Leica waited a long time before releasing this camera two years ago; the M7 is its most feature-laden rangefinder camera to date. I believe that it is the best Leica M rangefinder ever made (with my apologies to Leica M3, M2, and M4 purists) since it features an electronically-controlled shutter (the most accurate for a M rangefinder camera), aperture-priority automation which are features long-overdue on a Leica M series rangefinder. The shutter is the quietest I've heard on a Leica M rangefinder. Unfortunately, the Leica M7, unlike the Leica MP, its all-mechanical brethren, is virtually dead except for two shutter speeds when your batteries die out. And yet despite this inconvenience, the Leica M7 is still the best handling Leica M rangefinder camera I've come across. This black chrome edition of the Leica M7 is the one preferred by professional and advanced amateur photographers interested in not advertizing their camera as they photograph their subjects.
Is the Leica M7 a 35mm camera for everyone? Of course the answer is no, since a rangefinder camera, unlike a single lens reflex (SLR) camera, has a very limited range of lenses. It is superb with wide angle and normal lenses since it is often easier to focus with a rangefinder than a SLR, and can be as fast, if not faster, than the latest autofocus SLRs. The Leica truly excels as the ideal tool for discrete documentary photography, producing what the late Henri Cartier-Bresson referred to as the "decisive moment" photograph. So if you care deeply about making great documentary photography images, then perhaps either the Leica M7 or MP should be your camera.
0 comments:
Post a Comment