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Leica M

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         Most of the Iconic moments of the 20th Century were photographed with a Leica M camera. This is photographic Royalty with a lineage. From Henry Cartier-Bresson's photograph of a family enjoying a picnic along the river, to Alfred Eisenstadt's sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, the Leica M was there. I bought my first Leica DS M3 back in the 1990's, but back then I really couldn't afford any of the lenses. Today the marketplace is changed with Vogtländer (Cosina) making M mount lenses that are really excellent, and relatively affordable. My main cameras for making my photographic art will always be my Hasselblad 500 series, but the camera I take everywhere "just in case" is one of my M6's. 

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         The M6 non-TTL is my Leica of choice because it is the same height as a classic M3 though it gains a little in the width being a couple of mm's fatter, but I never noticed it. The TTL version is 2.5mm taller than an M3 and to me, that's noticeable. I want as close to a classic M3 as I can get and it seems Leica understands that because the model they brought back in 2022 is the "classic" M6, not the TTL. The TTL also has a reversed shutter speed dial and it's larger and of course TTL flash metering which is basically a useless feature for me as I fully understand how flash works and prefer to not have to second guess the cameras as to what it's doing to my flash exposures if/when I need to use flash with my M6 (?) The classic M6's are only 25-40 years old, so almost new by Leica M standards and clean ones can still be had for a little less than an obsolete in 2 years 45mp Full Frame digital camera. If you send your M6 in for a CLA every 10 years, the service life is pretty much infinite. There are many 1950's M3's still making photographs on a daily basis. And the battery in the M6 is only there for the meter. The shutter is 100% mechanical.

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© 2020 by Edward Martins Photography

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