WHY A LEICA MAKES YOU A BETTER PHOTOGRAPHER

[Sparky]

Angus wrote:

Then with the lenses I find there is a huge variation. With the Pentacon (Prakticar) lenses the pictures are OK but using a Sigma or Tamron the results are far better. I have a couple of Zeiss lenses that I attach to it also, totally stunning.

Absolutely! I ran my Pentax MX (posher k1000 ;-) ) for years with a Tamron Zoom because I found the Macro facility useful. But I was getting more and more disillusioned with photography because the results were actually rather poor. A year or 2 back I rediscovered the standard 50mm lens that it came with and the results were a revelation! -all those wasted films because of that crappy Tamron (actually I think the poor quality was compounded by consistent underexposure- that wretched adaptal mount!)

I don't notice the difference nearly so much between the Cinegon prime and the Optivaron zoom on the Leicina though- that is a very fine zoom lens!

[joaomontenegro]

The lens is the image. The body is just a bracket to hold the lens and the film.

Sorry to disagree, but the body can also make the difference. A bad reflex body will produce vibrations during the mirror movement. The picture may become less sharp because of that. There are also other problems, like bad curtain movement synchronization, the distance between the lens and the viewfinder (consequently the mirror) may not be perfect, giving you a wrong idea of the real focus in the film.

Anyway, a good lens on a bad body will produce many good pictures, the other way around will NEVER do it...

Regards,
Joao

[Angus]

The problem with many older bodies is that the spring-loaded shutter/mirror movement does cause movement of the body during exposure. However the disadvantage of a more modern electronic camera is that they are so light they tend to shake in your hands.

You can of course never take a great picture if you have a naff lens (well, you can get lucky with anything, even a webcam)...so for me having the right lenses for the job in hand is important. I don't have a prob with the Adaptall II mount, maybe I'm just lucky.

I also have a rare thing...I can screw M42 lenses to my PB camera...

[hassan]

There was me thinking it was talent! It's a matter of opinion but a perfectly exposed, in focus photograph shot on the most expensive film with the most expensive camera doesn't neccessarily produce the best results. If it did we could all max out our credit cards and within a week or two be Henri Cartier Bresson, Man Ray or Jock Sturges.

[Lunar07]

The lens is the image. The body is just a bracket to hold the lens and the film. A Carl Zeiss lens on a Yashica body will produce the same photo as it would on a classic Contax body designed by Porsche. In the 70s, it was a huge marketing mistake on the part of Contax to agree to use the Yashica mount on the Contax camera. Instead of spending a fortune on a single Contax body, one of the most popular things to do at that time was to have multiple, cheap Yashica bodies and a full selection of Carl Zeiss lenses. No wonder Yashica agreed to let Contax use their mount royalty free!

Roger

This is all true. But - those who can afford Leica lenses will go for a Leica camera. It is a status symbol. I mean, you can run a Neon with a Saab Turbo super duper new engine. But no one will know you are running a Saab engine. The outer frame/bracket of the car is what displays your status If someone can afford a super duper Leica lens, they WILL buy a Leica camera. They ARE going to do it. It is their FATE and you can bet on the gods of Pentax and Nikon that they are going to do it. The same way that Santo is losing sleep these days dreaming of Leicas ever since he got the Leician special :lol: It is all in one book - the same book that dictated the M39 mount on the Leicina Special so that we can dream of these things. One can not escape Destiny (I have been watching too many Xena re-runs lately hehehehehehehe)

[Santo]

It is their FATE and you can bet on the gods of Pentax and Nikon that they are going to do it. The same way that Santo is losing sleep these days dreaming of Leicas ever since he got the Leicina special :lol: It is all in one book - the same book that dictated the M39 mount on the Leicina Special so that we can dream of these things. One can not escape Destiny

"Destiny! Destiny! Can't escape my des-tin-y! Destiny! Destiny! Can't escape my destiny!" - Gene Wilder in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

[super8man]

I just skimmed this thread and realized no one has mentioned the obvious - FILM! By that I mean, you can RADICALLY improve your image taking capability by shelling out for professional film. Not Kodak Gold!!!

I did this with a friend at work: I gave him a roll of GOOD film and told him to take two sets of pics of the same scenes (one with his usual film, one with mine) - then bring them to me to see if I could tell the difference. He could not tell but I could. And I got each picture right as to which film was which. He ended up learning for himself how to see the difference and now buys his film from B&H to save $$ on the good stuff.

So, try a good roll of film (hint - it won't come in 24 exposures rolls).

[wahiba]

I always reckoned my Yashica-D to be a poor mans Contax. It was obvious they were made on the same production times with the Contax getting a few extra bits and a hefty price.

Fortunately they were all made to Contax standards. I am not sure when the Yashica-D came out but I bought an early one and it is still going strong. Not used so much today though.

[jean]

This is so funny, after an eternity long absence, I drop back here and thought i'm in the wrong forum leica? bokeh? canon? nikon?

OK, a look at the top of the frame, and i was reassured that it's good old 8mm forum 8)

I can't resist to add my 0.02€. I am with angus, a practica bx20 (hey, that was my 2nd camera!) I never got around to get the zeiss primes, but i ruined many rolls of film with a mushy cheapo zoom.

If you want fun, any of the good old cameras and lenses (primes, please - no consumer zooms, those were crap, and probably still are) can be had for a few bucks. 100€ would buy me a complete pentax outfit with 3 primes here! And the pics won't be discernible from a leica, at the price of some rolls of film vs. a mortgage.

But destiny, oh yes.. one fine day, I noticed those fine, elegant german made cameras. To make a long story short, they are indeed fun to have and use, although the mystique is of course imagination. But the tool aka camera does matter, i have to disagree here with Roger. Not because of inherent magic attributes, but because every camera (aka tool) has it's characteristics, and if your needs match the characteristics of your tool are, you will notice a big difference.

Try to hit a nail with a screwdriver, or unscrew with a hammer.. cameras are like screwdrivers and hammers, perhaps less obvious, but..

[unxetas]

yeah, lenses.. I got into photography pretty much after I realized shooting film was so fun.. it just seemed perfectly natural to shoot still photos and moving pictures, as the principles pretty much apply to both.. I get *almost* the same kind of enjoyment doing both types of photography.

Anyway, I bought my camera in Prague, at this wonderful used camera shop.. it's a praktica LLC, full manual etc etc.. heavy and built pretty much like a tank. It cost me €30 euros, and I was already thinking about ebaying for some nice lenses when I noticed mine came with a 50mm carl zeiss prime.. nice start

The glass is really nice, I'm pretty sure half of my pictures look good 95% glass, 5% luck..

looking back, I should've bought some more lenses at that camera shop.. I'm sure they'd be cheap

[MovieStuff]

The lens is the image. The body is just a bracket to hold the lens and the film.

Sorry to disagree, but the body can also make the difference. A bad reflex body will produce vibrations during the mirror movement. The picture may become less sharp because of that.

I was speaking figuratively. Of course a bad body can cause problems. And a scratched Leica or Zeiss lens will produce unwanted defects in your final image, as well, thus you would not knowingly use them. So what's the point? Obviously I am speaking of bodies that work properly. You don't have to buy a Contax camera to get correct performance. More specifically, a Contax doesn't have any less vibration during the mirror swing than any other decent SLR and pros know to use mirror lock up when it matters, anyway. ;)

My position is simply that the lens is going to make the biggest, most obvious difference from one photo to the next. I have never seen a working pro that can detect the body a photo was shot with but I have seen the average person note when something is stunningly sharp due to superior optics.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

But the tool aka camera does matter, i have to disagree here with Roger. Not because of inherent magic attributes, but because every camera (aka tool) has it's characteristics, and if your needs match the characteristics of your tool are, you will notice a big difference.

But you are notating a difference in characteristics and features that a photographer might be looking for or want to work with, not an inherent difference in quality brought to the final image through mere existence of a given body or a lens. You could build a simple box camera with no moving parts and no reflex viewfinder and put a Zeiss lens on it and the resulting photo will be affected more by the presence of the $500 Zeiss lens than the absence of a $1000 Contax body.

Roger

[downix]

Ya know, there is an ancient Yashica-D NOS sitting at my store..........

And you're all wrong, MINOLTA RULZ!!!!!!

[filmbuff]

And you're all wrong, MINOLTA RULZ!!!!!!

Ever since I got a Minolta 7sII rangefinder all other still cameras of mine have walked the ebay plank. Its only got a fixed prime lens but I'm sure glad its stuck there. Great glass.