The Denver Post has wonderful photo stories that remind us of how important photo journalists are for keeping us informed about what’s happening in the World. This one is about Horst Faas who took many of the iconic photos of the Vietnam war using a Leica M3.

The YouTube channel DigitalRevTV payed homage to the Leica M3 in its episode this week. The M3 is an even more classic camera than the M6, which I’m growing to love, and this video makes me want to try one.

WARNING! If you’re not comfortable with bawdy English humour, DigitalRevTV is not for you.

I’m still getting to know my vintage M6 film Leica. Out of the camera, the color is better, the sharpness is better, and my exposures are better than with my professional quality digital camera. The photos in this entry are unedited, except for some cropping. I used Portra 400 film, which is a general purpose, but lower contrast, film that was designed with weddings in mind where the white bride’s dress and black groom’s tuxedo both need to retain detail. The depth of color and tonal range that’s captured in direct sunlight makes the photos so rich. I did use a grey card to get my exposure settings right before photographing the cars, which were standing out in the midday sun.

I really enjoyed reading this article about Luciano Checco, a hobby photographer who’s taken some amazing black and white documentary photographs in Singapore with Leica M series cameras. He says that color is distracting and clearly defines the age of the photo, whereas black and white photo are timeless. I agree with him when he says that the overall quality of photography had dropped with the ease of taking technically good photos using today’s phones and digital cameras.

These photos were taken in Asakusa, Tokyo. The first is the film version.

And this one is the digital version. It has been modified in Lightroom to increase the contrast and dynamic range.

The composition is of course different, and I wasn’t trying to compose a good photo with the digital camera as I was just using it as a light meter. Despite that, I prefer the look and the colour of the film better.