Leica M9 w/Leica 28mm Elmarit Finally a day out of the house without it snowing, frigid cold or rain. It was gray but otherwise warm and well worth the trip outside to make some frames with the Leica M9 and the Leica 28mm Elmarit. Down the street from me in Rockport is the "end of the line" for the MBTA commuter rail line. Most of the time there are at least a couple of engines with all the cars attached but on Sunday it's full.

So I roamed around looking for interesting photos and this particular arrangement caught my attention and was easily the best combination of elements at the site. I took a few other things but this one really got my juices going. I envisioned this as a high contrast black and white and after adjusting the colors the way I wanted them in Lightroom I pulled it into Silver Efex Pro. One of the presets was perfect and gave me the image you see above. I am really thrilled with it. You never know, it could end up at the RAA this summer.

Leica M9 w/ Leica 28mm Elmarit

While I was at the station the train was beginning to leave and a couple of families quickly ran out of Dunkin Donuts to catch the train back to Boston. I was ready to catch folks running by. This little girl decided that I was much more interesting than catching the train as she was looking at me the whole time. Today with the flat light I really felt like I was using Tri-X so I converted this image in Silver Efex Pro using the Tri-X preset. It is really close to what I was thinking at the time. Who would have thought street photography in Rockport in the winter.

Leica M9 w/28mm Elmarit f2,8 Exposure ISO 800 1/6s @ 2.8

After leaving work one day last week I turned around to see this car with the snow falling off and the wiper blades up in the air. It was almost dark out and I decided to make a shot anyway. It's a little soft from movement but hey it was at 1/6 of a sec.

Leica M9 w/28mm Elmarit f2,8

The other morning I was outside my car looking at all the ice and snow I had to navigate and saw this interesting pattern. So I grabbed the Leica not knowing if it would be of much interest. It took me a while before I downloaded it and decided to do it on my iPad. I have not done this in a while but it was really easy. I next pulled the image into my favorite photo processing app Photogenie. Tons of tools with this app. I killed the color and added some contrast and clarity then added a little vignette and this is what I got.  I did the same with the car photo in color.

Sony Nex-7 w/ Leica 90 Tele Elmarit Exposure ISO 800 @ 1/100s f2.8 "Kodak looking for birds"

The Leica 90 mm Tele Elmarit is one of those lenses that is always overlooked. In the used lens market it is only worth between $600 and $800 but is really worth a look for you folks that are out there looking for an inexpensive entry into the world of Leica glass. The combination of Leica legacy glass and the Sony Nex-7 is a super combination. I bought my Nex-7 for about $500 used and with the M adapter it totaled about $630. I was not thrilled with the tightness of the Metabones adapter so I am on the lookout for the overpriced Novoflex one. I am borrowing one at the moment and it is superior in every way.

So back to the 90 mm Tele Elmarit. As you can see it is tack sharp! On the Nex-7 it is a 135 f2,8 and this shot was made at an incredible 2 feet away wide open. With the M9 things would be different. At wide open the focus peaking works flawlessly and the highlight in Kodak's eyes was a nice bright red (peaking) so how can you miss - the focusing was fast. This is not always the case but it happens quite often. I think the best thing about my experience with the Sony and Leica legacy glass has been that the whole combination is so small and easy to handle. The upside benefit is that you have all the great features of the new digital cameras with Leica glass - what a combo.

Update 09/03/2014: Since the interest in this blog post has been so high lately I thought I would add to it my experiences of late regarding exposure with the M9. Since this camera uses a center weighted meter you have to be really careful as to where the center of the frame is pointed. I either use my hand as I have stated or I will look around the scene for a place where the exposure matches what I am looking for and lock the exposure. I do this in standard shutter mode and in auto exposure (A setting) by holding down the shutter button down halfway until you see a steady dot show up next to the LED. That's Leica's answer to exposure lock. It works quite well. I use this mode often as I like to see what my exposure is. I also will use auto ISO from time to time and set the camera for the exposure I want. For instance if I want to make sure nothing moves I might go to 1/500 sec or 1/1000 sec and set the aperture at 5.6 as a standard walk around exposure in bright or subdued light. Or inside I'll set it at 1/60 or 1/90 at f2.8 and let the camera figure out what the ISO is. It's fun to experiment with these different methods as you get more familiar with the M9.

Leica M9 w/28mm Elmarit f2.8 Exposure ISO 800 1/90s @2.8 "Kodak"

Shooting with my Leica M9 really has been a trip back in time. I am enjoying the experience. One of the several things that folks have complained about in the now five year old Leica M9 is the center weighted metering system. This really is old school but a very effective and accurate metering system. It does make you think however. Get it! This process of thinking through a photograph instead of just depending on the camera to do it all has been very enlightening. So I took myself back to the late seventies and early eighties when this form of metering was all there was. My Canon's only had center weighted, 9% spot and 12% spot. So to fine tune my exposure I did what all photojournalists did back then. Take the meter reading off my hand. In most cases you can simulate what you want by adjusting your hand to the light. So what I do now is stick my hand out there and press the shutter button down half way to lock exposure (aperture priority) or in manual just point the camera at your hand and adjust the exposure manually. I like auto because quite honestly I hate not being able to see any kind of exposure info in the viewfinder. Red dots and triangles just don't cut it Leica, sorry. In auto at least you get to see what the shutter speed is and adjust from there. In Alfred Eisenstaedt's book "The Eye of Eisenstaedt" he says the following about seeing or feeling light; "When I'm on location, I feel the light. Very often I'll put my hand out and turn it, testing different positions to see if the light is favorable or not." Back when I started my career this was standard procedure in low light or high light situations to test the shadows.

Even now with my Canon's, I shoot in manual when shooting inside sporting events and I still use the hand method, it works flawlessly. The shot of "Kodak" above was done with the meter not on my hand. Since the dog takes up the whole center of the photo I knew the meter reading would be spot on. This photo is the B&W jpg out of the camera with very little tweaking involved. It is beautiful - worthy of a print on fine art paper. The tones are fabulous. The Leica 28mm Elmarit Version 1 circa 1964 used for this photo is a beautiful and very rare lens since it was built in Wetzlar at the beginning of production. (Red feet numbers, ya baby). 

As a photojournalist back in the 70's - 80's we were still using ASA 400 or 800 film. There was no such thing as ISO or auto ISO. So we pretty much knew that an outside exposure in bright sunlight was 1/1000s at f11. And it was kind of fun to try and guess the exposure and then check it with the camera. We would often show up at a night sporting event inside and never having seen the place before guess the exposure within a stop. I'm again having fun doing that and at the same time honing my skills, again!

Leica M9 w/28 mm Elmarit 2.8 This morning I was up early to bring in some fuel to keep the house warm and the sunrise prompted me to pull out the M9 and make some shots. In this instance it was appropriate to under expose by one stop to bring up the sky. I contemplated using another camera and using HDR but that would be cheating, besides I had no time to fool around with a tripod which was in the car. The white balance was set to auto and it did pretty well. The meter was right on considering it is center weighted. The exposure for this image was ISO 800 1/125 sec. @ 2.8. I started out with a much smaller aperture for depth of field but the shutter speed was to low. I did the post processing in Lightroom but only took out a little blue and added some yellow, then added a little clarity, cropped things a bit and that was it.

The assignment back in 1979, was Rockport's Barber Harold Cooney. Harold was well into his 80's back then. The original story was done for North Shore Sunday a regional publication then part of the North Shore Weeklies chain of newspapers. I came in to do the photo essay and a reporter did the story. This was my first real assignment and I made many errors along the way. The editor at the time, (don't remember his name) helped me through the process. I learned that the closeup images of the little things made a big difference in the overall presentation. The Leica M system was such a wonderful tool to learn with as it gave me the ability to work with out whirring motors and large lenses. I was just part of the scene and the cameras and lenses allowed me to blend in. The images below are a sample of images made with the Leica M3, M5, Visoflex 2 with 65mm Elmar macro. The lenses I used were the 21mm Super Angulon f 3.4, 35mm Summicron f2.0 (M2 black, now rare), 50mm Summilux f1.4 (black first edition, also now rare), 65mm Elmar macro on the Visoflex 2. The film of course was Kodak Tri-X processed in my darkroom setup in a walk-in closet. Those were the days! The prints were made on a Leica Focomat 2C with Agfa Brovira paper, of course! 

Leica 50mm Summilux f1.4

Harold poses for a portrait.

Leica 50 Summilux f1.4

Cooney does one of his classic razor cuts as part of a normal haircut.

Leica 50mm Summilux f1.4

It would not be a classic Cooney haircut without an mirror inspection!

Leica 65mm Elmar macro The worn handle of the inspection mirror.

Leica 65mm Elmar macro

The stock and trade of any barber his equipment.

Leica 65 mm Elmar macro

Cooney's collection of barber's scissors.

35 mm Summicron f2. Cooney, at his best with a good laugh.

Leica 35mm Summicron f2

Cooney relaxes at the end of the day.

Leica 21mm Super Angulon f3.4

Cooney goes over the town's politics with Gordon Hull.

Leica 21mm Super Angulon f3.4

Cooney relaxes in his barber shop after a hard day on his feet.

Click here to see a PDF I created back in 2003 with a little bit of a story.

Leica M9 w/ 90 mm Tele Elmarit

This shot was made with the Leica M9 out the window with the 90mm Tele-Elmarit. The flakes were huge and the wind was blowing it all around - really cool stuff. I have the preview on the Leica M9 set to B&W and it really gives you a good idea what you have for exposure and at the same time a great idea of what you have in black and white. The jpegs this camera puts out when this is set to B&W are really good. The image above however was converted in Photoshop. After doing that I compared the jpg to this conversion and they were real close and that was straight out of the camera. I can't wait to do more shooting with this camera but the weather has been a major problem.

I hope to do more zone focus work with the 28 mm Elmarit soon I will post when I have some.

Leica M9 w/28mm Elmarit 2.8 Exposure ISO 800 1/125 @ f2.8  - "Kodak"                                                                                                                 

This camera is now five years old but to me its brand new. So the technology is really old. I have been a big Canon fan for my whole career and still own a full high end Canon set up. But my career started with the Leica M3 and M5. So the M9 is like coming home and it feels good. I do have to say it has taken some getting used to as I am used to my Canon's being so technically perfect. I am able to do so much with them that I don't have to think much when making images. I call it effortless photography and the results are spectacular. The lenses are so sharp that the images are really stunning. 

But Leica was doing that in the sixties! The images I was making back in 1979 were really super. Tack sharp with just the right amount of contrast and the bokeh was just wow at wide open. I hope to pull some files of B&W negs I scanned from back then and post them here. You have all read about how quirky the M9 can be and of course the pundits are correct it does have some issues. I tend to look beyond all that and concentrate on making great images like I used to with my old cameras. I set my ISO and go about it like I was shooting film. Set my shutter speed for the conditions and let the aperture fall where it may often times wide open!  As a photojournalist that's how I shoot. With the M9 I shoot slower as the buffer fills quickly, that's a good thing, I have to think. I have the screen review turned off and set to B&W so when I do want to call it up to check exposure it's like shooting in the old days in black and white. The color screen on the M9 is pretty bad so what's the use of looking at a bad representations of what I shot. That being said if I'm shooting color I need to check the white balance if things are critical. Most times I can tell from the black and white preview if the exposure is right and since I like to convert to black and white most of the time it works out great.

I have not had a chance to shoot much with the M9 yet as the weather has been pretty lousy around here, to much snow! This week I'll be using the camera on assignment following a politician for the day, it should be fun. I'll post some shots Weds. Or Thurs. I have tons of shots of my dog, Kodak, I'll have to add one to this post tomorrow.