Leicas for professional use: great or not? I was recently browsing the net when I saw a smug Quora question asking “If Leica was so great, why do you rarely see professionals shooting with them?”
So in this article we will look at Leicas for professional use and why they ARE great. More info about Leicas in general here.
Introduction
First of all, something must be put out of the way first: the bad logic. The original poster thinks that just professional use justifies that a camera is good. Nonsense.
I’ve not seen many pros shoot Pentax either. So shooting a specific brand has more to do with their marketing, availability and price point.
Second of all, the underlying question is that professionals don’t shoot Leica Ms, because the SL2 is pretty much a top of the line mirrorless camera that can give any top Canikon a run for their money. So the real question is not really Leicas for professional use but Leica Ms for pressional use.
Leicas for fine art
Since the very first Leica made by Oskar Barnack, the Leica Ms have been made for primarily documentary / street photography. So many professionals use Leicas as a camera to shoot their images, print them and sell them. That has been the case from Bresson to modern photographers to this day.
Leicas for wedding photography
This is usually what people think most when asking do professionals use Leicas. The issue here is pretty basic, the M cameras are not really made for this situation. One of the most important features a wedding camera needs to have is a dual SD slot.
Because there is no re-do at a wedding this is an insurance against one card corrupting and losing your client’s images. Leica’s for the most part only have one slot.
The other part of the equation is, most professional wedding photographers rely more on gear than they do on their timing. Most will not train their eye for capturing the decisive moment but instead really on the gazillion fps that modern cameras offer.
That is mostly why Leicas are avoided in wedding photography. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t professionals. There are plenty of photographers that shoot professional with Leicas and they use it as it was intended: They shoot the even with a documentary style, Leica’s forte.
The Leica Q2 however, even if it is not sporting a dual SD slot absolutely stuns professionally.
Leicas for sports photography & others
This is taking Leica M cameras in an area that they are not designed for. Leica doesn’t have those extremely long (300+mm) lenses that CaNikon has, so most people don’t use them for that. The SL has a lens that reaches 280mm tho, but no M.
Do professionals use Leica?
So do professionals use Leica? Absolutely. Most of them use it for prints and fine art, and to some extension photojournalism because that is what it is made for. While some pros use them at weddings (mostly to shoot documentary) the lack of double SD cards and unwillingness to learn to shoot a rangefinder and wait for the shot makes it less popular amongst wedding shooters.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article about Leicas for professional use. It’s bad logic to assume that just because not many professionals use Leica means it’s not good even if the subtext is the M line. There’s a lot of pros that use it for its strengths in the fine art genre as it’s always been from Bresson to newer photographers.
Lesser quality and smaller sensor cameras have been used professionally, so Leica is great for professional work if you want to do it whether that’s the M or not.