Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/10/07

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To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: re: age, M6 emotive quality
From: Mark_Bishop@ipc.co.uk
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 1996 08:48:03 +0100

First off, I'm 28. Does this make me the youngest member of the LUG? Bought my
first Leica - and M6 with 35 1.4 Summilux-ASPH - brand new as a Christmas
present to myself last December.

As for the emotive quality of Leica photographs, I have several ideas as to what
this might be:

1) The nature of the out-of-focus image, as others have said;
2) The fact that *most* of the lenses are optimised to offer excellent
resolution in low-contrast lighting, which Japanese lenses often do not;
3) The way that M-series cameras are less obtrusive and, especially when working
with a semi-wide lens, appear to be part of the scene, rather than a distant
observer;
4) The fact that an M-series user is always viewing a scene at effective f/64,
ie all is sharp so he/she must work hard to simplify the image or ensure that
all contributes to the message, wherease an SLR user views at maximum aaperture
and is hence less aware of the background.