Leica M TYP 240 (Expanded Guides)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Leica M TYP 240 (Expanded Guides) Details
About the Author David Taylor is an award-winning landscape and travel photographer. Read more
Reviews
Lets me start off by stating what this book does, it does well. First, it does provide the reader with a good, logically laid, easy to read and understand treatment of the basics of the M 240. If you are new to the M 240, this is a great place to start. However, after reading it over, I am left with the feeling that this was a minor refresh of this author's M9 book. True, it did add a chapter on movies. However, it overlooked several of the features that make the M 240 so intriguing. First, there is live view. This is an alternative method of focusing the lens that avoids many of the problems with the range finder system. Rather than using the ranger finder system with its problems of parallax, you look through the lens and see what the camera see. Focusing is now a different experience. Second, it ignores for the most part the EVF (electronic view finder). With the EVF, the user has an alternative method of focusing the lens. I have been using this system (with the olympus VF-2 rather than the Leica version) and have found it interesting. It covers the Leica M 240 into a mini Leica DSLR. Third, the author shows how Leica lens can be used on other systems with the appropriate adapters. What he does not cover is that of using the Leica R system lenses on the M 240. When Leica decided to terminate the R line (its SLR system), I could not bear to turn in my R8 and R9. I kept them along with the truly outstanding 35-70mm f4.0 macro zoom - considered by most to the one of the best Leica R lenses ever produced. With Leica's new adapter, I can use that lens on my M 240. This is Nirvana! The downside is that I have to focus using live view. The upside - at this time, Leica R lenses are far cheaper than their M equivalents. For example, the R version of the 28mm f2.8 is less than $500 versus over $1100 for the M Mount. True - the size is bigger but not that bigger. The R series is considered by some (e.g., Thorsten Overgaard, - http://www.overgaard.dk/Leica-M-Type-240-aka-Leica-M10-digital-rangefinder-camera-page-33-The-Leica-R-Lenses-on-Leica-M240-Catwalk.html) to be the best lenses Leica ever designed and built. This aspect was overlooked. BTW, it would have been nice if the author had discussed manual coding of lenses - a neat feature overlooked in most books. One of the neat features of the M system is that you use every M lenses going back to the 1954 introduction of the M3. Only recent lenses have lens coding. If you know the coding, you can add it to an old lens and have it work. Finally, the book needs to be refreshed, especially when it comes to flash. The author talks about the SF-2D and the SF-58. The SF-58 has been discontinued (pity). Rather, Leica now offers the SF-26 and the CF22 - again, a minor but annoying omission.Overall, a good book that reads like an M9 book that has been given a quick but incomplete refresh for the M 240. It is a good introduction to the M system but one that has limited coverage of the really new features introduced in the M 240.
