Camera and Lens Reviews — camera

  The Leica black paint M3 is probably the most coveted and most desirable of all rangefinder cameras that Leica has made. ...but why? The M3 has imprinted itself in history as 'The Best' rangefinder camera of all time. But it seems that the classic satin chrome top and bottom plates that we have grown to love on our Leica camera and lenses attract all the attention, both in good and bad ways. Pros have always wanted to be discrete, covering as much as possible on their camera to capture that elusive shot in the most inconspicuous way.  After all, the streets...

Back in 1964 Leica noticed that rangefinders weren't the hot ticket they once were and an emerging market of SLR bodies coming out of Japan were slowly taking over their turf. So what was a hoity-toity German camera company to do? Well, after trying for 12 years with the awkwardly designed Leicaflex line they finally cried uncle and partnered up with Minolta to create the R series in 1976. And by 'partners' I mean they copied most of Minolta's electronics and chassis design, set up shop in Portugal, and called it the Leica R3. And this went on for decades! Right up until...

While I'm not sure about the rest of the planet it did take spring an awfully long time to arrive here in Ontario. But luckily it did just in time for the Victoria Day holiday weekend and the trilliums were in full bloom. So I took the opportunity to take some pretty photos of flowers (and nature in general) with one phenomenal macro lens. The Voigtlander 125mm Apo-Lanthar f2.5 SL lens is a pretty powerful beast but before I go into its performance I would like to touch upon the history of the Apo-Lanthar line. Voigtlander the company originated in...

What would you get if a high end Swiss precision watch maker suddenly decided to design and build a reflex camera? Well back in 1939 Pignons S.A. asked that very question and jumped head first into the emerging 35mm film camera market. With that they went on a 50 year journey that ended with the same amount of camera bodies that could be produced today in a factory over the course of a few weeks and bankruptcy.     Alpa cameras are an anomaly in the film camera world. Extremely well built with hundreds of individually hand crafted and hand...

In the past, professional landscape photographers complained about the bulkiness of large format cameras. Architecture photographers also needed more perspectivecontrol for their shots. You can eliminate all those 'hassels' by using the ArcBody system. It is a Hasselblad camera that has all the movements: swings, rise, and fall. You have complete creative control of how you want your image to look. You can also use any Hasselblad lenses with it. Although very light, it is made of high-grade rugged materials so you can use it on big assignments and not worry about breaking it. Very easy to travel with, especially with...