What you can choose from your D750 (don’t know with the DF) is the very same → 18% grey.
But instead of being stuck to the given elliptical area [with your M-Leica], you can adjust the size of the measuring field [with your D750] to get a more precise reading → less guessing …
… set your Nikon D750 in the Custom settings menue → b5 → Center-Weighted Area → to choose from 8, 12, 15, 20 mm circle diameter or the average of the entire frame (check your manual pdf-file p.363 // printversion p.335)
From what I can see, the Leica is a relatively limited camera, except for its lens quality, which might have been useful for 35mm film but, which really only helps with digital if you are able to leverage a lens module in PhotoLab. IOW, great for a walkabout snapshot camera but I wouldn’t use it for serious landscape work like you have been trying with your shots of Miami and the lake.
And, before you can say that’s just being anti-Leica, I would also add the I feel exactly the same about my Mamiya 7 II
I don’t think you are “anti-Leica”, but rather that you have found better tools for the way you do things.
For me, currently my two favorite cameras are my Leica M10 and my Nikon Df. I also realize that from you and others in this forum I have learned a lot, and I know for sure I have a lot more yet to learn.
For me, my Leica “gets out of the way” and I go about capturing images. There are very few settings and controls, and I could use a separate light meter if I really wanted to get things “perfect”, or I should say, a “perfect compromise”.
Also, is the Leica “expensive”? For me, my never-ending quest for a better SLR/DSLR cost me far more, and is likely to do so again if I upgrade again…
I think the big Nikon cameras give you all the controls you want access to, in order to create a “perfect image”, and the Leica doesn’t, and never will.
Is it important that if I take a photo of a fellow sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper, that someone could read that newspaper while viewing my image?
Wouldn’t it be better to stay for some years with one of the cameras you own, and concentrate to master this one. And after fuzzling through the menues and know what to switch ON or OFF, concentrate to all the basics of “How to make a good photo” with light metering, focus settings, perspective and so on.
My wife and me own the same camera model. Me knows about 80% of the settings and how to use, my wife don’t like technical things. But with all the basics she knows I’ve teached her, very often after coming home from a foto session her photos are more impressive than mine. I think it’s a male-female thing
and what I’ve learned within this situation… it’s not so important how expansive or big your equipment is, it’s more important to make the best from the subject or situation.
So my suggestion from a ever learning photographer… stop your never ending quest for the holy grail and be happy with the equipment you own(at least for the next 2-4 years)
And I think it was Ansel Adams who said “Owning 12(?) good photos after one year is a good result”, and he doesn’t change his equipment every 9 month’s or so.
Now, I’m sorry but I really don’t understand that phrase.It sounds awfully like marketingspeak. Surely, if you put any camera in front of your eye, it “gets in the way”, even if it does have a red dot on the front
Or do you possibly mean that it is so easy to use, you don’t have to think about how you are taking the image? How do you go about determining the right exposure - or do you leave that up to the default, centre-weighted metering?
My Ebony is very simple to use. Just set the aperture and shutter speed, insert a sheet of film to determine the ISO and press the shutter release. It has TTL focusing and can work with spot, centre-weighted, average or incident metering. It has a great zoom that can adjust the focal distance to anything you want - the only limitation is how far you can walk with the camera on its tripod. No electronics, no menus and it never gets in the way of making a great image. Why? Because I have learned to master that one camera.
Leicas could be regarded as being in the same category - simple controls but you need to know how to master them. Once you’ve done that, it’s easy.
I would argue that exactly the same applies to DSLRs. Take the time to turn off all the super-duper features and you are left with a very simple camera to use and that “gets out of the way” leaving you to concentrate on finding, framing, composing and exposing the image.
The only controls I need to use when shooting are the shutter speed, aperture, ISO and focusing. How is that more complicated than a view camera or, in fact, any other camera? For the ultimate control, I can also use my separate light and colour meters.
Your Leica is an expensive (but pretty) dark box with a hole at the front and a means of recording the image at the back. I don’t care how many menus and gizmos modern DSLRs have, they are still just that and (most) can be used in exactly the same manner. It’s only when a photographer decides they need to give up on real photography and rely on technology to make their decisions for them that DSLRs become complicated to use.
Go outside on a sunny day and set your camera (any camera) to manual, 100 ISO, 1/125 sec @ f/16 and take a picture. You didn’t even need to use an exposure meter - that is how simple photography can be. It is only when we believe all the marketing hype that says we need all that expensive gear and a computer in the camera to think for us that photography becomes complicated.
Here’s a shot where I just went outside and did just that and because it wasn’t sunny, I opened up the aperture to f/11 instead of f/16
Opened it in PL with default lens corrections and exported without any adjustments.
Not the most inspiring of subjects but oh so simple to take, even with a Nikon D810.
And “thars yer prawblem”. You keep on thinking that the latest and greatest camera will make your images better instead of spending time getting to know one camera well and learning how to optimise the images you make with it.
At this point, I have to admit to having just ordered a Nikon D850, simply because it is likely to be the last great DSLR that Nikon are going to make and, at 45Mpx, it is perfectly adequate for the size of prints I am likely to make. Will it make my images any better? Really only if I want to print them bigger.
So, use the Leica that you’ve got for when the subject suits it and the D750 for the more specialised stuff - or buy a dedicated spot meter for use with the Leica.
In the case of Nikon, I completely agree. In the case of Leica, other than for more resolution and an easier to replace battery, I don’t expect it to be much different from my M10, and I doubt people would even recognize any difference… Who knows, maybe it really will be different. The new Visoflex is supposed to be a huge improvement over what I’ve got now, and will fit right onto my M10, so I’m likely to get that as soon as possible.
I am happy if I capture one image I really like each time I go out to take photos, and quite often, I don’t really like any of them.
Joanna has created better photos than some of these, and taught us how she did it, but none of us have a well-known and recognized name in the world of photography - yet - IMHO.
On my M10, and M8, that is true, and the camera itself is small and light, and can almost be carried in one’s pocket. My M3 doesn’t have any exposure meter at all, and THAT was the camera that Leica’s reputation was based on.
My D750 by comparison is bigger, heavier, and extra lenses are gigantic. It has the base controls, and also a plethora of other controls, many of which I never heard of and I know nothing about, not to mention many of the controls need to be configured by going into a seemingly endless menu system that has my lost and confused. I can focus by half-pressing the shutter release - or, as I have done, I focus by pressing a button on the back of the camera.
This doesn’t apply to a Leica rangefinder - superimpose two images in the middle of the viewfinder, and it’s in focus.
As to “expensive”, I bought my new M10 body for just under $6,000 as I recall, which with inflation is less than I paid for my Nikon D3 body (not to mention my D3 is now obsolete, and worth only a few hundred dollars.
So, having had my Leica M10 for two years now, were I to sell it today, I would lose several hundred dollars.
Consider what you paid for your Nikon D810, and what you could sell it for today - the difference I suspect will be many thousands of dollars.
Bottom line, which is scary - I could buy the New Leica for maybe $8,000, taking a guess, and probably sell it for the same price, maybe more, in the future.
Or, consider that I bought my Leica M3 body long ago for a couple of hundred dollars, and an M3 body now sells for between $1,500 and $2,500.
From this point of view, perhaps the least expensive high quality camera I can buy would be a Leica, with the option of selling it for more than I paid for it…
Congratulations!!! I suspect there will a lot more improvements in the D850, that with your ability will be put to use. I’m curious now - will check it out more in the next few minutes. How soon will it arrive?
Found it:
“With remarkable advancements across the board—sensor design, autofocus, dynamic range, sensitivity, Speedlight control, battery life, shutter and mirror drive mechanisms, Silent Photography in Live-View mode, focus shift capability and more—this is quite possibly the most impressive, well-rounded DSLR yet.”
That’s a photo I made 2007 with a Nikon D70 6Mpix.
I made a print in 90 x 60 cm and it’s placed in my living room.
I made other photos with higher resolution cameras like my D7100 24 Mpix, aren’t so good, and some with my Olympus OMd 5 MII 16 Mpix some better some not. So for me it’s not a matter of big equipment, also I’m not a professional.
Hopefully in the next day or so. I ordered it from Calumet in Germany on the 8th and am now awaiting DHL’s delivery which, for some obscure reason, says it is in their depot in Nantes, awaiting further instructions from the sender??? I could drive there in 2 hours but, knowing the way delivery companies can watch your house to see when you go out before leaving a “we missed you” card, that could be a wasted trip
My main interests are sensor design, dynamic range, sensitivity, shutter and mirror drive mechanisms.
Those videos you linked to are very interesting but I think the most importzant one is the “My Menu” one - because I get a sneaky feeling I could be tempted into using some of the more sophisticated features and am going to have to use the menus to activate them, so being able to organise my most used items tot he top of the menu is going to be super useful.
I knew it can do focus stacking in camera and immediately thought of macro and being able to increase the DoF but then I realised I could also use it for landscape work instead of having to compromise with hyperfocal distance for getting everything from here to infinity in focus.
That’s true…what I currently experiencing with delivery services it it’s terrible. Lot of the guy’s can not read…really!, place the goods somewhere, do not inform where…or say ‘handed in at the recipient’s’, although I was at home and the video surveillance shows nothing.
Dear Joanna,
I’ve a question to this part of your post.
My Olympus has also the possibility to choose focus stacking or focus bracketing, I’ve used it sometimes and it works pretty well for macro. But i thought the the moves between the single steps are only in mm-ranges independend if you use macro lenses, wide angles or tele.
I’m a little bit confused at the moment, but I’m sure you can illuminate me
You know what we were saying about delivery companies? DHL delivered half an hour after we left to go for lunch and to do the shopping. Fortunately, they left it with a neighbour.
It took me about half an hour to copy over the settings from my D810 and all I’ve done so far is to check out the 25,600 ISO setting. All I can say is WOW!!!. Combine that with DeepPRIME and I shall be out trying it out for star photography tonight.
Actually, there’s a lot of truth in that - it’s the photographer that makes a good photo, not the camera, and perhaps it doesn’t really matter what camera?
(Were I to get a M11, I don’t think very much will change with my photos, other than the file size.) …not so for Joanna, it seems like she will have far more power to customize things to just the way she wants them, and while I don’t expect the newer photos to look much better, I’m pretty sure when she prints them, the differences will be obvious.
I don’t mean either of those, and people have been saying this about the Leica for decades. To me, it means I have a total of four controls, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and focus. By comparison, my Nikon digital cameras have more controls/adjustments/knobs/levers/menu-choices than I can count. With the Leica, it’s just exposure and focus.
It also means the camera and lenses are small and light and quiet - I can carry extra stuff in a small gadget bag, or my pockets. For my Nikon, one single 80-200 lens is bigger and heavier than all my Leica stuff combined.
The Leica was originally intended for “street shooting”, candid photos of real life. It’s so small, people ignore it. Even in India, it looks like a toy camera - where a DSLR attracts a LOT of attention, if for no other reason than the size, and it is LOUD.
As to “gets out of your way”, I’ll try to find out what other people feel this means. I dunno… and I’m sure you’re right, a lot of it is just “hype”, not reality.
The two cameras carried around by photographers during the Vietnam war were the Leica M, and the Nikon F. Both were rugged, reliable, and neither relied on electronics and batteries.
Enough about me - I’m real anxious to read about your new experiences with moving up to the D850 !!!
Absolutely. Personally I even like Leica’s digital colour science. I shoot mostly sports so Nikon is a more sensible choice for my photography. I tried hard to make Fuji X-Tx series work but neither the focus nor the APS-C sensor worked for me for sports. My almost Leica these days is a little silver Canon M6 which is slow to focus (solution: back button focus) and is so tiny people hardly notice it when you pull it out. There’s a great pancake lens to go with the small body too: the EF-M 22mm which is literally just 2cm long. Not at all the case with a big black Nikon. Sadly, the video is crippled yet again in M6 (and the M6 II, which has lost a lot of the tiny quality of the original M6 while some of the manual controls have been removed, a charmless if capable camera). If you’re going to shoot an M6 II you may as well carry an Nikon Z50 instead and the Nikon Z50 is a much more capable camera with real 4K video.
But this desire for something small, discrete, high quality and elegant is a longstanding desire of photographers for good reason. If I had the budget for it, I’d probably have a couple of Leica instead of the M6.
Now that the iPhone video (11 Pro) is so good and so well-stabilised, I might lean harder on the M6 as the carry camera. PhotoLab does a fantastic job of cleaning up Canon chroma noise as for instance in this ISO 3200 shot.
I’m tired of the anti-Leica schtick here. Leica makes beautiful cameras, great lenses, charges a lot of money for them. If money is no object, most capable photographers would enjoy shooting with a Leica. For that matter, Overgaard is a decent street photographer, competent portraitist and a capable teacher.
I could never say this as well as Ken does, which is why he’s famous and I’m not, but I agree with almost everything he wrote.
He’s right that a simple D40 is adequate - I went to Italy to cover a World Championship 1/8 scale R/C car race, and my brand new Nikon died after 15 minutes of use. Someone at the track loaned me his D40 for the event, and I managed to get everything I wanted out of it, even though it was far less convenient - but it did the job!
I also know the D40 isn’t able to do all the things that Joanna wants to do with a camera, but at the end of the race, I was happy, and the editors and staff at two different magazines were thrilled. I got zero complaints. I was able to get the simple D40 to do everything I needed. …and no, I have no desire to own one. Definitely much too slow for race photography, so I had to set up my action shots before the race car got to the corner, to end up with a photo of the race car going around that corner.
Anyway, Ken’s article pretty much explains my attitude to photography, and what is most important.
Maybe you should not try to make beautiful photos, but switch to buying/selling cameras. 
