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Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord

Mr. Despair posted:

Someone's a Poser.

In my experience a Super is pretty much the same price as a normal ME though, but I tend to buy them by the box.

ME Supers: the Zimbabwe dollars of photography.

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some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
I wonder if one day people will be buying Nikon D4s by the boxful.

Doubtful, they'll probably fall apart by then.

Clayton Bigsby
Apr 17, 2005

Martytoof posted:

FYI after handling a real life Leica M3 I now have the Leica lust.

Don't be me, kids.

I am attempting to fill this void with cheap soviet Leica III knockoffs but somehow I doubt this will work.

Yeah, you are screwed. I have an M3 + 50/2 Summicron DR (with no haze!) and it is pure camera porn.

Look for an M4-2, they are really nice and often don't run too high on ebay. I bought mine for 400 bucks and later traded it for an M3. :)

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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Martytoof posted:

I wonder if one day people will be buying Nikon D4s by the boxful.

Doubtful, they'll probably fall apart by then.

You can see this already with the early electronic cameras. You can't get a replacement meter board for a Pentax ME/Super, you need a donor camera. Same thing with the Nikon FG or EM, the boards wear out and the camera's a writeoff. The reality is that a Leica or a Nikon FM2 or a Pentax MX is just going to age infinitely better than anything electronic (digital or not) because there's something there to repair.

tijag
Aug 6, 2002
I just have a hard time understanding why I would want this Leica, instead of an F100 for example.

Overall an incredibly capable film body. Generally speaking, would the F100 + 50mm f/1.8D take worse pictures than a Leica?

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting
So what about the digital Leicas?

365 Nog Hogger
Jan 19, 2008

by Shine

tijag posted:

Generally speaking, would the F100 + 50mm f/1.8D take worse pictures than a Leica?

In no way.

spog
Aug 7, 2004

It's your own bloody fault.

Martytoof posted:

Leicas are pretty well engineered cameras. They're basically the Rolex of cameras.

Are they worth a thousand dollars a pop? Maybe or maybe not. I don't doubt that the brand has much to do with the price, but you really are getting a sturdy piece of metal and aluminum.

I was really skeptical of the Leica thing at first too. It really wasn't until I held the body and played with its (albeit very minimalist) functions that I really said "you know what, I can totally see it". It felt great in my hands, the weight was perfect.

In the end though it's just a box you put film into and lens on the other end. My $30 FED-2 won't really expose the film any better, given the same sort of lens on both bodies, but it won't feel near as nice in my hands. Is that worth an extra $970? Today it isn't. Tomorrow it might be.

I think it is important to differentiate between film and digital Leicas: the film ones were genuinely the top quality option at the time, combining suberb optics with strong and reliable bodies.

Digital Leicas? Hmm. Marketing.

EDIT:

signalnoise posted:

So what about the digital Leicas?

To be fair: the optics are still good and the recent one seems to have a good reputation, but the stuff before definitely is branding-first.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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tijag posted:

I just have a hard time understanding why I would want this Leica, instead of an F100 for example.

Overall an incredibly capable film body. Generally speaking, would the F100 + 50mm f/1.8D take worse pictures than a Leica?

It won't take better pictures (almost certainly worse since modern 50mms have become a science) but the process is totally different and that can yield better results. The F100 is an autofocus camera that can literally do everything for you, just push the button, drop the film off, and look at your prints. The Leica isn't going to handhold you, there's no matrix meter, no autofocus, no motor drive, certainly no program mode. It's just you and a lens. It's sort of like the difference between zooms and primes, primes force you to slow down and really consider which tool you want to use for a particular photograph.

For that matter you could say the same thing about nearly any old film camera, in absolute terms a Pentax ME Super is totally inferior to a F5 with some modern AF lenses. It doesn't even have autofocus or a matrix meter to go with its auto-indexed open-aperture aperture-priority shooting modes :qq:

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jul 16, 2012

evil_bunnY
Apr 2, 2003

tijag posted:

Overall an incredibly capable film body. Generally speaking, would the F100 + 50mm f/1.8D take worse pictures than a Leica?
Not at all, it's just a vastly different way to go about making photographs .

moonduck
Apr 1, 2005
a tour de force

Paul MaudDib posted:

I mean, even Rolleiflex isn't that expensive and their stuff has insane build quality with incredible lenses. They've been viewed as the most bang for the size for basically their entire production span (like 1930 to 1990), but they're not status symbols and thus don't command the insane prices of Leica.

Eh, a Rolleiflex 2.8F in good condition will sell for $1500+, which is probably more than a solid DS M3 and a collapsible 50 mm Summicron will run you. And modern Rolleiflex's sell for like $5K, which is right in line with what Leica sells the M7 and MP for.

So yeah, Rollei is that expensive.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 

tijag posted:

Overall an incredibly capable film body. Generally speaking, would the F100 + 50mm f/1.8D take worse pictures than a Leica?

I don't know how the 50 1.8D stacks up versus what you can get on a Leica M body, but I would say that it is highly unlikely you will see any quality difference in your photos.

Remember, cameras are just boxes for film, at the end of the day. If the lens is quality then the rest is just personal preference and convenience factors.

The F100 might even take better photos if you consider proper metering. On an M3 you've got to guess or deduce, or carry a light meter. If you set the F100 to fully manual then you shouldn't see any difference whatsoever.

tijag
Aug 6, 2002

Martytoof posted:

I don't know how the 50 1.8D stacks up versus what you can get on a Leica M body, but I would say that it is highly unlikely you will see any quality difference in your photos.

Remember, cameras are just boxes for film, at the end of the day. If the lens is quality then the rest is just personal preference and convenience factors.

The F100 might even take better photos if you consider proper metering. On an M3 you've got to guess or deduce, or carry a light meter. If you set the F100 to fully manual then you shouldn't see any difference whatsoever.

I have an N90s which was, in retrospect, a dumb purchase because of its inability to work with G lenses.

However I have a 35-70mm f/2.8D and it does work pretty good.

The viewfinder is HUGE compared to my D7k, even though it doesn't offer 100% coverage. I like shooting film, but it's expensive, and time consuming. I'm apparently too lazy to actually do anything with my only hobby.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
Yeah, I guess that's the other thing that bears mentioning. If someone is fundamentally bad at manual focusing and/or wans a huge huge huge viewfinder then a rangefinder probably isn't their ideal choice. You're still not going to beat a nice big OM-1 for clarity of focus.

Dr. Despair
Nov 4, 2009


39 perfect posts with each roll.

QPZIL posted:

ME Supers: the Zimbabwe dollars of photography.

The Future is Now, bitches.

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting
I've got a 75-300mm lens I use for taking pictures of animals from my porch. What should I look for if I want my camera to magnify more? Right now getting a picture of a finch on a telephone wire gives me a good picture in one ninth of the actual area of the photo. Do I just want more mm's on the lens? Please give the answer to me as if I know less than nothing about anything.

Count Thrashula
Jun 1, 2003

Peak Performance.

Buglord

signalnoise posted:

I've got a 75-300mm lens I use for taking pictures of animals from my porch. What should I look for if I want my camera to magnify more? Right now getting a picture of a finch on a telephone wire gives me a good picture in one ninth of the actual area of the photo. Do I just want more mm's on the lens? Please give the answer to me as if I know less than nothing about anything.

I don't mean to patronize you, but you did say act like you know nothing...

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_length
About halfway down, there's 4 photos all taken from the same spot with different lenses (with different "mm's"). The longer your focus length, the more zoomed in things will be.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



signalnoise posted:

I've got a 75-300mm lens I use for taking pictures of animals from my porch. What should I look for if I want my camera to magnify more? Right now getting a picture of a finch on a telephone wire gives me a good picture in one ninth of the actual area of the photo. Do I just want more mm's on the lens? Please give the answer to me as if I know less than nothing about anything.

If your sensor has sufficient resolution (megapixels) you can also simply crop the picture so the subject takes up more of the frame. You lose resolution but if you have enough resolution to take from that doesn't matter as much.
(How much resolution is "enough" depends on what you want to do with the pictures. If you want to put pictures on Facebook you can get by with just about anything, if you want poster-size prints you want large resolution.)

DJExile
Jun 28, 2007


signalnoise posted:

I've got a 75-300mm lens I use for taking pictures of animals from my porch. What should I look for if I want my camera to magnify more? Right now getting a picture of a finch on a telephone wire gives me a good picture in one ninth of the actual area of the photo. Do I just want more mm's on the lens? Please give the answer to me as if I know less than nothing about anything.

The cheapest way to extend the reach of any lens is a teleconverter. Most increase your focal length by a factor of 1.4x, at the cost of a darker aperture, slower focus, and a slight degrade in image quality, but they're far less expensive than longer reach lenses themselves. Some are 2x but these usually are useless outside of very bright light.

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



DJExile posted:

The cheapest way to extend the reach of any lens is a teleconverter. Most increase your focal length by a factor of 1.4x, at the cost of a darker aperture, slower focus, and a slight degrade in image quality, but they're far less expensive than longer reach lenses themselves. Some are 2x but these usually are useless outside of very bright light.

Most likely a TC is a bad idea for a zoom like that. I'm guessing it's a variable aperture zoom and that the aperture at 300mm is f/5.6, meaning that an 1.4x TC would make it aperture f/8 at 420mm. It's not a terrible lot of gain, and autofocus probably won't work well at f/8.

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

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moonduck posted:

Eh, a Rolleiflex 2.8F in good condition will sell for $1500+, which is probably more than a solid DS M3 and a collapsible 50 mm Summicron will run you. And modern Rolleiflex's sell for like $5K, which is right in line with what Leica sells the M7 and MP for.

So yeah, Rollei is that expensive.

If you buy the latest models, yeah. But you're not comparing against a top-of-the-line Leica there. I got a 3.5E Xenotar for $400 and there's a freshly CLA'd T with a Tessar that's been sitting in my local store for over a year. I've seen quite a few 2.8s going for $600-800. And you can get a Mamiya 7 for roughly $1200-1300.

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting

DJExile posted:

The cheapest way to extend the reach of any lens is a teleconverter. Most increase your focal length by a factor of 1.4x, at the cost of a darker aperture, slower focus, and a slight degrade in image quality, but they're far less expensive than longer reach lenses themselves. Some are 2x but these usually are useless outside of very bright light.

nielsm posted:

Most likely a TC is a bad idea for a zoom like that. I'm guessing it's a variable aperture zoom and that the aperture at 300mm is f/5.6, meaning that an 1.4x TC would make it aperture f/8 at 420mm. It's not a terrible lot of gain, and autofocus probably won't work well at f/8.
I use manual focus lenses for this anyway, I'm being really cheap at the moment with like 40 dollar off-brand lenses. I'm shooting handheld bracing against whatever is nearby. Would I be better off just buying a tripod and better lenses and cropping the image? I'm using an E-P2 for reference, 12mp.

I'm seeing a very cheap vivitar OM mount teleconverters I could use, I only wonder would it severely degrade the quality of the images I get just from being cheap?

I'm really just unsure what to throw my money at at this point. I'd say tripod to stabilize, but most of what I have been shooting has been mobile. I plan to buy a tripod before I go on any trips, but I dunno if it'd help me more than something else right now.

Beastruction
Feb 16, 2005

signalnoise posted:

I use manual focus lenses for this anyway, I'm being really cheap at the moment with like 40 dollar off-brand lenses. I'm shooting handheld bracing against whatever is nearby. Would I be better off just buying a tripod and better lenses and cropping the image? I'm using an E-P2 for reference, 12mp.

Mirror lens! 800mm f/8!

alkanphel
Mar 24, 2004

Martytoof posted:

In my own opinion, photography is (relatively) cheap to get into, but it's the sort of hobby where you very quickly realize that you get precisely what you pay for.

So it's also ridiculously easy to sink fist after fist of hundred dollar bills into, once you find out what the more expensive lenses and cameras can do.

It also warps your sense of money. "$1000 for a lens? That's pretty cheap!" (Because you just plonked down 3k for another lens)


tijag posted:

Overall an incredibly capable film body. Generally speaking, would the F100 + 50mm f/1.8D take worse pictures than a Leica?

In terms of style, you might shoot differently when using a rangefinder instead of an SLR, but that is more due to the paradigm of using a different way of seeing and focusing. For better or worse, that's really up to the person behind the camera. In terms of technical image quality, using a Leica does give you access to better lenses...at a very high premium.


spog posted:

To be fair: the optics are still good and the recent one seems to have a good reputation, but the stuff before definitely is branding-first.

I think another point is that the current digital Leica occupies a special niche - 35mm full frame sensor in a compact body. Pretty much like their X2 and S2 also, they also have their own niche.

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting

Beastruction posted:

Mirror lens! 800mm f/8!

I think you just sold something

Ashex
Jun 25, 2007

These pipes are cleeeean!!!
Where can I get a color card like this one?



I did a photoshoot awhile back and the pro photographer there let me use his. I've tried looking for the same one but they all appear to be rather large and a pain to carry in a small camera bag.


Edit: On a sidenote, I bought the D7k a couple weeks back and hoooooly poo poo :gizz:
I knew I was getting an upgrade from the D70, but this body blows it away. I had the opportunity to really use it when I went to Disney World on Saturday and I was able to take some shots with ease that I would normally have had to work at getting right with the D70.

Ashex fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Jul 17, 2012

moonduck
Apr 1, 2005
a tour de force

Paul MaudDib posted:

If you buy the latest models, yeah. But you're not comparing against a top-of-the-line Leica there. I got a 3.5E Xenotar for $400 and there's a freshly CLA'd T with a Tessar that's been sitting in my local store for over a year. I've seen quite a few 2.8s going for $600-800. And you can get a Mamiya 7 for roughly $1200-1300.

I was trying to compare models from a similar time-period, during which the 2.8F and the M3 were absolutely the top-end Rollei and Leica models. The M3 was the last Leica ever made entirely out of brass and they introduced the M2 as a bargain alternative to it.

I'm not saying that the 3.5 models or that a Mamiya 7 aren't a better deal, but Leica isn't really so significantly out of whack when it comes to used gear.

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 

alkanphel posted:

I think another point is that the current digital Leica occupies a special niche - 35mm full frame sensor in a compact body. Pretty much like their X2 and S2 also, they also have their own niche.

Yeah. I think you nailed it on the head. I don't want to say it's worth the outrageous price Leica can command on build quality and form factor alone, but it definitely fills a niche that has very few legitimate competitors. An actual manual focus rangefinder with modern bells and whistles, which is built around a rock solid compact body that you can probably back a truck over. Oh and it's full frame so you don't have to adjust from your film experience.

The funny thing is, though -- I don't want one. I would rather get a film Leica any day of the week over a digital. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm just burned out on digital. Maybe I like the absolute finality that comes with pushing the shutter on a film camera as opposed to a digital camera. Knowing I can't go back and delete my shot to try again really pushes me further to do it right; probably a personal flaw on my part since I ought to be striving for this in all my shooting, really.

So I have to be honest with myself here. If I had $7000 to spend on a camera, would I buy a digital Leica? Probably not. I'd probably get a nice M6 or M3 and a top notch lens and call it a day with money left.

powderific
May 13, 2004

Grimey Drawer

Ashex posted:

Where can I get a color card like this one?



I did a photoshoot awhile back and the pro photographer there let me use his. I've tried looking for the same one but they all appear to be rather large and a pain to carry in a small camera bag.


Edit: On a sidenote, I bought the D7k a couple weeks back and hoooooly poo poo :gizz:
I knew I was getting an upgrade from the D70, but this body blows it away. I had the opportunity to really use it when I went to Disney World on Saturday and I was able to take some shots with ease that I would normally have had to work at getting right with the D70.

The colorchecker passport isn't huge: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/colorchecker-psssport.shtml

Molten Llama
Sep 20, 2006

Ashex posted:

Where can I get a color card like this one?



I did a photoshoot awhile back and the pro photographer there let me use his. I've tried looking for the same one but they all appear to be rather large and a pain to carry in a small camera bag.

The ColorChecker Passport's the only one worth buying if you care about accuracy.

If you just want to look like you know what you're doing, there are a couple companies selling ridiculous inkjet-printed targets that are totally worthless otherwise.

Ashex
Jun 25, 2007

These pipes are cleeeean!!!
Thanks guys, I'll look into the colorchecker passport. How long should I expect it to last me? I ask as I use grey cards for exposure and tend to need to replace them every year or so.

Prof_Beatnuts
Jul 29, 2004
I used to be bad but now I'm good

Krakkles posted:


Check out offerings from Canon and Nikon on https://www.keh.com (I'd link some directly, but their site is down for maintenance right now).
Thanks. I'll take a look.

Krakkles posted:

I get what you're saying by "I don't want to leave a limit", but seriously, we can probably give you better suggestions if you do tell us what you're willing to spend.

I'll go up to $500 total, meaning like the camera and any required gear. But something around $300 would be easier to swallow.

Molten Llama
Sep 20, 2006

Ashex posted:

Thanks guys, I'll look into the colorchecker passport. How long should I expect it to last me? I ask as I use grey cards for exposure and tend to need to replace them every year or so.

It's built into a hard clamshell. When it's closed up everything's pretty secure from abrasion and the outside world. As long as nobody's scraping the paint off the targets when it's open, it'll serve you for a long while.

X-Rite recommends replacing it every two years to avoid fading from light exposure, but I'd be surprised if you you had significant enough fade under normal usage to need it that often.

Krakkles
May 5, 2003

Prof_Beatnuts posted:

I'll go up to $500 total, meaning like the camera and any required gear. But something around $300 would be easier to swallow.
You've got tons of options. $300 should get you into a decent Canon setup pretty easily.

Prof_Beatnuts
Jul 29, 2004
I used to be bad but now I'm good

Krakkles posted:

You've got tons of options. $300 should get you into a decent Canon setup pretty easily.
What would be the model I should be looking to get?

Krakkles
May 5, 2003

Prof_Beatnuts posted:

What would be the model I should be looking to get?
First, read this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3387357&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post387799440

Looks like on KEH, you'd be able to get into something like the Canon 30D (KEH/Wikipedia).

I'd definitely recommend looking around, waiting for one of KEH's sales, but something like the 30D would be an absolutely fine starter DSLR.

Hotwax Residue
Mar 26, 2010
Is eclipse the best product for sensor cleaning? I've got a poo poo ton of oily spots on my sensor (gotta love the 5D1) and my only options are doing it myself or sending it away.

Laser Cow
Feb 22, 2006

Just like real cows!

Only with lasers.

Martytoof posted:

I'd probably get a nice M6 or M3 and a top notch lens and call it a day with money left.

I bought a nice M6 last year, and I shot more rolls through it in 6 months than the previous owner did in the last 10 years. But gently caress scanning. I hate loving scanning. Everything before and after scanning, wonderful. But why the gently caress can I not get over my scanning hatred. It's making me not take my film cameras with me anywhere. I lent my digital stuff out to force myself to take some film stuff and now I'm just not shooting at all.

I wish I could afford an M9.

tijag
Aug 6, 2002

Laser Cow posted:

I bought a nice M6 last year, and I shot more rolls through it in 6 months than the previous owner did in the last 10 years. But gently caress scanning. I hate loving scanning. Everything before and after scanning, wonderful. But why the gently caress can I not get over my scanning hatred. It's making me not take my film cameras with me anywhere. I lent my digital stuff out to force myself to take some film stuff and now I'm just not shooting at all.

I wish I could afford an M9.

This is me with my N90s. I enjoy taking pictures. On my first 2 rolls [and only rolls] I got some decent results, but scanning... miserable, just miserable.

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longview
Dec 25, 2006

heh.
Extension tubes + 35mm lens = high res super quick scanner.

Only problem I'm stuck on is finding a good film holder, it needs to keep the film very flat even near the end of a strip, so I can shoot with a wider aperture and avoid the diffraction penalty.

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