J Kami:
Another story:
After I graduated with my Master's Degree in Library Science (1994), I came back home and worked at RLI Insurance Company in Peoria, IL while I was sending out letters of application in the process of looking for my first library position, etc.
Sometime in the mid-summer, the company had a picnic/company gathering. While I was wandering around, I notice a photographer with two cameras hanging around his neck. One was a new Nikon with either an 85mm or a 105mm lens. The other camera hanging around his neck was an old screw mount rangefinder Leica - either a IIIf or a IIIg and the 90mm Elmar (F/4.0)
Since I am a Leica photographer, we started up a conversation. I was especially curious as to why he was carrying around a new Nikon with an auto-focus lens and a old Leica rangefinder with a 90mm lens. As the conversation progressed, he revealed to me that his new Nikon AF lens cost him around or over $1600.00 - $1700.00.
When I asked him how the two lenses compared, he readily admitted that the the old 90mm (screw mount) Elmar (F/4.0) was decidedly sharper; differentiated the colors far superior to that of the Nikon lens; and the image exhibited finer detail out to the edges.
Something that I new from my own experiences.
So the question that should arise in your mind is why bother to fool around with either Canon or Pentax cameras and consider going directly to using a Leica, especially if you're becoming very serious about consistently obtaining excellent photographic results.
Obviously, even used Leica photographic equipment is expensive, but if your after excellent results, the investment pays off in excellent photographic results over many decades.
If you don't wish to go that route, then further explore the purchase of the K2 body and do all that you can to insure excellent and consistent results with the photographic equipment at hand, i.e. hold the camera correctly to insure that you minimize camera shake or movement.
Hold the baseplate (bottom) of the camera in the palm of your left hand; if necessary curl the last two fingers over so that the bottom of the camera is resting on top of them; your thumb and first finger should grip the lens so that you can easily focus, change the aperature, etc. For vertical shots, the right side of the camera will rest on the pad of your thumb and the other side of the palm of your hand.
Your right hand grabs the left side of the camera so that your first (trigger) finger rests on the shutter release and your thumb rest behind the advance lever.
Your arms should be rested against the side of your body and the camera is will be "propped" in a tripod manner.
Although it is somewhat awkward to get used to at first, your photographs taken at slower shutters speeds should not show much camera movement, which is the source of many so-called un-sharp pictures.
This positioning should also help minimize internal camera movement that many SLR cameras exhibit due to mirror, aperature, and shutter movement or release.
With a rangefinder camera, there is nothing but the internal movement of the shutter release - which is faster responding, since there is no mirror to get out of the way, etc. - and I have easily hand held both the 50mm and 35mm lenses at an 1/8 second and "sometimes" at 1/4 second.
Of course, there are many other factors that either lead or contribute to unsharpness, i.e. film, developing processes and/or techniques, shutter speeds, focal length of the lens, and so on and so forth.
Then, of course, there is, I believe, a decided to substantial difference between good to excellent lenses made during the mid 1960's to the late 1970's and those which are manufactured - by and large - today. Even back then, there were notable differences.
When I was a staff photographer at the School of Medicine in Peoria, IL (University of Illinois - College of Medicine - Peoria (campus), I had to work with a 100mm F/4.0 Macro lens made by Nikon - a piece of junk in my mind.
When focusing at the closer ranges - say reproduction ratios of 1:5 to 1:1 (five times the negative size to the same size as the negative), this lens exhibited so much "curvature of field" that one could focus on the center of the image and find that the edges AND NEAR EDGES would be entirely out of focus or focus on the edges and have the NEAR EDGES AND CENTER out of focus. Even considering the fact that curvature of field can be - largely - corrected by stopping down, the process of stopping down calls for longer shutter speeds - which can permit camera movement to come into play to a greater degree and it possibly calls into play something known as "diffraction" whereby the image become progressively more and more unsharp do to stopping down more and more towards the smaller aperatures.
In contrast, the 100mm F/4.0 macro lens designed for the Leica SLR system was sharp corner to corner at the widest aperature even at a 1:1 ratio of reproduction. I know that because I used this lens more than several times while working at a camera shop.
Of course, there was matter of a significant price differece between the two lenses.
On the other hand, the focusing barrel of my old Leica 135mm Hektor F/4.5 lens, which is probably close to "celebrating" its 45th "birthday", is still as "tight" and "firm" as it was the day it left the factory in Germany. The same can not be said of many Nikon lenses of a similar vintage - I've seen more than a few of them where the focusing barrel is very, very loose, if not sloppy. Even all of my Pentax K lenses and my wife's Canon AE-1 FD lenses are still tight in focusing.
One of the many little things that make me regard Nikons as somewhat to very over-rated cameras and lenses.
Obviously, "quality" is a variable thing, something which you have noted in looking for sharp, contrasty, etc. images.
Of course, I am certain that you realize that you can even take lousy photographs with a Leica - all one has to do is not pay attention to holding the camera "correctly", or shooting with a Leica camera and lens and then projecting your slides on an old Bell & Howell cube projector where the image will be shown with a nice "orange" to "yellowish" color tinge, a poorly designed projecton lens, and a rather overheated slide chamber.
One of the nice things about Leica is that you could project and/or enlarge with the same quality as you originally made the image. Of course, Leitz/Leica no longer make enlargers, many of their enlargers modes are to be found on ebay, the older and better camera shops, and other places.
Well, forgive me for this long dissertation, but I do hope that you will find it useful and that the camera shop will work with you on the purchase of your K2 body.
Again, my best wishes in your photographic endeavors.
Bill
