Leica Haunts Me in the Wee Small Hours

Well, it's not that bad, but this is becoming a pre-occupation.

(Non camera nerds: the back button is at the top left-hand corner of your browser - you should click on it now).

Here's what I thought about it back in January '07, but searching for "Leica" on this blog shows that it was on my mind as long ago as October '05; (the link on that page is broken - from memory the "Leica" I had in mind was a glorified point and shoot with the Leica name but little else: I knew feck-all about cameras back then). The subject popped up again in October 2006 (when I wrote that this was one of the "subjects that make your wife's eyes glaze over, or even cause her to leave the room", and as such a good example of the utility of blogging), and again in November that year.

I still haven't won the lottery but I have come to the realisation that photography should be fun. Which in turn means that I needn't worry about taking brilliant photos, just enjoying taking and looking at the ones I have taken. And that in turn means that I probably won't ever need a really expensive camera like an M8, or the top of the range SLRs that photojournalists use.

And it was that chain of reasoning that led me to dust off the Kodak 66 and the Chinon CS. , and to buy a developing tank and contemplate getting a film scanner.

The next step was obvious. Get an old Leica. Lots of them on eBay. I can get an M2 body (say) for a couple of hundred quid. A lens, ditto. This will require detailed research. The flickr Leica groups are as good a place as any to begin.

As Ray Liotta almost said in Goodfellas, "As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to own a Leica."

Comments

  1. AnonymousSun Feb 17, 11:04:00 am GMT

    I had the same dream many years ago Gary, but alas the Leica remained unobtainable.

    I'm not sure that I'd care to go back to 35mm and 120mm film cameras again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. StefSun Feb 24, 12:51:00 am GMT

    You've probably heard this from someone else already but have you thought about picking up a fixed lens 1970s rangefinder - something like a Canon QL17 / Olympus RC / Olympus RD...

    http://www.cameraquest.com/classics.htm

    No, they're not Leicas and you can't change the lenses but they handle in a similar way and many Leica users leave a 35mm or 50mm stuck on their camera most of the time anyway

    I own a couple, though I haven't used them much lately, and a mate went off and bought an M6 after using my RC for a while - to be honest the M6 wasn't/ isn't that much more enjoyable to use than the old Olympus

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there...
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more

How many pallets can you fit in the back of a Fiat 500?

Image
At least 1. Maybe I could have got 3 altogether, at a pinch. Also 200+ gorse seeds, which have begun to look in danger of damping off, so I'm thinking they'll be better off at the allotment in the fresh air. I'm worried about slugs, snails and woodpigeons, though, so I put them in a wheelbarrow, covered with a net. Also this morning, planted a row of beetroot detroit.
Read more