Leica M Type 240 Digital Rangefinder Camera - Page 40

Leica Digital Camera Reviews by Thorsten Overgaard
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By: Thorsten Overgaard, April 19, 2015 (edited August 23, 2015)

Traveling through ice landscapes with the Leica M-P 240

Byron Prukston went to the Baikal Lake region in Russia with the Leica M-P 240 Safari and worked in frozen landscapes down to -30° Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit)

The Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens. The strap on the camera is Luigi's Custom Ostrich Leather.

Byron Prukston is a photographer living in Australia who went with friends to Russia to do landscape photography on and around the frozen Baikal Lake. I saw his photos on The Leica M 240 Forum on Facebook and found the project so interesting I asked him to appear here and tell us the story.

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

Byron Prukston: “I have traveled with the Leica M to Iceland, Scotland and Russia before, but this was my first experience to travel and take photo on such a large and vastly ice surface.
 
“We worked most of the time in freezing temperatures. It was cold enough to make the whole 31,000 sq meters (334,000 sq. feet) lake frozen.

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

“The first question came in my mind prior to the trip: ‘How long will the M battery survive in such a freezing temperature?’

“I had prepared four batteries in total, as our plan was to take photos from sunrise until sunset. I didn’t know if I would have much chance to recharge them.

When we arrived at our guesthouse in a small village in Khuzhir, the average temperature was -15 C to 0 C degree. I was told that it was already a warm winter year and our trip was at the very end of winter!”

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Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

First day shooting in a ice landscape

“My first day of shooting started at sunset, I took my M-P 240 Safari Set along with three lenses: A wide-angle 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/1.4, a MATE 28-35-50mm f/4.0 and a Leica 80-200mm Vario-Elmarit-R ASPH f/2.8.

“I was surprised to learn that one battery could stay for the whole session of 3 hours shooting that included Live View (using the screen and EVF-2 Electronic viewfinder for focusing and preview).

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

“The trip went on for eight days and our timetable was the same for every day:

“We started at 5:30 AM and it took around 30-60 minutes to get to the location. We then scattered around to find a spot to shoot from and changed the location simultaneously. The morning sessions went until 10 AM, and then we packed down and went back to the guesthouse.

“Actually, one battery would usually last for the whole morning session that included some long exposure shots and using Live View for all of it.”

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

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Working from low positions on the ice

“I used a very sturdy Gitzo Systematic tripod. It can be lowered to a very low position above the ice so I could get some interesting photos of the ice surface with an interesting foreground. Some times I would put the camera on the ice if I didn’t get low enough with the tripod.

“I didn’t mind having my aperture set at maximum f/22 and set the focus to hyper focal. For the WATE lens that is 70 cm, and at f/22 I could get a sharp image from 30cm to infinity.

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

“The wind and the temperature were very cold. I needed to wear 4-5 layers of clothing and have the gloves on at all times. Surprisingly, my Leica M-P 240 camera didn’t have any problem. The only glitch happened when I took a bracketing shots of 5 exposures and the SD-card struggled a little bit. After a few minutes the camera was done buffering and it was back to normal.

“I took along a second camera with me, a Sony A7S. I ended up using it for time-lapse, star trails image and for night scenes.”

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

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Limitations of the Leica M-P 240

“The Leica M-P 240 has some limitations for long exposures. The Leica M-P 240 has a maximum exposure time limit even in Bulb mode. I couldn’t go beyond the exposure time limit.

“The limit also varies between 60 seconds as maximum at ISO 200, 32 seconds at ISO 400 and reduced to merely 8 seconds at ISO 1600. Sometimes I have found that if the exposure could go longer than 60 seconds, the image would be more spectacular.

“The night scenes where you want to capture stars or the Milky Way it will require at least 30 seconds at ISO 800-3200.

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

“Long Exposure Noise Reduction cannot be de-activated on the Leica M 240. I understand the point that the dark frame process improves the image quality, but somehow if this could be controlled with an ON/OFF switch (like most dSLR cameras), it would give more possibilities.  I shoot in DNG, so the noise reduction can be done in post processing. The camera would be more capable of capturing image continuously. The technique of stacking star trails images can also be done as the interval between shots will be reduced.

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

“When you work in a tripod with the camera fixed, you would wish that the Live View zoom field that allow you to focus only in the center for the frame, could be moved around.

“I am impressed with the improvement from M9 on the image quality on high ISO. I can’t wait till we get the next generations with likely even higher ISO possibilities.”

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

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The perfect Leica for landscape photography

“The conditions I encountered on this shoot were stressing me and the equipment to the edge. The Leica M-P 240 and the Leica M lenses are a (nearly) perfect combination for most aspect of landscape photography. They are durable and reliable in harsh condition as the freezing temperature we encountered. The battery life is reduced, compared to normal conditions, but not dramatically. If I could have recharged it overnight, I could see no need for more than two batteries.

“Thank you for the opportunity to share my experience and photos. Feel free to follow my work from my Facebook page.”

Bryan Prukston

Byron Prukston (34) lives in Brisbane, Australia and is a restaurateur and stock photo contributor for Getty Images/Shutterstock.

He uses the alias Wargunner on 500px, Flickr and LFI Gallery. He is also on Facebook.

He made a switch in 2011 from Canon dSLR to Leica M9 after getting tired of carrying a huge camera with big lenses while traveling with the family and his young daughter.

“I have been an enthusiast who loves to shoot all kind of landscapes, including seascape and nightscape. The Leica M camera system is more than capable of catching beautiful landscape images. It’s durable and compact.

“I have soaked the camera and lenses many times while doing seascapes but never had any big issues with it. I just wiped it clean, put it in a dry storage and it were just fine."

Leica M-P 240 Safari with Leica 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar f/4.0 lens.

“I’ve studied the Leica M 240 since it became available. Until now I am more than happy with the camera even though I wish some limitations could be improved in the next M.

“My favorite gear for my work is the Leica M-P 240 and the wide angle 16-18-21mm Tri-Elmar-M f/4.0. This is a lens I love for the fact that it can be used with filters flawlessly. Early on I applied the 100mm Lee filter system on the lens but recently I just uses the 67mm filters and worked on Luminosity mask techniques from bracketing several exposures.

“I always carry two ND-filters (Neutral Density) with me: A 3-stop (8X) and a 10-stops (512X) that I use to control the water- and cloud-movement so I can make more interesting effects to the image.”

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