I have read some of the blog posts and wish to share my observations about my own camera experiences. All of my Canon lenses are good to very good. My three Leica M lenses, the 28 mm Elmarit, 35 mm Summicron and the 75 mm Summarit are miles ahead of the Canon lenses in sharpness, color saturation and three dimensionality of the images. Are the Canons bad? No, they are very good to excellent but lack that last little bit that the Leica lenses provide. The M9 is pricey but amazing. The resolution and image quality allows for a fair degree of cropping (heaven forbid) and they still look good. the attached image is fairly heavily cropped image from the 28 mm lens.

Great blog site.

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Well Bruce, you got your M9 long before I did Mine showed up on February 10nth and work has been extremely busy. As such my total shooting time has been next to zero... This about sums up our weather lately (M9 w/ 90 Cron) -



I hope the M9 surpasses the 1Ds3 image quality - that would be nice. Right now I'm struggling to get the "right" lenses. I want a Leica 50 Lux ASPH (Black) and those lenses are on national back order. I tried a used Noctilux, but something didn't see right with the lens, so it was returned. At the moment I have a 75 APO and it's a tricky lens to focus. Next week a 35 Lux ASPH will be here, and I'm hoping that lens doesn't have focus shift issues. I want the 50 Lux, but the 35 & 75 combo will be the interim solution.

I mostly bought the M9 because of its size. Full frame & 18 MP leaves lots of room for cropping which was a challenge with the M8. The 1Ds3 does really well, but when taking family pix and stuff like that, my wife cringes when I bring the 1Ds3. It's big, draws lots of attention, etc. Whereas most people perceive the M as a tiny digicam and they don't concern themselves about it. I like the 1Ds3 and it delivers good results. This was a black & white from a couple weeks ago (more lousy weather...) -



For whatever reason, when shooting with the M8 my style changed. It was more candids & casual moments. It was a nice change of pace. None of these shots will win awards, but I like them and they caught the time -







If you follow the site and dig around in the galleries, then you know I've got 100's of pix like that. For whatever reason the M8 seemed really good for that stuff. The sensor was wickedly sharp, and the 50 Lux ASPH is laser sharp as well. But it wasn't the sharpness, etc., that caught my eye. It's the different style that I get with the M vs shooting with the 1Ds3. I like having both. It's a nice ying & yang.

I hope to get more blog entries posted in April. Unfortunately my work schedule for March has me traveling nearly the entire month, so the site is going to sit idle for awhile...