I'd like to know...
Mostly, because this blog got started right when I got my own, first Leica M4-2.
To some, it may seem a weird decision... Why bother getting a meterless camera body, when there are so many advanced camera systems out there?
At some point, the control-freak inside a photographer shows up. And starts longing for a camera that gives you a lot of control (that is to say, forces you to make decisions) over your the way you photograph.
Besides, one starts needing a number of lenses that are not only reliable, but also fast, small and unobtrusive. Hence, the longing for a camera like the Leica.
Now, by the time I got my first Leicas (which should have been subject for a separate blog... and I may do it one day), I was already relatively bored with SLR bodies. Granted, they are versatile, flexible and easy to use, but people see you coming a mile away and, more often than not, they assume you know something or other about photography. I've been taken for a professional more times with my Nikon gear than with any other cameras.
So, my Leica decision was, rather, a move towards the new. I could have gone with medium format, or even digital, but I'd have the same conspicuousness problem. So, rangefinders were there. I went for the metered bodies because my short experience with an unmetered medium format body didn't really satisfy me. Probably, I wasn't ready to learn the little traps about taking a reading with a meter instead of using a camera.
Why a rangefinder camera? What was the draw to a metered or unmetered body? What did you do it? Was it the B-and-W look? Was it the brilliance of the color?
Let me know!
(FWIW, Street carolers in Hinsdale, IL, M6TTL, Summilux 35mm on Agfa ISO 400 at ISO 1600, Nov 2007; Brazilian musicians at the Bembo Haus, Nuremberg, same rig, but with Provia ISO 400 pushed three stops, 2008.)
