compromise, unless I already know what I’m going to want to photograph.
If you can find the 28-300mm lens, you get a whole bunch of lenses in one and pretty darned good quality at that. Ken Rockwell says…
This 28-300mm VR replaces the entire bag of lenses or zooms used to carry. No longer do I carry any other lens in this focal length range. This 28-300 really does replace every other wide, normal, tele, macro and zoom. It’s superb for photographing anything that holds reasonably still. As you can see, it’s ultra-sharp handheld under any condition; leave the tripod at home except for star trail photos.
And I would add, it ain’t half bad at photographing stuff that moves as well. It has VR (vibration reduction), which reduces a lot of age-related camera shake and reduces the speed necessary for some handheld shots.
Rather than the more limited 70-300mm that @Wolfgang suggested, the 28-300mm means you don’t even need any separate wide angle zoom or prime lens, unless you are taking something that needs to be enlarged to a lot bigger than a computer screen. If you’re going to buy one lens to make life easier, it’s this one.
Oh, and sell that old, heavy, clunker of a 80-200mm - any extra performance you think you’re getting is far outweighed by the fact that it can cause physical injury. You’d more than likely get more than the price of the 28-300mm and save getting a hernia or torn shoulder.
The obvious solution is to get as much money as you can for all your existing zooms and buy the one Ken reckons replaces them all.
Because, even with a computer screen, more detail/pixels does make a difference. We often find screen representations of an LF image - and we can often tell - there’s just a certain something that tells you it was taken at high resolution.
Another good reason for getting the 28-300 - not having to change lenses with the risk of letting in dust on the sensor.
Did I mention the 28-300mm zoom? One lens for fairly much everything
Leica has a very nice camera for people who love to crop or not carry a lot of glass around, the Q2. A friend has both the Q and Q2 and doesn’t use his M very often these days as he constantly has had focussing problems.
You were referring to two war photographers. How many wars are ongoing in Miami besides for best spots on the beach? How many options we have today could Capa or Duncan choose from? Nothing against old heroes, but also try sometimes to not isolate them from the conditions of their time. You simply don’t know if Capa would not use a µ4/3 today, you simply don’t know what Duncan would choose. To limit yourself on the choice they had to make at their time and conclude what was good then is good today - that’s valid for their images, not for the tools they used to take them.
Yesss!!!
When you realise that most modern press photographers are only concerned with producing an image for screen-printing in a newspaper, the dots of ink are a lot bigger than any pixels. I’ve known such photographers use an iPhone because nobody realises they are taking pictures. Either that or a µ4/3 in the pocket is far likely to be the camera of choice nowadays and, Capa and Duncan would have jumped at them had they been available.
If you want to talk about using a “decent” camera for war work, let’s all go back to using what Frank Hurley used - he started with a whole plate camera (8½" x 6 ½" glass negs) during WW1 and then ended up with a Folding Pocket Kodak No. 3A - not a Leica in sight. But he took some of the most amazing shots of the two wars, not forgetting documenting Shackleton’s expedition to the Antarctic.
If a Graflex whole plate was good enough for him, why don’t we revere that as much as some do Leicas? Because they the cameras of their times and when better cameras came along, the folks who made a living out of their photography moved on to whichever camera suited the next job.
Frank Capa didn’t use Leica exclusively. He changed to a Zeiss Contax II in the mid 1930s because Leica wasn’t keeping up with modern technology.
He also use Rolleflex TLRs and eventually a Nikon S.
Gone were the Rolleis, but one final addition was made to Capa’s loadout: a Nikon S to complement his ever-loyal Contax. It may seem an odd choice at first glance. The S arguably didn’t offer a radically different or improved shooting experience over the Contax, as both cameras were aesthetically and functionally quite similar. It’s reasonable to wonder why Capa eschewed the Leica M3, which debuted that same year with such improvements as a rapid advance lever and larger viewfinder.