Vintage Digital: 12 Year Old Rangefinder & A Wonderful Lens.
The camera.
The best deal in Leica M mount full frame-dome in my opinion. Old enough to benefit from much needed depreciation. New enough not to suffer a crop sensor (Don’t come at me Leica M8 and OG Pixii adherents. I come in peace. Personal preference. You do you.) or corroding sensor (I applaud the bravery of M9 owners. A high risk for CCD goodness.).
The lens.
Um. Brace yourself. I am about to say something that risks me catching holy heck from Leica M adherents. I will preface it by saying for me.
This is my favorite lens for Leica M hands down.
I am shocked I am saying this myself. I have already written a post singing its praises. Here is the short version.
- Sharp wide open.
- Wonderful bokeh.
- Great colors.
- Compact for its spec.
- Pleasing focus fall off.
- A perfect focal length for my everyday needs.
This last one is interesting. Mainly because I did not come to this conclusion using an M mount camera. It was the Sony FE 40mm f/2.5 G that made this clear. As much as makes no sense this eventually led to me trading it for a zoom lens that terminates at the same focal length on the long end. But this focal length epiphany translated wonderfully to M mount.
Wide enough for capturing a scene. Long enough to take people pictures. Perfect M attributes for me.
If forced to come up with a downside I would note one thing.
A bit of purple fringing can appear under certain circumstances wide open.
This does not bother me because when it does appear, if noticed, it is easily done away with by a slide of a slider in Lightroom.
Enough gear talk. As always plenty of other lenses, cameras, sensor formats, brands, media could be used etc. so on and so forth and such.
The occasion? None. Life. A wonderful companion to document proceedings.
Another successful vintage digital fit.
Happy capturing.
-ELW
Eric L. Woods 