No Longer in Love with Leica; or, Fun with A FED

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I was in Shanghai for ten days just before Christmas.  I'd left the FED2 there after the last visit, and took it out on Nanjing Lu where I got these two doing a bit of conspicuous consumption.  Over the hols I read this piece in the Guardian.  It was then I realized, I'd gotten over my infatuation with, my unrequited love for, the "dentists' camera".  Not that I'd say "no thanks" if one was being given to me, but that's not going to happen. And if I ever did have four or five thousand quid to spend on gear, (another member of the set of things that aren't going to happen to me regarding photography), then it would be a Nikon D4 or the like.

Anyway, I brought the FED2 home.  What Sarah Lee's saying about her Leica, I could say about my FED, though the motor metaphor would get a bit knotted, would it be a Trabant or a ZIL?  Anyway, it seems to have found a job for itself as the camera that travels on business trips with me.  After taking the Nanjing Lu photo I took it to to the Lomography shop off Maoming Lu to get the roll developed, and whilst I was there, I bought a three pack of that Lomography film, (which one gathers is expired slide film repackaged to say it's  C41, so you can get it developed without the groundless rigmarole from the lab about slide film fucking up their chemicals).

I took a roll of that in Shanghai, and I've got a roll in the camera now, to use on a trip to London this week.  We're now ten minutes from the gigantic Tesco at Parkhead, but their photography department doesn't do developing.  I've got hopes for the giant Asda, a bit further down Duke St, but haven't had a chance to check it out yet.  Or I'll buy a C41 kit and do the buggers myself - the new flat has a windowless kitchen which is going to make an excellent dark room.

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