Shooters.

Another year goes by. There was hardly a day, when I didn’t take at least one picture. Looking through all the images I realise, it’s been quite a European year. Didn’t cross an ocean in the last 365 days physically and didn’t miss it.
Looking through the images I also realise, how many cameras I’ve been using this year. Some were cool (actually most of them were), some I couldn’t really relate to or get warm with and with some I fell in love as far as love for cameras can go.

I haven’t been writing a lot recently as you know. The reason is, after all that testing and reviewing I needed to take care of my photography instead of cameras and lenses. I found myself doing test-images and forgetting about the primary goal of this blog: the everyday, reallife-use of photographic equipment. I’ve been actually testing quite a few cameras and lenses in the meantime, but with an emphasis rather on their fun-factor than on their high ISO-performance or technical image quality. I’ll give you my impressions of such things as the Canon EOS 60D or the Sony SLT A55 in the next days.

For now I’d like to give you a short summary of which cameras caught my heart or mind and which ones didn’t. (Read on after the break!) weiter lesen

Don’t flame me for that, I couldn’t resist! Today I had a business meeting in Southern Austria and I was driving through the village of Frantschach. I remember crossing that village quite often, when my parents and I drove to Italy before the highway was built. Frantschach is famous for one thing only: its paper factory. I remember the uttermost stink of the smoke. You could already smell it miles away and even as a child I thought, how can we do such a crime to that beautiful landscape, not to speak of the whole planet. When I thought about Frantschach, I thought about smoke and vice versa. Today the smoke is still Frantschach’s number one landmark as you can see from the picture I shot out of my car today.

It doesn’t stink anymore and I guess with the rigid environment protection laws in Austria the smoke isn’t a lot more than just clean steam nowadays. But what has all this to do with Leica?

The paper factory was once owned by the family of Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, president of Leica. He bought Leica in 2004 and basically saved it from bankruptcy presumably with the money, his family had earned with the paper factory. Mr. Kaufmann himself – as reported in the media – has been a Waldorf teacher and a left-wing supporter before he bought the German camera manufacturer. I take a bow to the achievement of saving Leica and I love Leica cameras. But sometimes it’s good to be reminded where good things like a Leica M9 come from – in this case from producing a lot of smoke. In every bad thing lies something good. Maybe the people and former workers from Frantschach can now put their minds at ease: their bearing of stink and bad air has saved Leica and has produced utterly great cameras. Thank you people from Frantschach and thank you Mr. Kaufmann for saving Leica!

The Leica has always been the dream camera for many. Even if the German manufacturer started out slowly into the digital photography era and went through hard financial times, it stands on both feet again and delivers high quality digital cameras that make some of us invest their private pension funds. I’m far away from being able to invest so much money into a camera, but am lucky enough to get them to shoot with from time to time.

This weekend has been a real bliss to me, since I had a Leica X1, a M8 and a M9 to use and enjoy. I’ll let you know a couple of my findings in the next days.

Today I’d like to start with a crazy quick comparison of the image quality of the M9 and the X1. They aren’t really comparable in other aspects. The X1 has a fixed lens, autofocus and is rather a large-sensor compact camera and not a rangefinder like the M8 or the M9. The X1 costs about 1.600,– Euros, while the M9 sells for about 5.500,– Euros. But – as the M9 – the X1 delivers digital images. So how good are they compared to the M9? (Read on after the break!) weiter lesen

Life isn’t easy these days for enthusiastic photographers. Especially when you’re looking for the gear that perfectly fits you and your needs or wishes and try and keep the compromises as small as possible.
My name is Wolfgang Spekner and I’m a “the perfect gear addict”.

In analog times, the camera I did everything with and held dear for a decade (I still like it today), was the Nikon F90x (N90s). I started to do real photography, when I was 7, with an old Praktica and a 50mm f1.8 lens. Later, when AF-times dawned, I got myself a cheap Yashica AF200 with 35-70/3.5-4.5 and the 70-210/4.5 (I think). After using this camera for about ten years or so, the shutter broke and I bought my first Nikon, an F50. A couple of months later I upgraded to the older F-601 (N6006). Again a couple of months later I added a F90x. That was in 1996. I have used these two cameras until 2004 for almost everything I shot (I had also some compact cameras like the Yashica T5, Leica’s Minin III and two Olympus Mju coming and going.) My F-601 was gone in 2004, but I kept the F90x and still have it and maybe will never sell it, for it was my affordable dream camera at the time.

All that changed in 2004. (Read on after the break.) weiter lesen

Since so many of you asked, here’s a more comprehensive realworld test of the Leica Elmarit-M 24/2.8 Asph. on the Sony Nex.

The lens looks and handles great on the Nex. Of course you have to focus it manually. Being a wonderful street shooting focal length, it’s not very fast to focus. You definitely need the LCD magnifying function to focus it accurately and I never got really fast doing that (maybe it’s my eyes…). Maybe that’s why there are so many still samples among my test pics. At f2.8 you have quite a shallow depth of field (which of course is the goal), but I missed the eyes of people quite often and got there breast hairs sharp instead… weiter lesen

How lucky can one be! A couple of days ago I was given a Leica M9 and the brand new Leica Summilux 35/1.4 Asph (II) to give them a try. I had 23 hours only before I had to return it. I was sort of relaxed, not anticipating that the upcoming experience would drive me into becoming a lottery maniac. To make a long story short: This combo is my dream combo among everything that’s on the market right now. As you already know I like small cameras, cameras smaller than DSLRs. But I’m also a sharpness fanatic – I admit I seem to have a fetish here. Two years ago I was a big fan of the M8 and the old Summilux – at least up to ISO 160, which was the lowest ISO-setting anyway. As reported in other reviews the M9 betters out the M8 in high ISO-performance. It’s still far away from being fantastic, but it’s better and you can go up to ISO 1.250 and still have usable results without necessarily converting your pictures into black & white to justify the noise. This alone makes the M9 a much more versatile package. The fullframe sensor does the rest. A 35mm lens eventually IS a 35mm.

I always felt I could do 80% of my photographs with a bright 35mm equivalent. So the M9 with the new 35 promised to be a worthwhile experience. I knew, I wouldn’t be able to do a comprehensive review from a 23 hours experience. So this is all about first impressions and an evolving love.
weiter lesen