Shooting The Leica R7

The older I get, the more careful I get. When I lift something heavy, I think twice and bend at the knees. A few months back, I wasn’t paying attention while walking to my car after work and tripped over a curb. I went ass over tea kettle and almost face-planted on a concrete sidewalk. I was ok after the fall, but I pay more attention to where my feet are now. These days, I think twice about dipping into the hot salsa when I eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant, because three in the morning heartburn is no fun. In my disc jockey days, I could drink pot after pot of bad radio station coffee and it never bothered my sleep. Now, I never have a cup after ten in the morning for fear I’ll be up all night.

My photography is a different story. I take chances. Recently, I bought a Leica R7 and for my test drive of this nearly 30 year old SLR, I decided to switch the camera into its fully automatic “P” or program mode and use a roll of expired Ektar 100 film. How’s that for a walk on the wild side?

Shifting the R7 into “P” mode selects the camera’s integral full frame metering and full auto exposure. All of the image area is metered with no selective weighting and the camera decides appropriate shutter speed and aperture. This is the most carefree way of shooting the camera…you just frame, focus and click, but it does mean that the 1992 electronics must still work correctly, including the DX film speed reader. Couple that with a roll of expired film that was just sitting in a drawer during two household moves and you never know what you’re going to get.

Ergonomically, the R7 handles much like the R4, R5 and R6 cameras I own. The R7 body is a bit larger and heavier than its predecessors to make room for additional electronics, but in the field it felt the same. I love the little thumb grip built into the back of the camera and with a 50mm Summicron mounted out front, the camera is extremely well balanced in the hand.

Fit and finish of all of the Leica SLRs are very nice. The R3-R7 bodies are not quite up to the Leicaflex SL and SL2 cameras that began the line. Those were elegantly over designed and over built beauties that nearly bankrupted Leica. But my R7 feels solid and substantial. The built-in diopter adjustment makes the legendary Leica R viewfinder crisp and clear. Overall, this is a very pleasant camera for a weekend of shooting. I began with some snaps in the neighborhood.

I think the metering system did a pretty decent job on this next shot with full shade and sun.

The next afternoon, I took a walk around downtown.

I have photographed this sign several times now. It’s on a walkway along the Napa River and you can only back up so far or you’ll fall into the water. Someday I will shoot it with a 35mm or wider lens to get the whole sign in the shot, but I love the colors.

And my R7 selfie.

After having shot with most of the Leica R cameras, the R4s MOD-P and R6 tie for first place. The R5 and R7 tie for second place only because of their various levels of automation. But that is really splitting hairs. All of the Leica SLRs are quite nice and the most affordable way to shoot Leica lenses. I have skipped the R3 but only because many of them had electronic gremlins, or at least that is what I have read. I have not had any issues with any of the other Leica R models and CLAs are very reasonable.

Even though I relied on the R7’s aging electronics and shot with expired film, my weekend photo walk on the wild side produced nice results!