Review of the Leica M6
By Adi Soon
IMPRESSIONS
I was introduced to the M series Leica some years ago by a photography book I had bought on the work of Henri Cartier Bresson. This Leica name I later found out was associated with many other photographers I slowly became aware off. Most of these I found could be divided into a 2 main categories, street photographers, press/war photographers. Collecters are of course excluded from this group- for obvious reasons.
I bought my first M6, a titanium model, new. It was everything the brochures and legend said that it would be. Sleek, silent and beautiful. Holding it in the hand for the first time, I was struck by the exceedingly beautiful finish and the simple, uncluttered design.Winding the advance lever, I realized first hand what I heard of its buttery smooth feel, an unrivalled pleasure. Aside from these things, the other most important aspect of the camera was the clarity of the viewfinder. The M6's viewfinder is in my opinion, the best of all the rangefinder Leicas and rangefinders in general. Older M Leicas seem darker and less contrasty by comparison. Even the modern Konica Hexar has a viewfinder that can't rival that on the M6.
The Leica M6 is a weighty camera. It's all metal body sees to that, along with the strength and structural rigidity that seems to make the thing feel like a brick in the hand(weightwise). The solidity with which one feels when coming to grips with it will no doubt inspire a certain amount of confidence to it's reliability
PERSONALITY
Using a Leica M is ultimately, a unique experience that differs from that of using an SLR. These unique characteristics may be a boon to some, but not for others. It is an acquired taste that for some will fall head over heels for. Others, more inclined to view the negative, will no doubt eschew the Leica M in favour for the versitility of the SLR. I for one, am part of the former. So complete is my reliance on the Leica M6 on my photography that my Nikon SLR equipment gets used only at times when I need certain features that the Leica, for what it is cannot.
For instance the Leica M has a cloth shutter that only flash syncs at a paltry 1/50 sec. The reason why Leica has retained this design is because of the inherant benefits that it provides, it's silence being the most important. Furthermore, Leica M's, with the optical lineup of fast lenses encourages available light photography, making flash a minor thing to have to give up. These two reasons alone explain why Leica has stuck with this shutter.
FEATURES
The Leica M6 is a rangefinder camera where unlike in an SLR, the photographer views the composition through a window in the camera body and not through the lens. There is a risk of parallax error at close distances, but the M6 is able to compensate by moving the position of the frames. Also, the closest focusing distance of most M lenses is only 0.7m, meaning that macro and close up photography is out of the question. The inherant advantages that the M6 has over SLR's comes in this particluar aspect of the design. Doing away with the bulky housing that holds the mirror that allows for reflex viewing, the camera is thus more compact. Without the mirror also, wide-angle lens designers have more flexibility in designing lenses that are more compact. The optical lineup in particular is one of the main reasons to use a Leica. Leica's range for the M series includes focal lengths from 21mm up till 135mm, with apertures up to f/1.0. Leica's M lenses are some of the the most respected in the photographic industry.
THE LEGEND
Leica M rangefinders have the legendary status they now have purely because of the famous photographers in history who used them. Eisenstat, Friedlander, Winograd, Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark, HCB, and Nan Goldin
Many national geographic photographers are also reported to be users of the Leica M6, including Dave Alan Harvey, my personal favourite.
Personally, my initial brush with this marquee became an obsession. Since only using a Leica M6 with a 35mm lens instead of my regular Nikon SLR setup, I found that there were so many practical advantages to the Leica. The very fact that it is lighter and compact means that it is always THERE when the shot is to be made. And it's silence allows me to capture many people shots that I would otherwise never have dared to attempt. Is the Leica M6 for you? Try it and find out.
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