Leica m6 which one

The only electronic parts of the M6 was the metering system. This minimalistic and simplistic design allows you to focus on the photo entirely. Another notable feature is the film advance crank.

The plastic tipped film advance is smooth and easy to move. The M6 is also relatively small and light. At only g, the M6 fits comfortably on the palm.

Without considering its depth, this camera is typically the size of an iPhone X. The classic M6 was in production between Although minor additions, these changes made the M6-TTL more attractive to serious photographers. One of the greatest shortcomings of the M6 was the use of a tiny shutter speed dial, which made it hard to change shutter speeds when holding the camera to your eye.

It is sturdy and to hell and back reliable. For me, my M4-P is a reminder of the golden era of Leica M film photography and it is a constant reminder to never lose sight of where we all came from as photographers.

Dear Allan Thank you for your comment on my article. I am happy to hear firsthand that other cameras stemming from the M-series are just as good as the M6 and obviously I am not too surprised either.

As I said, Leica cameras in general just offer the user something special. Great article! I enjoy reading other peoples perspectives on the M6. I have a M6ttl with the. I use mostly 50mm and my 90mm summicron with my m6. I also use a leicavit m on it. I will say the M6ttl is a wonderful camera. I purchased it recently and i am still unsure if I like the camera or if I like my old M4 and m3 much better.

I like that it has the 75mm frame lines and have been thinking of purchasing a 75mm lens. But I thought the light meter would be more like the meter in my Nikon fm2 and In many ways it is. Some how the meter does not seem as intuitive as the fm2 meter though. I am unsure its worth having over even a nikon FM2.

Hell I am even unsure the leica m6 is better to have than just using one of those leica mr4 meters on an unmetered body. Yes the m6 is much better made than the fm2 and the m6 is a dream camera. For me the m6 has been getting harder and harder to justify owning. Lately my eyes have been falling upon a nikon sp with a 35mm f1. I recently decided to leave the camera home on a kayak trip.

I know it sounds snobby to be nitpick about the m6 but if I am going to own somthing so valuable I gotta really mesh with it. Hummmm who knows what I will do with my m6ttl. I hate to be critical about this article but I think that it paints a little too rosy a picture. First off, I am not a Leica hater, I shoot with a bunch of Ms but I feel that camera reviews need balance. This statement applies to pretty much any camera of the era. The M6 has serious issues with RF flare. The MA always had the condenser.

This was a cost cutting move, that could be retrofitted later. Both illuminated meant correct exposure.

The M6TTL improved on that by adding a dot between them, when that dot illuminated the exposure was correct. Dear Huss I am thankful for any feedback on my articles and yours is especially detailed. I appreciate it. There are many other cameras that work without batteries. I did not say the M6 was the only one. I just thought it would be worth mentioning since the M6 does have a light meter which could lead people to think the camera needed batteries to function.

Maybe the comparison to other Leica viewfinders is something I could have included but I simply chose not to. As I stated in the end, this article was meant to halt the euphoria inside of me. Maybe, I just could not. I mainly use Sunny 16 to work out my exposures and the arrows offer me a great way to check my estimates without making the experience too technical.

That is an issue I always face when shooting digital. Thanks again Huss and please do not hesitate to let us in on your knowledge in future articles! Have a great one Dario. Hi, great article about a great camera. The M3 just works. It is in need of some work on the RF window with some balsam separation but other than that is has been reliable for many years. I got the M6 largely for the 35mm frameline. And for metering in a pinch. With the M6 my issues have been as follows: The winding lever is for me and larger hands very flimsy and fidgety.

Mine wore out probably from my troubles with it. I am probably an outlier, but I like the spool wind on system in the M3 much better than the split spool system in the M6. Cosmetic wear and scuffs, if it bothers you scratching does not matter, but major dents in the body do.

From my knowledge and research, there are four brands of M mount lenses that you can consider buying and from rough order of cheap to expensive they are:. I was actually very much set on buying the Voigtlander 35mm F1.

My main concerns during research were the vignetting and distortions with the Voigtlander lens. I was so confused when I first tried to wrap my head around what this all was, but this diagram cleared it all up for me and hopefully will do the same for you. I will say that although the 35mm frame lines on the 0. Firstly, it depends on perspective. Some people will prefer the new dial size and rotation, and some will prefer the similarity to older cameras.

But more than that, one of the big problems of introducing an ultra simple light meter to the standard Leica M is always going to be the lack of information in the viewfinder. But other than that the only way of knowing the shutter speed or aperture is by counting the clicks and knowing where you started. It just seems to occupy a hinterland between having no meter at all and having one that is genuinely very useful….

The reality is, for most, the simplicity of the meter is a joy, and not a problem in the way I describe. What problems it does pose are seemingly overcome by people with little thought; most just seem to get on with finding their own way to make the meter work for them.

It is — as Leica designed — the cameras innate simplicity that wins it fans. You see, the reality is, something that solves a problem in a too simple and maybe slightly incomplete way is much less likely to cause complaint than something that tries to solve a problem in a too complicated way. Just to go on a tangent for a moment… In my day job, one of the things we do is user experience design.

In my view, people who design things, all things, either work within the framework of one principle or the another. Neither approach is necessarily wrong, but the outcome is potentially very different. Alternatively, by breaking down the problem to the most simple solution, the outcome might be almost overly simplistic, but is also instantly useable. My preference is definitely for the latter simple up approach. This is pretty much the basis of my arguments for the Leica M So, whilst it might not solve the problem of a built-in light meter perfectly for everyone — myself included — it does provide a level of function that through simplicity is instantly understandable.

Additionally, and what I find quite fascinating with overly simplistic designs like that in the Leica M6 meter, is not so much how basic it is, but more how people adapt to it. Instead, it provides something that people can make work for them in a variety of ways. For example, many folks seem to use it as a rough guide rather than a shot by shot aid, a meter to reassure about a guessed reading rather than give an exact one to work from.

Many seem perfectly happy with the counting of clicks between settings, and some seem to just check their settings methodically and use the camera to shoot quite slowly.

None of these are the wrong way to use it, they are just what suits the individual user. And of course this is what makes the Leica M6 so popular. I personally found taking a reading of an appropriately reflective object the most suitable process for me.

Knowing the meter reads from a large circle in the middle of the frame in the same way as the Leica M7, I was actually quite quick to adapt. For example, I did a lot of landscape shooting with Portra with it whilst I was on holiday. Instead I just point it at something broadly sensible, take a reading, and get on with shooting.

In the case of the landscape work, I often just took a reading off the closest patch of slightly shaded grass then shot until I felt the light had changed. I got over the problem of not being able to see the settings by just setting the camera blindly at the eye, then changing the cameras settings reciprocally to those that were suitable for the subject. I am actually pretty happy shooting in the way I have described above, so you might be wondering why I spent the first half of the post moaning about the light meter?

Well, the big problem is I am also happy — in fact happier — shooting how I do with the Leica M7. As I describe in the my M7 post the auto exposure gives me a quick way to select and lock in the exposure I want. Its automation is less about it selecting a shutter speed for me, but more about the fact that it shows me a shutter speed in the viewfinder, and how this in turn allows me to quickly select and lock in a speed with the camera to my eye. Of course, I do realise this is a preference of mine, not really a complaint of the camera in the strictest sense, but it is what makes the Leica M7 a better camera in my opinion.

The M7 just feels like a more complete product to me, it still feels very much like a simple camera, it just takes things one step further in function.

It is this small step that opens up a whole new series of ways to use it, ways that I personally appreciate and enjoy a lot more than the ways in which I adapted to the Leica M6. Well, having recently gained a couple of Leica M6 shooting friends, and assuming some of the people who read my website might also favour it, I feel I have to be ever so slightly careful how I word this.

It strikes me that there is — at least in some cases — a bit of Leica fuddy-duddy brainwashing going on. Or at least, not largely cease to function if the battery runs out like the M7 does. I find this notion archaic. To me, what is important is how a camera helps me to take photos within the realms of normal use. At the end of the day, of course everyone is free to make the own choice about which camera suits their needs better, but for me, greater function and two spare batteries in my pocket is the choice I take over less function and the camera still working in case I forget those spare batteries.

As you might have worked out, I am in two minds about the Leica M6 cameras. Part of me appreciates their simplicity, I can certainly see how they work so well for other people. I think the problem for me is that my earliest experiences of Leica M6 happened at the wrong time. Since then I have mostly reinforced this perspective. I bought a Leica M7, not to mention a whole heap of compact cameras.

These compacts were mostly auto exposure, and the best — or at least my favourites — were those geared up to allowing me to meter and shoot in the way I do with the M7. More photos on my flickr A great review on photo. For more articles on 35mmc about the subject matter discussed here, please click one of the following tag links:. Alternatively, please feel free to chuck a few pennies in the tip jar via Ko-fi:. Become a Patron! Learn about where your money goes here.

Would like to write for 35mmc? Find out how here. What ever works for you though. Great work! Hehe, I had you and Josef firmly in mind when I said that! Appreciate your thoughtful review! As a kid 40 years ago I shot m3 for many years, and went through Nikon f3, canon eos 1v, then to digital from 20D to 5Dmark ii.

Have ditched digital except for I phone 6, now a favorite of mine and have gone all in on Leicas and Mamiya 7 and 7ii.