Film Cameras & Hobby.
The Leica M6 Is Not That Different From A FED2. Don’t Kill Me.
My 2 cents after owning them for years: don’t spend a ton of money.
This is a read to geek out to with a mug of coffee. I don’t intend to convince you of anything, this is just something I want to share.
It’s not about the price difference between these cameras, it is about how similar they are for the abysmal difference in said price.
So…
My first rangefinder was a FED2 and I love it. The copy of the lens I got with it is horrible, but I love that camera. I’ve painted and successfully tinkered around with it, something I wouldn’t dare try on an M6.
If you’re not a photographer…
If you’re a hardcore photography fan, go for the FED2. It’s just as fun and 1/20 the price. Notice I wrote hardcore photography fan and not hardcore photographer. A fan enjoys photography more for doing it than the actual results. While gearheads love the excitement of exploring and more so exploiting features, a fan loves the act of photographing for fun. If results are good, then that’s a win, if not, it doesn’t matter because the fun has already been had.
As for myself…
I am a photographer. I love photography, making photos, gear, and especially film cameras. I shoot digital commercially and film for life. My first camera was a brand new Canon T60, the ugly bastard cousin that Canon doesn’t even keep in its release registry. I just wanted to put that out there.
Anyway, I am here to tell you the truth: the Leica M6 is effectively, a FED2. Ok, no. that’s an exaggeration. But they are not too far apart. Really, they are not. FEDs are Leica knockoffs, yes. Let’s take a look at how similar they are. They are worlds apart in price and collectibility yes, but not in real life use.
I own a “panda” Classic Silver Chrome M6 .072 magnification from 1991 and a FED2 version C from 1959.
Viewfinder
The M6 viewfinder is bright as light while the FED viewfinder is like looking through the bottom of an old green bottle you pulled over your head. That's not too bad in daylight or even indoors with decent house lighting. But it’s a bitch in lowlight. Fortunately, zone focusing helps a little in some circumstances. You’re gonna need steady hands or a nice surface to shoot that FED because you’ll be going below the 1/25 of a second as it normally comes with an f2.8 kit lens. That is of course, unless you buy a third party lens.
Frame lines
With its frame guidelines, the M6 provides better user experience since you can accurately frame with more lenses, from 28mm to 135. The FED is made for 52mm lenses, although you can mount whatever you like and guesstimate the frame. The FED comes with a diopter adjustment lever. For the M you’ll need to buy individual diopters. Still, the greenish, dark FED finder is not that bad, considering that you can buy such a camera for less than $100 USD, lens included. The M6 battery cover is $45, before tax, without shipping.
Light meter
The M6 has a built-in light meter. And what a beautiful light meter it is. I absolutely adore it. Snobby gatekeeper Leica fanboys will dismiss it for its simplicity. Not to worry, these are the same morons who struggle with viewfinder flare. I’ve used my M6 almost daily for 4 and a half years and have had my finder flare-up 3 times or less.
Back to the light meter.
It is precise. It took me about 3 rolls to understand how precise it is. It also takes a bit to get used to the shutter speed dial turning opposite the meter reading, but it’s nothing. Meanwhile, the FED2 is meter-less. Hey, whaddaya know, meter-less, just like any über-coveted M camera that came before the M5. So if all those hipsters can praise the Sunny 16 rule for an M3, so can you for the humble FED2. Get a Vöigtlander VC for your FED and it will look cool AF. It’s not the same user experience, definitely not, but now you have an on-camera meter, second best to an in-camera one. Or just use a free app on your phone.
By the way, I’m not even going to mention the M6 needing batteries for the meter. In this day and age, every mammal on earth and their dog is carrying a chord or a power bank on account of their cellphone. A battery means nothing. Especially one so tiny as the ones needed for the M6 meter. And yes, my dog has a cellphone, it’s an old white iPhone 4.
Material
The M6 top plate is nickel-plated zinc with a brass bottom plate. My beloved FED is made out of Siberian tears and oppression. That is fu*ked up, I know; I couldn’t find what they’re made of, but it’s sturdy I can tell you that.
Build quality
The finish and build quality on the FED kind of looks the Tin Man from Oz in 1939, but in a good way. Meanwhile the M6 is artfully engineered and almost sculpted to perfection. If you open up an M6 you’ll feel like you're at the entrance to a world-class museum. By contrast, when you open up a FED2 it’s like crawling drunk under a car, not that I’ve ever done that. That being said, my FED from 1959 works perfectly, I’ve not had any trouble with it. And it was dirt cheap. I also got the chance to experiment painting a camera as an amateur with no fear of loss.
Weight, size and sound
Lensless, they weigh almost the same, FED is lighter. They are almost the same size, FED is thinner and smaller. They both have cloth shutters that are almost indistinguishably silent. I guess you need to test them in a void to actually listen to the difference in loudness, so don’t tell me you’re stealthier with the M6.
Side note: No one bringing a block of metal (camera) to their face is stealthy. That damn tape over the Leica logo looks horrible and stupid, not stealthy. The red dot does not attract attention, a camera on your face does. Regular people don’t even know Leica cameras and most thieves know it’s a Leica even if you tape it off. Thank you.
Shutter speed
Speed? The difference between these cameras is 1/500th of a second. That’s from 0.002 to 0.001 seconds. I know it makes a difference in terms of a stop. But not THAT much of a difference. One stop of light is not the end of life as you know it. Think of it this way: a vast majority of iconic images since the popularization of cameras in 1901, were made at slower speeds than 1/1000 of a second. If all the photographers on earth for the past 100 years managed to make amazing photographs with that limitation, so can you. Not me, I’m incompetent. The M6 maxes out at 1/1000th while the FED has a top speed of 1/500. What you don’t freeze at 1000 won’t really matter at 500, strictly in terms of rangefinders. Get a filter if you need to fight off that one stop of light.
Optics
Well, Leica is “unbeatable” in quality. Soviets lens makers were mostly under qualified and under tooled to deliver quality. There are some beautiful soviet lenses out there, they’re just not the norm. Fortunately for FED owners, there are impressive quality M39 mount lenses from other manufacturers… including Leica. Doesn’t the Leica fanboy saying go “what’s the point of buying a Leica if you’re not going to use Leica glass?” Well, you know what you can do with that: get Leica M39 glass and a soviet camera. Solved.
Loading system.
Yes, the M6 loads faster and it’s easier. But loading a FED is not difficult either. Just pull the take up spool out, insert film and pop it back in the camera. No fuss. Don’t be the type of person who complains about such minimal things, please.
Operation
Here’s a big win for Leica. It may read like sarcasm… Here is where the FED “gets complicated” since you need to know when not to turn the shutter speed dial: don’t turn it without first cocking the shutter (advancing film). That’s about as complicated as it gets. I mean, the M6 light meter arrows are counterintuitive to the rotation of the speed dial, which in turn rotates contrary to the aperture ring… it evens out. But the film advance lever on the M6 is faster and easier than turning the knob on a FED. Although it feels nice to turn that knob, even if you lose speed between frames, again, it’s not the end of the world. In terms of operation, I think the weakest point of the FED is the rewinding of the film when you are finished with a roll. The small rewind knob is a real pain to my fingers. It’s allegedly a better system to have should you happen to drop your camera, but then again, would that be your main concern if you dropped your camera? By the way, any repairs or even a CLA is very expensive on an M. Owning an M is expensive. Period. Owning a FED is expendable. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way: almost 9 million FED cameras were made of which around 1.6 million are some version of the FED2. By contrast, the M I got has a serial number that puts it in a batch of 500. I didn’t know that when I bought it, but it’s nice to know now.
Summing up:
These cameras look similar, weigh almost the same, shoot almost at the same speed and both have access to amazing glass. The main difference in features is that one has a built-in meter and the other one doesn’t. Build quality is abysmally different, but the cheap FED doesn’t break easily either, and repairing anything on an M6 is more costly than simply buying another FED with a lens included. When people say that a camera is nothing more than a black box and that the important element is glass, I immediately think, well yes, but reliability also comes into play, no? Reliability stems from build quality, right? So yes, the M is way better in that sense. That being said, it’s not difficult to find a good working copy of a FED and a backup to boot.
What would be a nice setup in lieu of the M6?
Well, there’s a ton of combos one could think of. But since the FED is a knockoff of the Leica form factor… A FED2 with a Nokton VC light meter and a Nokton 40mm f1.4. If you want to drop around $200 from that setup, remove the VC meter and stick with a light meter app. I would go for a 35mm Color-Skopar f.2.5 but would recomend the 40mm so as not to guesstimate so much on framing. Keep in mind this is not a set up meant for paid work, its for the fun of photographing; but who says you can’t sell yourself regardless of gear? Canon P series also have a “similar” form factor to the M although no in-camera meter and I believe a plastic covered steel shutter curtains, which come with pros and cons. Bessa cameras are beautiful machines, but in a very different shape; not to be overlooked if reliability is a variable that concerns you.
So why did I get an M6?
I wanted a “new” rangefinder, with a clear viewfinder and an in-camera light meter. I love the Canon L and P series but I wanted a built-in meter. I had been shooting with an Optima 335 (which I love) that has the brightest viewfinder ever and wanted something close to that. The Optima 335 is not a rangefinder, so it’s easier to have a brighter viewfinder. The Bessa was on my sight for some time, but I had fallen in love with the FED form factor and after much thought I went for the M6 thinking that if I ever needed to sell, it would hold up better than the Bessa. I got my M6 in mint condition from a Japanese seller on eBay. It was expensive AF at the time, but it since has doubled in price even if it now has minor signs of use. I didn’t buy the M to sell it, but now that prices are just ridiculous I’m thinking about it to upgrade my digital setup. I would even have money to buy a nice humble lens for my FED!
By the way, I also learned how to make my own leather half case because the Italian ones I wanted are crazy expensive! So no I have a hobby I really enjoy.
I have owned my FED since 2012 and the M6 since early 2017. At this point, taking all issues into consideration, I’m sure I can make the same images with either rangefinder even if it’s a little more difficult in low light with the FED. I would just have to leave 28mm for another life and stick to guesstimating 35mm or 40mm on the FED. (And buy glass for it, ‘casue that Industar 26 is hell).
Here’s a mix of photos from both cameras. The FED has a horrible copy of the Industar 26. I shot most of the images on the M6 with a Voigtlander Nokton Classic SC version I and the last of the model with the Ultron Aspherical 28mm f2.
Hope you found this useful and enjoyable. I know a FED will never pair up to an M but hey, its all about the photographer not the camera, right?
Cheers!
