Hi guys..

Ever since I discover the Ms, I find I canot shoot with anything else. I need to have the tone and sharpness I see in the M lenses. I have an M3, M4p and a M6 classic with 35asphf2 and 50f2.

I have 2 minoltas, 2 contaxes, a few fixed lens p/s and a nikon f80. All with primes.

Recently I shot a roll using the contax Planar 50/1.4. But the quality just paleD compared with the 50 cron. And I mean PALESSSED!

i WILL not be using the rest for a while except maybe when I need to stop actions. Thats when the nikon f80 comes in.

Im afraid the electrical circuits in those AFs bodies will die off if I'd kept them for too long.

thought of resale, but I would most likely lose money.

What do u guys DO WITH THE REST?

good day.

-- Travis koh (teckyy@hotmail.com), March 05, 2002

Answers

>>>thought of resale, but I would most likely lose money.<<<

How much benefit are they if they're sitting on a shelf gathering dust? Either sell them and get whatever money you can for them or give them to a deserving student. Your money was spent when you bought them. Selling now isn't losing money, it's recovering money.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), March 05, 2002.

I cannot advise you what to do, but only tell you what I did when I discovered the same thing you did... I decided to keep one SLR body, a long lens and a macro lens to cover the situations that the M cannot do easily. But in reality I almost NEVER used it. So, a few weeks ago I sold ALL of my 35mm SLR gear.

Then, last weekend my daughter asked me to shoot pictures of her basketball game. She had never done this before, and I did not want to be the "dork" dad taking photos and embarassing her, so I never shot at her games. Did I feel like an idiot! No auto-everything camera to do the rapid work for me. S#%t! So now I am out there with my M6TTL, motor and 90mm lens thinking "This is never going to work!" Light was low -- really low -- 1/60th @ f2 with ISO 400 film, so no DoF help on the focus from my 90 APO. Big S#%t!! So, I do my best, zone focussing, anticipating the action, and firing the shots. The winder helped for sure.

Now, here is the interesting part... Another dad was asked to shoot by his daughter as well. (Turns out the girls wanted to put together a scrap book...) He was smart; he had an F100 and 24-120 af zoom. After the game he came up to me and said "Well, that was a bust... There was so little light I could count the pause in my shutter while it tried to expose!" He was shooting ISO 800 film -- At about 1/15th @ f5.6(!) I got my photos back and have some keepers. Maybe a 50% hit rate which I feel is pretty good considering the other dad with the auto-everything SLR got butkis!

The moral of the story? Maybe the M can do some things better than we give it credit for! Now all I have to find is a Viso III...

;-),

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), March 05, 2002.

Start by selling something easy, that you don't like. And have a project in mind, like a new Leica lens the proceeds can contribute towards. I have had drawers full of SLR's, lenses, etc which have been culled in the name of Leica over the years. My last trade in was a Contax G2 outfit, that I had hung on to for two years without using it, all on the assumption 'it will be useful one day'. So in it went against the price of a Tri Elmar. I haven't missed it since, and I love my Tri Elmar. Go on do it, you know it makes sense....

-- Steve Barnett (barnet@globanet.co.uk), March 05, 2002.

He was smart; he had an F100 and 24-120 af zoom.

Or maybe not... he should have been using an 80-200/2.8 or 85/1.4. He didn't get any keepers not because he was using an F100 instead of an M... but because he chose an inappropriate lens for the job regardless of what type of camera he was using.

-- Anon Terry (anonht@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

My hat's still off to you though... it ain't easy shooting action with an M and 90, even with a motor!

-- Anon Terry (anonht@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

to me it seems like you already made up your mind to sell most of your equipment. i don't know you shooting style, but to me it seems like you have more than enough equipment. Less is more. SELL! Cheers,

-- pat (modlabs@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

or you can just send me the nikkor primes. i'm itching for an 85/1.4 AF-D...do you have one?

-- Dexter Legaspi (dalegaspi@hotmail.com), March 05, 2002.

yeah, i'll put in an offer for a nikkor prime wideangle.

ken

-- ken kwok (kk353@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

Sell everything on EBAY today! :-) Consumer digital cameras are gaining market share every year. Your AF SLRs and lenses may not be worth much 10 years from now.

-- Muhammad Chishty (applemac97@aol.com), March 05, 2002.

Jack:

My daughter is a member of her middle school basketball team. Last month I took some photos at a home game with a M6 TTL and 35 ASPH, 50 and 90 Summicron lenses using Fuji Superia 800 film. The exposure was f2 and 1/250 in the dimly lighted gym. I prefocused the lens for most of the photos, and did not use flash for fear of disturbing the players. Some of the photos came out well, especially the ones taken with the 90 Summicron. I think flash would have helped get better colors. But then the shutter speed would have gone down to 1/50 on the M6 TTL and would have resulted in blurry pictures of the fast moving athletes. Oh well! A modern SLR with a 1/250 synch speed and a fast lens was needed there!

-- Muhammad Chishty (applemac97@aol.com), March 05, 2002.

I've shot auto racing with an M6, and HS wrestling. Basketball I couldn't shoot well even with a manual-focus SLR. The last time I did, it was with an F5 and 80-200/2.8 AFS. Today I would use a 1V and 70-200/2.8 Image Stabilizer. The 24-120 lens is a non-AFS (slow focusing), slow lens made for outdoor daylight and indoor flash shots at close enough distance so the IR focus-assist beam is effective.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), March 05, 2002.

Travis,

I'm still looking to enhance my Contax stuff, if you want to get rid of yours pls. send me a list if there are any affordable items on it (esp. a longer tele and a cheap 2nd body). Sometimes it really pays out to have one of the 'dull' Zeiss lenses - they all have it's uses.

-- Kai Blanke (kai.blanke@iname.com), March 05, 2002.

Travis: Bite the bullet and sell your minoltas, contaxes and yes, even the Nikon 80. They are not earning you any money siting on the shelf collecting dust.

-- Albert Knapp MD (albertknappmd@mac.com), March 05, 2002.

Thx guys, just managed to sell one of my 600si minolta body for 300USD. Not a bad start. I'll keep the other one. Great body.

-- Travis koh (teckyy@hotmail.com), March 06, 2002.