Baltimore Maryland 1996

I am forty years old. I have been taking photographs since I was six years old.  I was given my first serious camera when I was fifteen. It was a Pentax SLR, took two AA batteries and came with a rather large zoom lens.  I was happy with the images it made and I don’t remember lusting after another camera until I saw my friends Leica M2 in 2001.  He did not want to part with his M2, but happily sold me his 3 year old M6ttl.  I needed a lens so I purchased an elmar 50 2.8 and Summicron 35 2.0.  Just like that I spent five thousand dollars on a camera system I had never even used.  It took me two years to pay off the two lenses but I was hooked on the Leica system.  I had become good friends with a man who owned a photo developing business and this came in handy because I shot over five hundred rolls of film the first two years I owned the Leica.  I was aware that the internet had camera websites, but I did not use them much.  I was happy shooting my dog, girlfriend and if I my path crossed a unique looking homeless guy or a cool car, consider it shot.

Things did not start to fall apart until I bought A nikon D90.  I loved the camera but I found it to be heavy with the zoom lens it came with. I bought a 35mm lens but the crop factor made it a 50. I had no problem shooting my leica with it’s folding prime lens, but it bothered me that the 35 was only a 50 on the D90. One day I saw the D3000 at my local camera shop and I bought it because it was small and light.  The camera took decent photos but it seemed slow to process them.  I then bought a D3100 because it was the same size as the 3000 but seemed to internally process Jpeg photos quicker.  I sold the 3000 and the D90 and was happy with my D3100 until the good folks at Fuji introduced the X100.  The X100 has been calling my name but I cannot find one anywhere at the advertised 1200.00 price.  This quirky camera is so highly sought after that the price has actually gone up.  I am sure that popular cameras are difficult to come across but this is the first time that I have had a problem finding a camera I was interested in.

I really want to purchase this camera as a Leica M series replacement but I know it is not a true rangefinder.  I get upset with Leica for building a seven thousand dollar M digital camera that I cannot afford.  I was secretly wishing that Nikon or Canon would build a small full frame digital rangefinder but I don’t think it is going to happen. 

I recently sold my Sony Nex5 because I could not stand the pancake prime lens that it came with. It took amazing shots outside but I was not happy with its performance indoors without the flash. It seems like most of my keepers are of friends and family members taken with a prime and no flash.  I really could have loved the Nex5 if sony had made some decent prime lenses for it. 

In 2009 I bought one of the first Olympus Ep1’s to hit the US. I took the camera to Hawaii and had a blast.  I loved the small prime lens that Olympus made for it and its small form factor was a welcome bonus.  Sadly, I was not happy with it’s ISO performance above 800 and gave the camera to a good friend of mine.  I kept the Panasonic prime lens I purchased for the camera because I loved that lens so much. I will return to the mirco four thirds cult when Panasonic or Olympus makes a camera with better ISO performance in a small form factor. 

So what was the purpose of this rant? No idea.

I am going to go to Maui next month and I am thinking of taking my M6 and a bunch of color film.  I love how easy digital capture is, but the enjoyment of using my manual focus camera and film is something I cannot express in words.