Comment by ninjin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ninjin | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

That last comment is a bit unfair, no? Yes, there are plenty of "fools" that throw money on Leica gear and wearing it as a fashion statement. However, Leicas are also darn fun to shoot, even if they make zero sense for a professional that most likely want reliability and are optimising for nailing each shot.

I, however, very much enjoy the "flawed" process of using a rangefinder. It makes me obsess less about each shot for some reason. Likewise, it is great to be able to share lenses between my non-Leica film camera and digital Leica. Plus, having access to lenses going all the way back to the 30s is also fun, despite them having serious flaws at times.

So, yes, I agree that Leica is "done", but has that not in many ways been the case since the professionals got proper SLRs into their hands in the 60/70s? I for one appreciate the "fools" that throw money at Leica so that I can pick up a second hand digital one ever half a decade or so to keep my fun going.

All of the above applied pretty much equally to Fujifilm at this point, though.

I’ve heard it said that Fujifilm is the Leica of the 1970s, today. I think I agree with that.

I love my X-Pro3. It’s 100% a choice I made for the joy of photography, not practicality. I considered Leica. I could afford it, but they just didn’t offer anything Fujifilm didn’t outside the brand itself.

I mostly agree and love what Fujifilm is bringing to the table (the viewfinder in particular). Sadly their sensor size breaks backwards compatibility though with relation to old lenses. Other than that, I wholeheartedly agree and readily recommend Fujifilm cameras to others looking to get into photography and are not looking to use old lenses and swap lenses between film and digital gear.

Do any of the fuji digital rangefinders have true mechanical focus rings, rather than "focus by wire"? I had an original X100 and thought it was a terrific camera. But I couldn't shoot with it the way I prefer because the manual focus mechanism was too slow and lacked the tactile+visual feedback of mechanical focus.

I looked a couple of years ago at the then-current fuji offerings and thought they seemed great, again, but still weren't the right thing for me because none of them had physically coupled focus rings.

Yes, they do. I have Fujinon 16mm f/1.4 that allows you to switch to manual focus mode on lens and have depth of field for apertures and distance markers, so you can pre-focus in advance.

Thanks. (And that sounds like a fun lens!)

I usually hear that something like a Leica Q (Q, Q2, Q3) would be a step up in lens and sensor quality. They have full frame sensors, the newer models have a higher resolution and a matching lens. It's also a step up in price... Used Leica Q models are not out of reach price wise. M cameras often are.

I bought a Q2 just be for the Covid pandemic and I kind of expected to be disappointed, given the ratio of capabilities and price. But I wasn't. I actually like the output of the camera.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com