Thanks to my friends at Lumoid, there's a new addition to the family...the Leica M9. They lended me one a few weeks back to review and write something up on the kit they offer. I got to use it for an awesome wedding in Boston and not only did I really enjoy shooting with it, but it gave me some of my favorite images from the wedding. Before heading to Maine last week, I wanted to spend a little more time with it so I had Lumoid send me another one. Well, long story short, I couldn't bring myself to send this one back.

The M9 gives a unique look that fits my style of shooting and simply put...its made shooting a lot of fun again. I will be publishing an article on SLR Lounge in the coming weeks about my whole experience with it and how a loaner ended up staying here. 

I've spent the past year trying to slim down the amount of gear I own, only keeping what I use and saying goodbye to the rest. I am very lucky to get to test and review a lot of different gear and it's really given me an opportunity that a lot of other photographers don't get. I get to not only try all sorts of different cameras and lenses out, but really use them and put them through their paces. This is how I ended up owning both Nikon and Canon systems, they each have their strengths and weaknesses, which I am able to use to my advantage. When I got the chance to shoot the Leica M9, I had no intentions of ever adding another camera to my bag, and I honestly didn't expect to fall in love with it as much as I did. 

The M9 offers a new look to my work. Ok...maybe its not a new look, but it makes creating my look a lot easier. It offers a different and unique approach to both the process of taking the image and the end result. I use my Canon and Nikon systems differently, choosing the best tool for the job. Choosing which is the better option depends on a lot of different things, but I use them differently...completely differently. I'm an artist, and depending on what I have drawn up in my little head, I choose the camera and lens combo that I think will do the best at bringing that to life. The Leica offers another option in that decision. 

While on vacation last week up in Maine, I wanted to not only do a lot of personal shooting, but also get some killer maternity shots of Sandi. I've only scratched the surface with going through and editing them, but I randomly went through and grabbed a few of the maternity shots from each camera that I brought along. I can probably add more to these a little later, but it was cool to see the different images that I loved from each system.

Here is what I shot with:

Leica M9 - Nokton 35mm f/1.4 Classic

Nikon D800E - Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8

Nikon D4S - 85mm f/1.4G & 24-70mm f/2.8

Canon 5D MarkIII - 50mm f/1.2L

Canon 5D MarkII - 45mm ts-e

Below are 5 images all taken with different camera/lens combos. I will be putting together a full blog post on the Cass Imaging site with all of Sandi's maternity pics soon, but until then, I thought this was pretty cool. Take a look.

*you can click on each image to see it bigger*

A few more....