The Leica R5 Test Roll

 I'm doing this ass backwards, I should have posted this back in April prior to the March photowalk as this was the first roll through my Leica R5. The big question, why the R5, and not the R7?. Simple answer, the R5 only needs a pair of SR44 batteries, the R7 needs twice as many. Two, I was looking for something around the same age as my R6. 

For those not familiar, the Leica R5 is a very well featured manual focus SLR with a battery operated shutter, with full manual metering, aperture priority, shutter priority and program modes. Compared to a Nikon FE2, the R5 is a more complex beast roughly the same size. While Nikon went for simplicity with  centre weighted metering and robustness, Leica loaded up on features like a built in diopter and both spot metering and their version of Matrix metering. On this little self directed wander I exclusively used spot metering in full manual mode and aperture priority. It pays to familiarize yourself with the R5 before using, it's not as intuitive as the Nikon FE2

I enjoy using the R5, I am in no way trashing the camera, it's a great camera, it just reflected Leica's design philosophy for their SLRs at the time, a premium feature rich platform. If you already have a collection of 3 Cam Leica R glass, I would look into one and enjoy the adventure. 

Camera: Leica R5, 3 Cam R 50 F2 Lens, 90 F2.8 Elmarit Lens. 

Film: Fomapan 400, 510 Pyro 1+100.