Re: [Leica] the last blast

[Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>]

Martin Howard wrote:
> 
> Julian Thomas wrote, in part:
> 
> > as far as I know, in the UK, with every M6 you get a free flash.
> 
> THAT makes sense...  The Leica M6.  The world's best available-light
> photography camera.  With the world's best available-light photography
> lenses.
> 
> And you get a free flash when you buy one.
> 
> M.
> 
The flat character of light from an on camera flash with the etched thin black
shadow under the chin and nose is not why most Leica M's are bought. 
M's are known to be the best available light cameras out there. We know that
many of the lenses are excellent wide open. 
It's probable most of our Leica M's on this list have never had a flash in the
hotshoe and never will. I think that's a darn shame! :) 

What happens when we finally slide a twinkielight into that hotshoe for the very first
time and make an exposure in some lets say low light to no light situation?
Instead of shooting wide upon, bracing our elbows and squeezing out a very slow
exposure hoping nothing jerks we are now able to stop down and knock out an on the
fly grabshot that may have an effective exposure of 1/20,000th of a second!!!!. 
They not only now don't have to hold still they can violently twitch all they
want to!
We can count the etched in eyelashes one by one if we care to check it out with a
loupe or blow the thing up to huge proportions.
BUT WHAT WE DON'T GOT IS WHAT WAS THERE.
 Good-by reality!. We have altered that to an extreme Max. Foregrounds our hot,
backgrounds are
black. THE TUNNEL LOOK! 
The tunnel look is a million snapshots and even news shots which have defined
the way we have seen many things and how we remember them. 
Others and our own older perhaps snapshot albums are filled with these TUNNEL
SHOTS. 
We look at all those terrible clothes we used to wear and worse hairstyles in
front of the tunnels and we forget that these experiences happened in a much
different ambiance. 
How much does this matter?  That true ambiance? The way things really looked.
From a phisics standpoint we dont' really see and photographs the objects around us;
we see the light which bouces off them. We are looking at a twinkie light.
In some cases I for one am willing to just do just that. Flash it!
I just want to get the shot, get the face. 
This is because I have no morals, no fiber, no character, no vision, oh well. :)
mark (just want to get the shot) rabiner