Category: Photography

The D200 was a watershed camera for Nikon, after inventing the digital single lens reflex camera they quickly lost their lead to Canon.  This was the camera that marked Nikon’s comeback.

It had a DX crop and was up there with the very best and in a number of key areas bettered anything that the competition out.

It was quickly followed by the D300 and D300s, as well as the full frame Nikon D3 and D700.  Nikon was on a roll and after a few missteps from Canon they truly had the best range of DX and full frame DSLR cameras out there.

Nikon then fell back into their old ways and left the DX cameras to the consumer range and stopped the high end DX, so a D300(s) replacement never came, until this year the announcement of the D500.

Nikon have now announced that the Nikon D500 is delayed in America, it seems Nikon are underestimated the popularity and are struggling to get enough bodies into shops.  Due to the way that US consumer law operates all dealers have to be treated in the same way thus all have to get the same  number of bodies and if there in short supply then things are going to have to be delayed.

Here we are charging into February and a part from reading up on the new Fuji x series, the new Olympus Pen-F and the rather nice Nikon D5 and Canon 1D, its been all theory and not photography.

I have now cleared next weekend so subject to the weather I am definitely going out and shooting some wildlife.

Last year I did not manage to get out much for wildlife photography, so this new year I made the resolution that I would definitely get out.  Well its now February and I have still not managed to get out for my first wildlife shoot of year, maybe next weekend i’ll finally be able to get out!

I have always had a soft spot for the Olympus Pen series.  The limitation for me has always been the lack of a viewfinder, well this has finally been fixed.

Its a little pricey and I am not sure about the art filter selection control on the front but apart from that it looks good and I look forward to testing one out.

Techart have released some demo videos of an adapter that allows you to attach your Leica M glass to your Sony E mount camera and have autofocus.  Could be an interesting solution for Sony users with M glass.

I keep hearing that the ‘Insert Latest Mirrorless Camera Name Here’ will be the death of the Leica M and that the M needs to drop the optical viewfinder to stay relevant.

Now that Leica have the new SL many are saying that this also will be the death of the Leica M.  It seems that too few people understand the strengths of the rangefinder and its limitations.

The biggest draw to Leica is of course the Leica glass and many use that glass on their Sony’s, their Olympus/Panasonic’s and their Fuji’s.

Because of the design of a rangefinder lens the ultra wides generally give colour shifts and odd corner artefacts on any camera that is not designed for rangefinder lens, so if your interested in using lens wider then 35mm you need to either use a Leica M or the Ricoh’s A12 M-Mount module for the GXR.  Even the Leica SL and T have these issues with wide rangefinder lens.

The key feature of a rangefinder is its optical viewfinder, being able to see more of the scene then you will photograph, if you shoot reactively, and with wide lens, then a rangefinder maybe for you, and an EVF unsuitable for you.  If however you shoot more planned and carefully such as landscape, portraits and architecture, need to see precisely what you are shooting then the EVF or traditional SLR is better for you.  Certainly if you commonly shoot 50mm or above then a modern mirrorless or SLR is a better choice.

So will these cameras be the death of the Leica M rangefinder, no.  But I will say to make the M more flexible I would like to see a hybrid viewfinder like in the Fuji cameras, the best of both worlds.  Until them many people like me who shoot many styles then we will sometimes carry our Leica M and sometimes our SLR.