Nikon SB-600 and an M8

I’m not sure why people don’t put a flash on M8’s more often? I know, I know. I’ve been extolling the virtues of this wonderful camera for its low light photo capabilities. But there are times when you just need to throw on a good bounce flash. I’ve learned this the hard way.

I was taking some pictures with my grandmom and my son. After taking a couple of pics, my grandmom commented that the photos were a bit too artistic, meaning she can’t see her great-grandson clearly enough. I changed whatever settings I could to achieve a brighter result: change ISO, change aperture, change shutter speed, turn on the house lights. Nothing achieved the desired effect. So the next day I looked on-line for flash that works with the M8. Leica had a SF-24D but it didn’t have a bounce feature. Leica also have a new SF-58 flash but I’m not going to fork over $650 for a flash. After reading some forum posts, I found that I could use my Nikon SB-600 in manual mode. I hooked up the flash to the M8 and took some test photos. It certainly is a trail and error method, but nonetheless it still works.

Next time my grandmom came over I took two photos, one without and one with. The difference is quite startling:

Without

With

bone head

Leica M8 + Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.5

flash forward

Leica M8 + Summarit 35mm f/2.5

Imagine if you will…. your son/ daughter is going away to college. You hug and say your tearful goodbyes at the airport. On your car ride home, you think of what awaits them; the friends they’ll meet, the love and heartaches that’ll come in and out of their lives. That night, while your son/ daughter is meeting their roommates and partying up a storm, you settle into your couch and the fireplace is crackling. You take a sip of your tea and open up the old photo album of your son/ daughter’s baby pictures. You flip through the fuzzy and dark photos taken with your point and shoot. “Maybe they’ll look better on my computer.” You fire up the laptop, find the photos and it looks pretty much the same as they do in print. You vaguely remember taking those precious pictures of your son/ daughter’s birth on your cellphone, but remember you had changed your phone at least 10 times since and forgot to sync the photos to your computer. It’s then you realize you wished you had taken more and better pictures of my baby, who’s now all grown up…

You owe it to yourself and your baby to have their life documented in photos. It’s a family history that can be passed on down for generations. I love looking at my parents’ photos of when they were young because I see stories of how their youth was, how they courted, how their goofy friends looked. Camera technology has taken great strides since and with digital cameras now, there should be no excuse not to take more photos. But with this technology comes confusion to the average consumer about what camera to purchase. You can find all the reviews and tech specs on the internet, but based on my experiences with taking photos of my son, you don’t need the latest and greatest cameras, or the most expensive, to have nice photos. My Nikon D70 is 5, almost 6 years old and it still takes decent photos. After spending so much time researching what camera to buy, you take the plunge but then it just sits there on the bookcase collecting dust, waiting for a special occasion like birthdays, Christmas or family trips to take it out. I always keep a camera around with me even if its my iPhone. My M8 rests on the fireplace mantel in the living room and the D-Lux 4 is in the baby room, places where my son spends most of his time. If you’re not really one to take photos, or want to spend the time or money to buy a new camera, ask a friend to take some photos for you. In this day and age I’m sure everyone knows at least one person who can take some nice photos for you. Heck, you can even ask me if you like! Life passes by pretty quickly but it also gets in the way of small joys like taking photos. Its in these photos that we can capture a brief moment in life and keep it forever. Take as many photos as you can of your little ones before they’re old enough to say, “Oh Daddy, not the camera again?!”.

where’s daddy?

Leica D-Lux 4

I was looking through the photos I’ve taken of my son and there were hardly any of with the both of us. I then looked through my parents’ photo collection and there were hardly any of my dad and I. Being new parents, its very easy to get caught up in taking photos of our son as we want to capture every smile, every flip, every bath. And as someone who loves taking photos, its hard to be in them with him. As I would’ve love to have more photos of my dad and I when I was young, I’m sure my son would appreciate seeing more photos of him with his dad (I’ve intentionally left out discussions about mom as I take quite a bit of pics of the two of them!). So here’s my first self portrait of my son and I. This is where the wide angle lens of the D-Lux 4 comes in handy.

happen things…

M8 + Summarit 35mm f/2.5

The sun was shining and was 12 degrees celsius. It would’ve been a sin to stay indoors.

———

Ran into this blog post by Jeff Ascough about capturing the birth of your baby. When my son was born, I brought along both my Leicas and was fully ready to capture on photo this historic moment in our family’s life. But as the hours went by, I realized that taking photos was really secondary to being in the moment. And when the baby was coming out, there was really no way I was going to let a camera lens get in my way of seeing with my own eyes the birth of our son. Now looking back at it, I really wished I had taken more photos because as we get older, our memories fade but photos will always stay the same. So for those of you who are expecting, do anything you can to capture the moments leading up to, during, and after the birth of your baby. Such a historic moment needs to be captured not with your cellphone camera, but something you can look back on years later and be proud that you took some nice photos of the moment.

———

It’s pretty depressing reading camera forums as it seems like many are fixated with the latest gear and that those latest things will help them capture the best looking photos. Then I look at tokyo camera style and reminds me that its not what you have, but how you use it.

connie & craig

Gear: M8 + Voigtlander 50mm f/1.5

Blurb: Low light + Fast lens = Tough Shoot – Daddy duties = Limited photo ops

The Shoot: Being a brand new Dad there are certain things you must give up in the beginning of the baby’s life. Photography is one of those things. I usually shoot alot of photos at family weddings, but this wasn’t the case for Connie and Craig. By the time I got to the reception, dinner was over, desert was being served, all the speeches and games were done. Still I managed to get a few shots in here and there.

Being an available light photographer, there is alot to learn and this was one learning experience for me as its the first time I shot in a pretty dimly light venue. Having a flash in this case was natural but I tried to take this challenge head on and see what I could do. Although a flash will give you great sharp photos, I find that it decreases the mood of the venue. Couples who choose golf resorts or such places usually want to set a romantic mood with candles, dim lights, soft jazzy music. You lose quite a bit of that mood in your photos if you use a flash. But at the same time, without a flash your photos might come up blurry or noise levels will increase. So what do you do? That’s where the geek-talk will surface… you need a better camera like a D3, D700, M9…. any camera that you can dial up the ISO levels to offset the lower shutter speed. You need faster lenses. And on and on. There are some great photographers out there which has used the M8 + fast Leica lenses to produce some marvelous low light wedding photos… you can find them in filmroll on the side bar.

recording the moment or living in it?

Panasonic LX3

Being a photographer, I need to capture big events in me and my family’s life with my son’s baptism being a huge one recently. Before the big day I had in mind how I wanted to photograph the occasion and which shots I was looking forward to. I packed my camera bag with the appropriate lenses and I was pretty much ready to rock n roll. Then just as the service was about to begin, I looked around and saw about 80-90 of our family and friends, then decided that I wanted to be in the moment and leave the photos to my others to take. That was a big decision for me because even though I had wanted my style of photos to capture the moment, I knew that this was never going to happen again. So I sat still, taking in what the Priest was saying, looking at my son and thinking how his life is going to be, how so many people attending there took the time out of their busy lives to witness this special occasion.

There are times when being in the moment helps me take better photos as there’s a connection between the subject and myself. But when I’m part of the center of attraction, I need to learn to sometimes put the camera away and just be.

things I hear when using the M8 at weddings

Leica M8 + Summarit 35mm f/2.5

“Take it again! The flash didn’t go off!” Seems like people are so use to seeing flash photography that they feel a photo is ruined without it. I’d have to reassure these people that everything was fine, the photo came out great… no need to panic. If they still insist on another shot, I’d take it the same as I did the first time. I’d then show them the evidence… good lighting, in focus, great photo.

“How did you do that? What kind of camera is this?” some would ask, thinking the M8 is some magic lightbox which wouldn’t match even the puny point-and-shoot they were holding. I’d then have to briefly explain to them that it’s not really the camera, but more the lens. “Oh, I see, but the lens is so small? It costs HOW MUCH?” One of the beauties of the compactness of Leica lenses are that they make the camera very discreet and non-assuming. I’m not aiming a shotgun of a camera in front of your face… there’s no big flash to shock you, no mammoth lens which you can see your own reflection in and no loud “CLACK” of a shutter to let you know when your photo’s been taken but a nice, friendly, non-threatening camera.

“Did you take the picture already?” is another comment I’d hear due to the soft shutter sound of the M8. With an upgrade or the M8.2, the shutter is even quieter but my M8 shutter sound is muffled my the Luigi case. In addition to the flash, people are trained to hear the shutter go off either as a CLACK, BEEP, or the fake shutter CLACK to let them know they don’t have to smile any longer and can finally move their limbs. I’m not taking a class photo people, I’m trying to take real life so stop fake smiling and just laugh out loud as if you’ve heard the funniest joke ever, so funny it’d make you pee kinda funny.

“That’s digital?” someone said as I was swapping out the SD card. I’m pretty comfortable with the M8 now that I don’t need to review every photo I take so to keep battery usage down, I turn off auto-review at weddings and look at them when I have down time. Weddings is one event where you’d want to be ready to take a photo at any moment because you never know when a crazy drunken uncle or friend might make an ass out of themselves.

voigtlander nokton 50mm f/1.5

When I was looking for a 50mm lens, I narrowed down my choice to two; the Nokton or the Summilux. The main reason why I chose the Nokton? Price of course! I just didn’t have $3,500 lying around so by default I went with the Nokton. After having used it for 1/2 a year, I can safely say that it is by no means a cheapo, win by default lens. For those who are looking for a fast 50mm lens for their rangefinders, this one is hard to beat for price/ performance ratio. You can google technical or other reviews ( I recommend Sean Reid’s paid site) but since there seems to be a lack of samples on-line, I just want to share what the Nokton does for me.

new york

Gear: Leica M8 + Summarit 35mm f/2.5

Blurb: Walking around the streets of New York with a Leica slung around my shoulders…. ahhhh a dream come true.

The Shoot: I couldn’t believe what a big difference the weight of the M8 makes compared to my D70 when travelling. The D70 is pretty light for a DSLR and when I travelled with it, I’d use the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 which is not that heavy either. With the M8 I didn’t feel as tired, my back didn’t hurt as bad, as it did carrying the D70. Often times I’d notice people on the street carrying a huge DSLR kit with camera and some zoom lens and it just looks so cumbersome. Plus the big camera bag they have to carry around with it… ugh! For me when I now travel, I don’t think I can every bring along a DSLR kit. All I need is my M8.