That’s the one that works best for me on the M6 and I really enjoy shooting with it. The only lens that I’ll keep is the 35mm Summicron.
It comes with a viewfinder optimised for this focal so you can see better what’s in the frame and focusing will also be easier. If you are more like a 50mm kind of guy, then you should look at the Leica M3 instead.
It’s again a question of frame lines that appear too small. Don’t get me wrong here, the lens itself is amazing and gave me great results but I just don’t like using it with this camera. Last lens I’m not entirely satisfied with is the 50mm Summicron. Even if you’ll look like a badass photographer with this setup, I find that it defeats the purpose and simplicity of the rangefinder system. Leica cameras are meant to be minimalist and to offer the purest photographic experience possible. View in side the 21mm external viewfinder Everything appears distorted almost like with a fish-eye lens or an old TV, and you can even see the lens hood at the bottom of the frame. You sure can use the hyperfocal or zone-focusing but that’s not always ideal for every situations.Ĭomposing with this is not the most pleasing experience. This external viewfinder is only used to compose the image and you still need to rely on the other one to adjust your focus. This focal is too wide to fit inside the viewfinder window (the M6 covers up to 28mm) and there are no corresponding frame lines so I have to rely on this very expensive external viewfinder that fits into the hot shoe mount. I’ll take the example of the 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar that I own. If the focal you’re shooting with doesn’t fall into the range of predetermined frame lines, you will need an external viewfinder. The other major disadvantage of this system is the focal coverage. View in side the viewfinder with a 35mm or 135mm lens mounted FOCAL COVERAGE It may work for some of you but I find the ergonomic and experience of this setup really poor. I strongly discourage anyone from getting such a long lens on a rangefinder system. Even if it comes with the goggles to magnify what’s inside the viewfinder, focusing with this beast is an art of its own!Īnother point is that it makes the camera difficult to handle and completely unbalanced. View in side the viewfinder with a 28mm or 90mm lens mounted With an SLR camera, it’s easier to determine if the image is in focus or not, whereas with a Rangefinder it’s more difficult since the image is so small in the viewfinder. When shooting with long lenses the depth of field is very limited especially at wide apertures so focus is critical. With this small size comes issues to nail the focus.
If you are shooting with 90mm Summicron for example, the corresponding frame lines will appear very small in the viewfinder window. View in side the viewfinder with a 50mm or 75mm lens mounted Also note that this system doesn’t work with zoom lenses, only fixed focales will work. The only things that change are the frame lines inside the viewfinder. With a Rangefinder the frame remains the same and the image inside the viewfinder doesn’t change when mounting a new lens. Frame lines appear in couples :įor those of you who are used to shoot with SLR cameras (where you seen directly through the lens) this makes a huge difference.
These lines automatically changes depending on the lens mounted. What also comes with this magnification, is a set of frames lines that appear inside the viewfinder. That means what I see inside the window is slightly smaller than in reality (but still very large compared to other cameras). I have the standard version which is magnified by 0.72x (3 different versions exist for the M6). This may change depending on the magnification of your camera’s viewfinder. In the case of the Leica M6, it comes with a set of predefined focal lines that appear in the viewfinder window. If you’ve never used a Rangefinder before let me explain quickly how it works in 2 points. I should have understand that these cameras are meant to work within a specific focal range. The biggest mistake I did was to don’t take the time to learn enough about the Rangefinder cameras before making my purchases. I had a good sum of money from my sales and was feeling like a kid in a candy shop! I bought 5 lenses going from 21mm up to 135mm thinking that I would never need to buy glass for the rest of my life… Of course that was wrong otherwise we wouldn’t be here today! The Leica M6 I first bought the body then ordered at the same time all sort of lenses from different resellers.
LEICA M FULL
The obvious choice for me was to buy a Leica M6 and a full set of lenses to cover a wide focal range. When I sold all my digital equipment to make a permanent switch to analog camera I went for a Rangefinder camera. Today I want to share with you my thoughts on the Leica M and more generally the Rangefinder system.