5 Years of shooting Leica (Q/M10/M6/M7)

it's 2023 and this marks the five years of me shooting the Leica system Leica q and Leica M those have been the two systems that I started shooting in 2018 when I first pick up the Leica Q and ever since I started shooting the system I became a huge fan of shooting Like Us in this video I want to explain my own thoughts and my own experiences that I made throughout the last five years of shooting digital and analog like us talking about the m6 the Leica Q the M7 and also the M10 that I don't own anymore but still had a lot of experiences in shooting I want to compare those and I want to talk about what I actually like about the leica's and what I don't like about them so if you are thinking about picking up a Leica in the future or if you're just curious about what I personally think about the system feel free to stick around for everyone who's new to the channel my name is Tobias I'm a 31 year old freelance photographer based out of Cologne Germany and as I mentioned before I started shooting Like Us in 2018 when I first pick up the Leica queue and ever since I became a huge fan of the system first of all I must say I've used all of the cameras for everything that I did back in the years so I use them for travels for jobs just for personal documentation all of these cameras are amazing we don't really have to talk about the Leica quality because it is insanely built like the build quality is is superb the lenses that you get for the cameras the lenses that are built in some of the cameras are just crazy and the colors you can capture with them in my opinion some of the best colors that you probably can get out of camera they almost never disappointed me and they're kind of very reliable cameras and this is also a reason why I love working with them all of them have kind of a very huge emotional value for myself because I made a lot of experiences with them at first let's talk about the Leica Q so as I mentioned before I picked up the queue in 2018 I owned a Fuji before had to sell it to get a new Sony camera to actually work on more you know diverse jobs and at some point I found that the Sony isn't as good for street photography as I thought so I you know wanted to get back a smaller camera and this is when you know let's say I had the money to buy a new street photography camera and that's why I ended up picking up the Leica Q it was kind of like the Fuji that I had before but you know with full frame and a better lens and kind of all of that stuff so this is why I got the queue in the first place coming from that street photography background I noticed that it is insanely good to shoot Street photographs and I shot a lot of Street photographs with it I also found that you could eventually take photographs of people with the camera so even if 28 millimeter is not kind of a common lens for taking portraits and this is when I really fell in love with 28 mil and this is when I really fell in love with the camera itself because it kind of covered all of my needs that I had as a freelance documentary and portrait photographer if you're curious about that like how I started shooting the Leica back in 2018 just head over to my Instagram and scroll down for quite some time and you will see some of my early Works in street photography and also in portrait photography when I started with the Leica queue so what I love about this camera is actually I mean I mentioned it before it's like it has a 1.7 semilux lens which is kind of crazy to think about the price that you actually pay so I got this one from eBay for like for like 3200 um in 2018 which is quite okay I would say but it's pretty much the cheapest way to get into the Leica full frame system if you would compare that to an M10 or M11 for example they would cost you much more money but what I really love about the camera is not the specs or that it's easy to use or it's not the lens it is like the ability to just carry it with me wherever I go actually and this is one of the main reasons why I love the queue is that it has autofocus so that means you can shoot it one-handed this is something that is really hard to do with these guys or to do with the M10 or the M11 only if you if you're really good at Zone focusing and you should like a wider lens with a wider aperture otherwise you would have to you know manual focus with one hand and shooting it's kind of tricky and not recommended to do but with this one it is really easy just turning it on taking some snaps and there you go it is super easy and the autofocus is actually super reliable disclaimer comparing this autofocus like from a 2015 camera through this camera which was built in 2022 for example there is no doubt that the autofocus of a Sony a74 or like a newer camera is way better but the autofocus of the Lego Q is quite decent if you compare it to other cameras from the same year and but it also allows for some unique photos I would say because like how I shoot it it allows for some you know sometimes it's not 100 in Focus sometimes the exposure is a little blurry and and I really love shooting the Leica for that because because as I said the lens is very sharp and the colors are great sometimes it's too perfect and and shooting the Leica the way I shoot it allows for some you know imperfections and this is what I love about it and as I mentioned before besides all of the build quality it is just a camera that I can bring everywhere I go I could snap some photos edit them later on send them to friends to whatever person and it's just so much fun to shoot I also love shooting it with a flash I got a tiny lack of flash for it I just bring it with me when I go on parties and it's just such a fun thing to do and the photos just look amazing so what I would say and I would say this about all of these cameras no matter the build quality and no matter you know the fact like that they actually enable you to create some great images just by how they are built and what lenses you get for them these cameras are just very fun to shoot and the size is actually something that I undervalued in the beginning but having such a small camera that you can you know just swing around your arm and you know go out and bring with you wherever you go is something that is so powerful because and I've mentioned that in another video you could potentially have the greatest camera and the most creative mindset but you got to be out there and shoot so this is what these cameras actually are really really good for you just bring them they don't get in the way they are super intuitive to shoot and they don't disturb you at all so this is actually what I love the most about all of these cameras and if you would ask me about my favorite camera of all time I think even if I love shooting analog I would still go for the Leica queue because it taught me so much about the way of shooting I can almost shoot this this guy blindfolded it's like just snapping snapping snapping I don't even have to look at the photos that I'm taking because it became so into intuitive for me to shoot it because I shot it a thousand times and even if I should mostly analog these days this one is still so much fun to shoot and it's kind of coming back to an old love if you would if you can say that way because it's every single time I use the camera I'm just so familiar with shooting it and this is something very beautiful I think coming to the next camera which still like a M10 you see I don't have it with me here because I sold it at some point um because it didn't really know matched my needs at some point because I switched to analog um because I liked the analog M system more and I was more getting into you know shooting film but I still enjoyed shooting the M10 for a long time it has a way bigger lens variety compared to the Q because you know the 28 1.7 lens in the queue it is built in so it's not interchangeable but you know the Leica system especially the M system is known for its for its lenses like all over the place and you know interchanging the lenses and playing around with different focal lengths is something that was really fun to do with the M10 as I mentioned before shooting it one-handed is really hard you know you kind of have to have a wide angle lens shoot the aperture you know at f8 or f11 to kind of get along by shooting it one-handed but this kind of changed my way of shooting because you know I had to use both hands to shoot and in the first place it was kind of difficult for me especially the manual focusing but the more often I did it the more intuitive it became and now as you see with these two guys I became such a huge fan of the M system and I think I've taken some of my best photographs with these cameras so talking about the m6 and the M7 they are pretty much built the same way they look pretty much the same way and they do pretty much the same thing of course they are not digital as the M10 or the m11s they both only shoot film and there is not much of a difference between these two cameras the m6 is fully mechanical so it only has a tiny battery sitting right in front here which actually gives you um an overview of the exposure that you're taking so it kind of shows you if you're exposing correctly or if you're under or overexposing the photograph the M7 does pretty much the same the only difference is that it has an automatic shutter speed so that means you can just put the camera on auto and it will automatically pick the shutter speed for the exposure that also means it has DX code reading which means you know you don't have to tell the camera by turning the wheel which ISO you want to be shooting you can just put in the film and put it to zero plus one plus two or if you want to underexpose it to -1 or -2 and it will automatically read the film and this is something that came in very handy something that I really enjoyed because at some point with the m6 especially in street photography I didn't really you know nail the exposure every single time this is where the M7 comes in very handy and it also allows for some very unique photographs because the exposure is pretty much on point every single time but it also means when I forget to open or close the aperture that I end up with some long exposures by accident which in the first place sounds a little weird but I really started to enjoy these imperfect photographs so this is why I'm actually shooting the M7 most of the time now the m6 is kind of you know it works as a backup camera which is kind of weird to say this but it this one is pretty much sitting in my bookshelf all of the time or in my backpack and I'm pretty much only using the M7 these days the M7 being a little more electronic also is a thing that you know when you think about getting the cameras repaired is something which doesn't come in very handy I think the m6 is very kind of easy to repair but the M7 with having some more Electronics built in could be a little more difficult to get it repaired but hopefully I don't have to get them repaired in the future at all to wrap up the video I want to jump back into like what I love about shooting the Leica system in general and something that I mentioned before is definitely the build quality it's definitely the colors that I'm getting out of the cameras it's definitely the way of shooting it especially the rangefinder system on the M cameras became very natural to me over the time I love shooting them because of their form factor you know not only in street photography but also in portrait photography it just allows for some very kind of human connection that you can get with the model because you can't really hide be behind the camera you're always kind of visible you know the model is kind of seeing if you're smiling if you're looking serious or whatever you're doing the person in front of the camera is very close to you and it's still able to see like the other half of your face which I found very very important because sometimes you know having a really big camera you're kind of hiding behind it and you don't have a sort of a human Connection in the moment but just you know being able to smile and just doing your thing and I think it allows for some more authenticity and a lot more more fun actually doing the shoot and you can kind of communicate without saying too much because you still have that you know facial expression and I found this to be very very important and something that I love about shooting all of these cameras and what I also love about shooting these cameras is that you know I've mentioned in another video that I own a lot of cameras like such as the Sony or another point and shoot cameras you know that feeling if you're picking up your favorite sweater or your favorite pair of sneakers and you just you know they feel so comfy and you just love wearing them this happens to me every single time I pick up one of these cameras because I know that they are perfectly built for whatever I want to do it all depends on me and I can rely on the cameras and don't have to focus too much about handling them they work super easy they don't have too much things that you can actually control it is just a very intuitive and and easy way of shooting and this is what I love about all of these cameras so even if you are looking at approximately 10 000 Euros that are standing right in front of me quick disclaimer for that all of these cameras that don't make me a better photographer I don't own these cameras because I wanna you know just say like I'm a Leica guy and blah blah blah this is not why I picked up these cameras I personally found like coming from a street photography background I experienced that I love shooting small cameras and I also enjoy having quite of a decent image quality so this is why I got into the Leica queue I ended up shooting it for portraits as well and I became you know I did my baby steps in shooting film and like coming from this camera there was pretty much no other choice for me because I didn't want to have a point and shoot I really wanted to get that slow and you know kind of manual feeling of shooting analog film so that's why I picked up the m6 and it really brought me that it didn't bring me the greatest pictures in the first place because it really needed some time to get into the camera and to get into the system but over the time it really you know got more intuitive and I got better results and because the m6 had to go to be repaired I picked up the M7 to have kind of the same but still a little different um camera to the m6 and I'm super happy with all the decisions I made even if I spent a lot of money because as I mentioned it is not about having like the most crazy camera but it's really about it should fit your own style and this is because my style is so fluid and very intuitive I kind of like you know just playing around with the camera and changing angles really quick and sometimes just do like I don't know like crazy movements this is why I don't own for example a medium format camera um no matter if it's digital or on film because medium format cameras are kind of slow to shoot and maybe I do my first steps in the medium format world as well in the future I don't know but for what I want to be doing this is pretty much what suits all of my needs and this is why I love shooting all of these cameras also another disclaimer as much as they don't make me a better photographer and they don't make my images better at any point there are so many great photographers that don't care about Leica at all everyone has their own favorite kind of system I know a lot of people shooting the contact system when it comes to shooting on film I know a lot of people that still love shooting their shika or Canon and when it comes to digital photography there is not that much of a difference between all of the digital cameras at all besides the colors and the handling but they all pretty much allow for the same thing so it's really not about the camera but it's more about what you want to be saying and what tool you want to use to make your revisions come to life so this is what actually camera should be the focus of Photography should never be too much about the camera and it should always be about your own vision and the person in front of you or the surrounding that you're in and your own photographic voice the camera only allows for pressing the shutter and freezing the moment and even if there are some cameras or lenses that are sharper or that have better you know image quality or whatever all of these things they don't make a photo better in any way they just make it sharper or bigger or whatever but they don't make photograph better in the end so always keep that in mind it's not about the gear it's really about the person behind the camera so it's about you and it's about how you use your own cameras last thing to say these cameras kind of change the way how I shoot because coming from an autofocus system all of the time and going to an M system with manual focus and the rangefinder system as well it kind of changed my way of shooting and the pace of shooting and this is something that you know I would credit the cameras actually for having that kind of influence on me but you don't have to get a Leica for shooting manual and Rangefinder system there are a ton of other cameras that you can use for that still I want to you know emphasize that especially the M system has changed my way of shooting a lot so that wraps up the video guys thank you so much for sticking around today I hope you found this video kind of interesting make sure to subscribe to the channel because it helps the channel a lot I'm really enjoying putting out those videos at the moment so um yeah thank you for sticking around today and see you in the next one thank you [Music] thank you

Channel: Tobias Holzweiler

Views: 4,460

Keywords: leica, leica m6, film, film photography, leica q, comparison, leica m7, leica m10

Id: H7ms1NaSzRM

Length: 19min 38sec (1178 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2023