Author: Richard

Posted on

Leica M10 – Its Here !

Three months and two weeks of waiting and its now here!  The Leica M10!  Now the M10, in fact any Leica camera is an expensive option.  Do I need one, well not really; something like a Olympus Pen would do the job at a fraction of the cost, but I like the range finder experience and I like optical viewfinders, plus the Leica M glass is a joy to use, which makes the Leica the best option.  It will be interesting though to see how a Sony A9 compares.  Generally other full frame mirrorless cameras are compromised when using Leica glass wider then 35mm, so if your a wide angle user the Leica truly is the best option.

The call came in on Wednesday from Reddot cameras in London, so as I had to work from home today, it made sense to have it couriered direct here.

A large well packed cardboard box arrived and inside, also well packed was the box above.

This opened up to the typical Leica box.

 

 

Inside this was a very smart black box with magnetic closing lid, the top holding the camera and two draws below that.

 

The top draw holding the documentation and the bottom draw, holding a multitude of cables and the charger, and the battery.

There was a US cable, an EU cable and a UK cable together with a car charging cable to charge your battery from the 12v accessory socket in most cars.

I unpacked the cables, charger and battery.

I also had a couple of other boxes, these were the accessories I had ordered.

The camera came with one battery and I had also ordered and received a spare.  Each item was neatly packaged in its own cloth bag.

Finally I took out the top box and opened it up to reveal my new Chrome M10.

I quickly dug out my Leica M4 and removed the 50mm Summilux from it, removed the IR cut filter that I have on my lens when shooting with the Leica M8 and put in on the M10.  I also got out the leather case I had ordered and the thumb grip.

 

 

While the camera came with a leather strap, I am a sucker for collecting nice leather straps and had ordered a new one from Tie Her Up.  A brown leather version that complements the chrome camera well.

So there we have it, my nice new Leica M10.

Unfortunately the batteries, just had enough power to set the date and time.  So while the battery is on charge, its unlikely I get the chance to use it much before Wednesday.

If your a model who follows my blog, I may be able to squeeze in a couple of hours studio time on Saturday to run through some tests.

Posted on

May Day

Over this weekend there have been many events and things to do here in Lincolnshire.

As I mentioned in the last post, with this being a long weekend we spent one of the days in Epworth.

On Monday we visited Doddington Hall a local stately home.  They were having a vintage event, with classic cars outside and a market inside.

People were invited to attend in vintage attire so we decided we had to.

Caroline wore a classic 1950’s dress, which she had made herself, and so looked very much the part.  While I wore some smartly tailored english trousers, a plain Irish made white classic shirt, english brown brogues and a Harris Tweed jacket, topped off with a Fedora hat.

I was surprised how many people had dressed up.  Interestingly while couples were dressed up, for singles it was mainly women dressed up, but there were a couple of solo men who had dared to be different.  We even had a steam punk.

Inside was the usual collection of vintage stalls, most of them being 1960’s and earlier.  At a few recent vintage events we have seen things from the 1980’s being called vintage, which really makes us feel old.

Caroline’s favourite Lincoln sewing shop had a stall there, and the owner recognised the fabric that Caroline’s dress was made of; she had bought the pattern and the fabric from their shop.  She asked, and Caroline graciously agreed, to be photographed.

While Caroline was buying a new pattern and the fabric for it, I treated myself to a small leather vintage driver’s license holder.  The new plastic photo licence fits nicely.

There were also a few vintage hats but nothing as nice as what I already have.

Caroline then bought a handbag to add to her collection.

Overall a fun morning out and well worthwhile.  With this kind of event I was shooting with the Leica M8 and a 35mm Summicron which looked the part.  With the challenging lighting conditions and my M8’s limited ISO range, I suffered with a number of shots being blurred due to slow shutter speed, and the interior had mixed light sources, of sun, and several different types of artificial light sources, so the white balance was a challenge.

It was a shame my Leica M10 has not arrived yet.

 

 

Posted on

Epworth

This weekend here in the United Kingdom, its another bank holiday.  We decided to have a visit to the town of Epworth.  We visited a few shops, bought a few treats and finished up in one of the many tearooms.

Epworth is of course famous for being the home of the Wesley family and is considered to be the home of Methodism.

Posted on

Leica Noctilux-M 75mm f/1.25 ASPH

I have been hearing a few rumours recently about either a 75mm or 90mm Noctilux from Leica.  Its seemed a little odd but now we have a Japanese website saying that a 75mm f/1.25 Noctilux branded lens will be coming from Leica at the end of this year.

Posted on

Weekends come and gone

Its been one of those weekends where we did not seem to do much but the weekend just flew past without the time to do all we wanted.

The usual gardening tasks such as cutting the grass and weeding the veg plot managed to get done but we also had the day in Lincoln and a day with the parents, so not much else got done.

Posted on

Pink

Most of my street photography tends to be in black and white but with the pink in this shot it just had to be in colour.

Posted on

Professional Mirrorless

Many people thought Sony would be the first to produce a mirrorless professional full frame camera and it was a big surprise when Leica got there first with the Leica SL, but Leica have not had the party to themselves for long as now Sony now release there model; the new Sony A9.  With twenty frames a second and no viewfinder blackout (a big bugbear of mine with mirrorless), its a technical tour-de-force and I am sure for many people their dream mirrorless camera.

Its now over to Canon and Nikon, will one of the big boys have a go?

Posted on

Waiting

As you may be aware if you have kept up with this blog, the Leica M10 was announced on the 19th January.  Tomorrow will be three months and I will have been on the waiting list since the announcement.  Hopefully soon i’ll have it in my hand.

Posted on

Growing Villages and failing Villages

It seems that living in cities is now the most popular place to live.  It used to be once you had hit midlife, you left the cities for the fair villages on England and lived a more peaceful life.

Girl Guides: Ducks and Cakes

The problem now with village life is that they are either failing due to high prices, ageing population and poor transport or growing into vast commuter villages of modern estates where people seem to just sleep there and drive off in the morning to the city and come back at night, never partaking in village life or contributing.

Getting Ready for the Start, Leica M8, 35mm Summicron

Our new village seems to have really picked up in the last couple of years.  It helped when the pub was saved, we now have a good place to drink with a good restaurant and a community atmosphere.  The village school is also successful and we still have a post office.  Rarer still, is that we have a small artisan village bakery and now a newly opened tea room also bringing in visitors.  It still has the problem many villages have though, poor transport links both public transport and bad roads, but this at least has saved the village from becoming a commuter village and stops people building housing estates here.  We seem to be managing, possibly helped by the poor transport links stopping the prices from getting too outrageous.