Please Note: This image can only be taken with a Leica M6 0.85 TTL equipped with a 50mm f/2 Summicron lens, loaded with Ilford FP4 and developed in Rodinal for 15 minutes @ 20 degrees C. Any attempt do to it in another way will result in failure! Sorry! I didn’t make the rules. That’s just the way it is! When you approach a scene, please look for the placard that will tell you what is the proper equipment to use! 
I like to laugh. My favorite types of movies are comedies, especially well thought out parodies. Heck! I also love slapstick comedy. My wife, and many other females that I have met, never really can understand why men like The Three Stooges! It’s a guy thing, I guess. “Hey, Moe! I’m tryin’ ta think, but nothin’s happening!”. Classic!
If you want mindless entertainment, the web is a great place to get it. Heck, you can get a lot of it on this blog! Of course, unless you’ve been trapped under a rock, or you get your Internet service from Time Warner (ouch!) *, you know about the Leica M9, S2, and X1 releases on 09/09/09. There have been endless articles, posts, reviews, and forum debates about the M9, which seems to be the most notable release of the three.
I believe that most of you have heard of Ken Rockwell. In general, it seems that about 50% of the people like him, the other 50%, not so much. I find his reviews entertaining. They are not dry like the technical reviews that you’d get on DP Review. They are rather hyped up and full of opinion. For example, his most recent ‘musings’ about the M9 state that People really are dumping their old Nikon D3X and Canon 1Ds Mark IIIs for the LEICA M9 as fast as they can!, in reference to this article, which plainly states that some photographers are ditching their DSLR cameras for the new M9, but later on another vendor notes that about 99% of the people who are buying the M9 were already Leica fans. Mind you, Ken has not even held, let alone used an M9 yet, but he has declared victory over the DSLR! Entertainment.
Another source of entertainment, though very short lived, is to look at the debates on the forums. I was reading one that went something like this:
P1 – Person 1
P2 – Person 2
P1:I might buy a camera to shoot pictures of kids and I’m thinking about an M9.
P2: It might be a good choice, but you’ll have to get used to a rangefinder. It’s a different way of shooting.
P3: No! You should stick with a DSLR! P2, are you saying that you can get good photos of kids with a Leica rangefinder? If so, prove it. Let’s see the photos.
P2: OK. Here are the photos taken with my Leica M8 (Shows 8 or 10 really good kid photos)
P3: OK. So then are you saying that you can ONLY take good photos with a $15,000 set of camera and lenses?
P2: Well, obviously, all you want to do is argue, so I won’t continue …
And on, and on, and on, and on. As I said, short term entertainment. It used to amaze me at how much time, effort, and energy that someone will put into an argument just to convince someone that their point of view is the correct one. Now, I just laugh and move on. Forums are rather like slapstick comedy and Ken Rockwell is more of a parody of a review, though he does have some good points, you just have to dig through the hyperbole to get to them.
*As you can guess: Not a big fan of Time Warner!
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11 Responses to “Mindless entertainment”
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So, is Ken selling an adapter that will allow me to mount my 500mm L Series F/4 to an M9? LOL
Trust me, I’d love an M9… and a handful of primes to go with it. But for work, I need 8-10 frames per second, I need ballistic fast autfocus, and I need REALLY long glass. If Ken can put a 200mm lens on an M9 and pan at 1/30 second, God bless him.
Obviously, I’m in the “other 50%” about Ken. Sorry… the guy is clueless.
I guess I must be lucky with Time Warner, had them for years with very few problems. As far as cameras, life goes on like the debate on cameras.
@John: To his credit, he did make the statement that for landscape and travel photography. Certainly, I’m not trading in my D300, which is excellent for sports photography, for a Leica. I could certainly see how an M9 would be great for travel! I like traveling lightly. As I said, Ken is entertainment!
Fair enough.
With $20K in Canon gear kicking around, I use the Leica Digilux 2 for my personal shooting. The camera is brilliant. Only 5MP, but the IQ is drop dead gorgeous. And using the camera is truly a joy.
http://www.johnthawley.com/journal/2008/11/18/the-leica-digilux-2.html
It’s just a great camera.
Darn. I wish I had known all along to look for those placards! Just think how many terrific photos I could taken. Of course, I suppose I would have had to buy a room full of equipment, but I’m sure it would have been worth it.
I love this photo. An effective advertisement for black and white photography.
@Anita: I only seem to discover the placard after taking the photo!
All of your photos seem to have been taken with the right equipment, though. So you must know where the placards are kept or know your way around the system.
I LOVE the shadows in this picture. Clearly a shadow of a tree behind you. The tones are off the hook but the overall picture (your eye) is bang on.
Again, the tones are amazing here,your developing skills are getting better and better Paul. What are you scanning with? It’s getting the job done!
I’m sure the M9 is fine but it’s a tool. It’s our eye and brain that sees that picture. I despise the film vs. Digital debate but I have to say, there is not a digital camera around that can, on a technical level, beat what you’ve made here.
@Tom: I’ve been experimenting a little bit with agitation. I’m sticking with Rodinal. I started with 1 minute of agitation, then 10 seconds each 30 seconds, according the the Rodinal instructions for FP4+. On this roll, I decided to do the 1 minute start agitation, but then reduce the agitations to 10 seconds each minute instead of each 30 seconds. I have found that this lessens the amount of apparent grain and seems to smooth the tones out. The negatives are a little bit less contrasty. Rodinal is fantastic, but that’s just my opinion.
As for scanning, I use my Epson Perfection 3200 Photo scanner, which has been discontinued for a couple of years, It does a great job! I scan at 2400 dpi, which saves time, as I don’t really print them; however, at that dpi, I get 3352 x 2056 TIFF files (6.7 MP), very suitable for printing up to 8 x 12 easily! Higher scans like 3200, 4800, or 6400 take a long time to do, lots of memory, and for little gain. Of course, it would be worth it if I were printing large photos.
Haha, the viral marketing of the Digilux 2 continues here, I see.
John and a few others do a great job with this on the Leica forum, and I can only agree about the IQ of the camera.
“[...] 50% of the people like him, the other 50%, not so much.”
The footer to your image reminds me on that recent discussion at the online photographer. I have to admit, it made me kind of curious – I’ve never really touched a Leica.
@Thomas: Well, with that statement I was trying to be kind.