Category: Photography

Leica and naming conventions have always been a little odd.

The first legendary M series camera was the Leica M3.  The M3 was followed by the M2 then the M1 which never had the following of the original M3.  They then went back to their roots and released the film Leica M I own, the M4.

The M8 was the first digital M and many consider it a prototype, with a smaller then full frame 35mm sensor with a crop factor of 1.3 it was never really accepted, it also had two issues, excessive infra-red sensitivity and a very noisy and rough shutter.

The shutter was fixed with the M8.2 was then replaced by the M9 with the same shutter, no infra-red issues and finally full frame.

The M9 became the M typ 240 and its various iterations, and Leica changed their numbering scheme again, just M with a type number, but they also followed this up with the monochrom and the M-E and M-P and now M-D; confused yet?

The M type 240 is now over three years old and we are all expecting the new version soon as is my credit card!  Well the latest rumours are that Leica are going back to the old numbering scheme and the new Leica M will be the M10.  So far all we have is that it will be slimmer then the Leica M typ 240 and have a dedicated ISO dial.  A picture was leaked this week but unfortunately you cannot see much.

Heres hoping we will not be waiting too long.

The Leica T’s replacement the new Leica TL has been announced.

Many people like me wanted a body like the Leica Q but with interchangeable lens taking all lens from the L mount.

The original T was quite a revelation for Leica, the kind of camera Apple would produce.  It was a little slow and lacked a built in viewfinder but it was a very daring product for which Leica deserve a lot of credit.  It sold reasonably but it was a little sluggish in AF and touch screen.  Recent firmware updates have addressed this and if your after a high tech touch screen camera and can put up with the lack of viewfinder then for a Leica the old version is a bargain now at only £949.

The new version has twice the in-built memory and is available in the more colours, I had a play with the old version at the NEC Photography show back in 2015 and was quite impressed, and I look forward to trying the new one.  As the TL like the T lacks a built in viewfinder, I doubt i’ll be getting one but its always to see a manufacture give the photographer options.

CMOSIS the supplier of sensors for Leica cameras has just announced a new 48MP 35mm full frame sensor. Hopefully this will find its way into the new Leica M.

I would also like Leica to think about upgrading the S to around 50 MP, as for a medium format camera its now getting a little low resolution.  It will also be interesting where they go with the S.  With Hasselblad and Fuji both announcing mirrorless medium format with a sensor size similar to the Leica S do Leica need to transition the S to a mirrorless design?

In general modern studio flash is very reliable.  I have on occasion had cheap flash heads bust into flames after a heavy session of use but in general there pretty reliable.

The main problem with cheap flash heads is consistent colour temperature.  Having a drift in colour temperature is very difficult to overcome as you have to then edit and correct every shot manually.  During each scene during the shoot I take a reference shot with a white balance card to correct for colour.  With the better flash heads having consistent colour temperature I can correct the white balance on the reference shot and then sync that colour temperature across all photographs of that scene.

This last weekend though I had an odd problem.  As you can see in the shot above, only half the frame is exposed, this is generally caused by using a shutter speed too high.

I was using a radio trigger but no matter what speed I set I had this intermittent sync problem.  I tried several triggers and it only stopped when I switched from wireless to infrared.  Not a problem I had seen before and I hope not to have again.

If like me you shoot models a lot and frequent many of the common modelling forums you will be well aware of the tales of models complaining about photographers cancelling at the last moment, and also of photographers making same complaint about models.

I have been very lucky and only let down on the day once, and i was able to get another model to fill in at very (two hours) short notice.

This week I had another let down, but this time the model was professional about it and let me know in good time. This enabled me to get another model sorted and switch the dates at the studio so not one ended up being let down and now another shoot with the original model is already planned.

The top shot and the one below is the lovely Jessica Lee who filled in the first time I was let down at only two hours notice.  I have since shot with her a number of times and always enjoyed the shoot and her professionalism.

 

After the weekends camera show and thinking about some of the cameras I handled, its been a breath of fresh air to just use my Leica M8.

With my SLR I am used to having to study and learn, and practice.  With its highly programable focusing system and customisation options; its a very complicated camera, but then its a complicated tool, designed to be able to fulfil many rolls.  For what I use it for, I don’t mind this, but when shooting for pleasure its nice to get back to basics and cameras like the Leica M with just very basic settings available are great for this.

Wanting a simple mirrorless autofocus it seems that finding a simple camera like this would be straightforward but it seems they do not exist.