Kaisern Chen
Leica cameras and the Leica pictuers!
Updated: Nov 2, 2022
I love cameras, all cameras, and Leica cameras are among those more favorable. However, I love cameras, not more than I love photography and the process of undertaking it.
My first Leica is M6 back in 1991 when I can finally afford it, and I never stop using Leica since. I use several different cameras since I started photography as a teenager; the Leica camera was added instead of replacing others, as it is today.
Leica had made excellent cameras true to the brand's DNA with mechanical heritage and character that fascinated me when I was a boy, a young man, and an industrial designer. It's a friend.
Do I agree that the Leica camera is capable of producing excellent images? Always. Are they the best? It is the photography question, not about the camera.
This blog is dedicating to images shot with various Leica cameras and lenses, including lenses specifically design for Leica, of the past and the most current ones, in random order.
LFI Selection of 2021
2021 at a glance : Leica Photografie International "LFI" - not a bad year to have my images selected by LFI in 175 occasions in varies genres of photography, including 59 Leica Master Shot selections.
LFI Selection of 2020
2020 at a glance : Leica Photografie International "LFI" - not a bad year to have my images selected by LFI in 130 occasions in varies genres of photography.
2022
2022 NOVEMBER
November 1
2022 October
October 5
October 7
October 12 Natasha Friesen
My "Behind and in front of my camera" blog gets a new addition.
October 17 Bell - the stranger met on the street, Taipei, Taiwan
October 17 "Meat Bun 肉包" Ximending 西門町, Taipei, Taiwan
October 19 Tamsui, New Taipei City, Taiwan
October 24 Bell's midnight vibe, Ximending 西門町, Taipei, Taiwan
2022 September
September 3
September 5
September 12 at LINE Jatujak-Mochit Bangkok
September 14
As if Leica wants to comfort the hard-core supporters of the classic M system ahead of offering an iteration of the digital M11 with built-in EVF, which expectedly to draw heavy critiques, a new film M camera is on the horizon.
It is about 20 years since Leica introduced a major film camera - the Leica MP in March 2003 at the Las Vegas PMA photo show, one year after Leica released the M7, a successor to the immensely popular M6.
The 2014 Leica M-A was more like an anniversary upgrade to the MP with improved rangefinder optical coating, reduction of internal reflections, and elimination of the PX76/SR44 silver oxide cell or DL 1/3N Lithium cell. In short, the M-A is MP with an empty battery compartment, the exact size and built, 7 grams lighter. I don't have any battery cells inside all four of my MP, I don't need the M-A.
The 2002 M7 was a great M camera and the most precise M film camera ever until Leica discontinued it in May 2018. The M7 equipped a very quiet, electronically controlled mechanical shutter that 1/60s and 1/125s are still functional without a battery. With the exposure compensation dial and auto exposure, the M7 is the most practical M film camera if getting the pictures to weigh over purely having fun. I enjoy the process of training my manual film camera to take pictures, but getting the shot is the bottom line.
Leica recently added a section to its corporate website - Leica Film Photography with a hashtag - #filmisnotdea ahead of introducing the next new film camera. We are sure that anything from Leica will not fit the bill "budget," and the Famalicão assembled film camera will be the second Leica M camera not made in Germany, after the 1973 Leitz Minolta CL.
Although positioned under the M-A and the MP, the new film camera is a more cost-friendly and better-featured film camera, more like a successor of the M7 while taking reverse route.
Leica is a small company and does not require a large number of sales to call for success. It signals that Leica has not abandoned its past while making a near future EVF M digital less disheartening to many faithful "Messsucher" fans. The gradual transition to EVF for digital M cameras is inevitable until it becomes necessary. EVF continues to evolve and integrate with the electronics inside the modern digital camera, which is fast approaching "necessary."
The film is not dead; very few said it is because most of the public does not care. The largest film camera maker today is Fujifilm, with its popular Instax cameras. Roll films, by comparison, only carry an insignificant percentage. Fujifilm's Instax division is larger in sales than all medium format film and digital cameras combined, plus the entire Leica camera division. Photography roll film has been in steady decline and will continue to decline, reflecting on its availability and price. It is not dead until it is dead.
The unmistakable acoustic signature and the tactility feeling of a shutter press and all the mechanical parts interacting in an instant is a memory I love and will never forget.
I may not need another film M camera, but I wish the best for those who want one and be part of Leica's history.
September 15
September 30
2022 AUGUST
August 10
August 11
August 12
August 13
August 18
August 22
2022 JuLY
July 7
July 9
July 15
Sà i Gòn (Ho Chi Minh City)
July 17-24 2022
2022 June
June 16
2022 May
May 26 Nathhida Duangjampa, Bangkok, Thailand
2022 APRIL
April 13, 2022 Songkran Festival - Bangkok, Thailand - May the kinetic military action reduced to friendly, non-hostile water pistol game.
2022 March
March 8 2022 International Women's Day - Elena, always busy. Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia
March 10, 2022 Family picture - Tanya and her parents Marina and Alexander, Tutayev, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia
March 12, 2022 Winter days, Cherepovets region, Vologda Oblast, Russia
March 26, 2022 Yury, the birthday boy
2022 February
February 1, 2022 Ink China - Huangshan, Anhui, China
February 4, 2022 Daria Lucia at the Bangkok Railway Station
February 10 Ulaanbuton, Inner Mongolia
February 18 Xiapu, Fujian, China
2022 January
January 6, 2022 Sorina Mihaela
January 10 Izem Yilmaz
January 12 Irina Kornia, China Town Bangkok
January 16 Therese MacCallum
January 19 Elis Regina - Hotel Indigo Bangkok
2021 Archive
2021 January
The Leica M10-D - carries over from my Leica M10-D Journal
Leica M10-D is my most frequently use Leica camera in 2020, and the lens is the Summilux-M 50/1.4 ASPH. I started the shoot in 2021 with the exact combination!
Fai, shot with the Leica M10 Monochrom Leitz Wetzlar Edition
And I need to keep my collection going - "Behind and in front of my camera" features mostly, not surprisingly, Leica cameras!
Por, shot with Leica M10-D and converted in monochrome.
Some pictures from the new personal blog about Phone Booth with my Leica M10 Monochrom
My Leica M system cameras and the challenges
Leica made several attempts to keep the M system camera to meet the challenges and the reflex camera system's capability without resounding success until the arrival of electronic live-view of CMOS-based cameras that united the mirrorless and reflex system.
My new Leica M10 Monochrom attached with Visoflex 020 and one of my favorites close-up lenses, Nikkor PC 85/2.8D, will join my new project "Cycle of Life" something I have always wanted to shoot with Leica M cameras.
Thanks to digital development, the M system is somewhat liberated and became a more flexible choice as the brand has envisioned and wish it to be. Leica appeared well-acknowledged in the technology and where the market is moving to, evidently introducing the T/SL system and the Q cameras. Time to bring the EVF to the M camera.
"If there were no beginnings and if there were no endings, we would have the absence of inertia and the presence of stagnation."
~ Craig D. Lounsbrough
The Leica M10-D is certainly not the most effective camera for making shots for my "Cycle of Life" project, it is slow, it requires more nerve for each of the moment, it requires me to hold my breath even the camera is on a tripod. It is like meditation!
What I would say, without reservation, is that, as of January 2021, the Leica FOTOS remains the worst product the Leica offers currently!
Leica Perspective Control
The Leica Perspective Control function automatically corrects receding lines and is available for the M10-P, M10-R, and M10 M series cameras through a firmware update on January 28, 2021.
While I have no intention to use the Leica for serious architecture shoots or want to, I will use some proper technical lenses such as my Schneider PC-TS Super-Angulon 28 or 50 or those from Nikon and Canon with mount-adapters.
However, the automatic correction could be interested in street portraits, although it won't show from the focusing window unless using the EVF, making the shooting painfully slow and less spontaneous. Technically one can have the camera away from the eyes and using the correction frame on the rear display. Still, I hate shooting that way, particularly for portraits, as the camera becomes a third object in the process, but each photographer finds his way; it is just not my subjective preference.
With the M10 Monochrom set to CAPTURE ASSISTANTS - Perspective Control - On - to shoot DNG + JPEG, the result is quite evident here on the screen. (Corrected JPEG on the left vs. Native DNG on the right) The Gyro inside the camera automatically detects the camera's angle, sends the information to the processor, and embeds correction data on the DNG while recording the JPEG as corrected. Capture One Pro 21 has not yet read the embedded correction data on DNG like Lightroom, which Leica recommended, but this is just a function inspection that I will stay with my Capture One Pro 21 and not bother with Lightroom.
But I have to say; initially, I thought this is perhaps not a very useful feature. I now believe it may be quite interesting for an environmental portrait on the go when there is no time to use proper PC lenses or computer correction.
February 2021
February 14, 2021
The romantic photographer!
It is more than three decades since Fujifilm introduced FUJIX DS-1P in 1988, the first practical digital camera capable of saving data to a semiconductor memory card. Today, any digital camera is beyond the wildest dreams of photographers back then. The discussions and debates of whether digital can surpass chemical-based photography also shifted from technical talks to a more philosophical basis.
Photographers often have the romance as if the technology is evolving around their desire of quality and curiosity while in reality not. Not always, anyway.
It was the human endeavor to discover the unknown, breaking the boundary of common knowledge, as the case for the invention of the MOSFET (MOS -Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) by the Bell Labs in 1959. The scientists worked tirelessly to enable the 1977 Voyager Program (Voyager 1 and Voyager 2) to carry digital cameras on the spacecraft to capture data and store it on a digital tape and then playback during transmission periods. The spacecraft went on sending back valuable images through its mission to the edge of the planetary system, including the first and still only family portrait of planets in our home solar system, including the famous "Pale Blue Dot" - on Valentine Day, February 14, 1990, by NASA's Voyager 1. The image of "Pale Blue Dot" - Earth seen from 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) away, romantically planned ten years ahead in 1981 by Carl Sagan, a member of the Voyager Imaging Team, envisioned to have the spacecraft turn around to take one last look at home before shut off the on-board camera to preserve power for more critical instruments.
Both Voyagers kept flying long after February 1990. In August 2012, the Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space, followed by Voyager 2 in December 2018, moving at the velocity of 38,026.77 mph (Voyager 1) and 34,390.98 mph (Voyager 2).
Now, digital cameras, including those on Smartphones, are used to capture anything, with no regard to the prestigious heritage. They don't have to. The camera somehow becomes something for identifying the photographer, either through the image it is producing or by the camera's look, as an accessory or fashion statement - for example, the Hasselblad 907X + CFVII 50C and Leica M Edition 60.
The Hasselblad 907X + CFVII 50C and Leica M Editon 60 share many things in common but in the opposite direction. Both camera presented in the form of their past in a modern appearance. Hasselblad 907X has only the articulated rear display but no viewfinder and Leica M Edition 60 has the viewfinder but no display. Both are awful cameras by ordinary judgments for lacking vertical grip, or grip of any kind, no ergonomic to speak about, slow to autofocus or none thereof, no IBIS, and priced wrong.
Ordinary judgments are not wrong; they are just ordinary.
February 15 The Bangkok Railway Station
The M10 Monochrom will not manage blown exposure in anyway meaningful, something needs to be extremely careful!
February 27 Snow Moon
The 2nd full moon in 2021 is also known as the Snow Moon, due to typically heavy snow in February, indicating such term did not come from tropical countries.
It is also celebrated by the Chinese as the "Spring Lantern Festival" - on the 15th day of the first month in the lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is considered the final day of the traditional Chinese Spring Festival, such tradition traced back to Emperor Ming (28-75 AD) of the Han Dynasty, close to two millennia ago.
The Leica M10 Monochrom with its monochrome sensor theoretically can reproduce an image with cleaner and higher resolution than cameras with a Bayer RGB sensor of the same pixel pitch, for free of color and pattern noise.
Not in the case of the Moon shot! The thick Earth atmosphere softens the spatial frequency so the monochrome sensor is basically recording an image blurred by thick air and tropical humidity. It would work much better on the surface of the moon or on Mars, as some of the cameras with bandpass filters on the Mars Perseverance.
This shot is more fun than useful! This shot made with Leica M10 Monochrom at 2:41AM, almost 30min after those shots made with Fujifilm GFX100 using the exact same lens, Minolta RF 800mm 1:8 of the exact reproduction scale albeit on the different sensor. The GFX100 easily out-resolve the M10M in this situation, even without the Pixel Shift Multi-Shot.
Other shots may be different! (ref: Fujifilm GFX100 Moon shot)