Wim Wenders & Leica M8
Out of context: Reply #16
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- Horp0
I have one, but I haven't really had much time to use it so I wouldn't say I was a rangefinder veteran. I hope to use it more when I get the chance, it does take awesome photographs that look like a Magnum photographer's work.
I went into a shop with a mad dizzy desire to buy the Leica M8 about two years ago. For some odd reason, the Leica specialist recommended that I buy instead a much cheaper camera that I had never heard of... the RD1 from Epson Cosina. I think he sensed that I was about to throw about 4k down on the counter in a mad frenzy and buy something I didn't understand which I would then bring back to the shop for a refund... I don't know, but anyway he sold me a Leica 50mm lens and the RD1 and once I'd figured out how to use it it was just incredible.
Now though I really want to swap it up for the M8, although I have a hard time justifying that to myself considering I don't even get to use it very often.
The RD1 has an amazing feature that the M8 doesn't though. It has a manually cocking shutter, so you have a physical wind-on lever like ona film camera. This is great for pacing your shots and establishing a rhthym, but it also means that the RD1 is entirely mechanical. The only digital part is the sensor. Everything else is exactly as a film camera. So I can take a shot on my RD1 even with a flat battery!