About a year ago I decided to fulfill a long lasting dream. I’ll try to explain as short as I can…
For many years I have been “tired” of the way modern digital photography has evolved and the way it made me as a photographer – just point and shoot and take plenty of photos, then you will have something to chose from when you get back to your computer. For a long time I wanted to slow down, focus a bit more on taking the actual shot. Off course this can be done with a modern DSLR, just shoot 2-3 photos of the scene thinking more about the composition instead of just shooting 10-15 photos and selecting the best one later. Over the last couple of years I have been using prime lenses with fixed focal length more and more, to force me to think more about my composition, even though it got me a bit on track it was not really optimal…
Then early last year I decided to fulfill my dream about getting a Leica camera. I sold all my Nikon gear and bought a used Leica M8.2 on eBay. My first lens for the Leica was a Voigtlander 35mm f/2.5 which is a really nice lens, good bang for the bucks and quite compact – especially the size will be handy on travel!
Looking on eBay can be a dangerous thing and after some months I found a good deal on a Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron lens from 1994. I bought it well under the current market price, knowing that I would not use it much on the M8. The M8 has a 27x18mm CCD sensor causing a “crop factor” of 1.33 and this would then make a 50mm lens act as a 67mm lens in the full frame world (35mm equivalent). But I knew that I would upgrade to a full frame Leica later on – my plan was to keep the M8 for a few years and spend some money on quality lenses. The 35mm lens has a 46mm focal length (35mm equivalent) on the M8 so I would need a wide angle lens as well. I read some reviews and found that a Voigtlander 21mm f/4 was a good bargain (this then gives a focal length equivalent to 28mm on the M8).
At work we had a photo contest for all employees in Freising and more than 1000 photos was submitted. I had submitted a few photos, one of which I shot with my Leica M8 about a month after I got it. I was lucky to win in the Nature category with this photo.
The funny part is that in the past I never really shot any landscape or nature photos, but I guess with my new enthusiasm and re-found creativity shooting with the Leica has paid off…
I got so hooked up on the complete experience around shooting with a Leica camera, that I decided to sell the M8 after a year and buy a M9 (which is full frame). Using the M8 for a year and shooting a few thousand photos with it, I sold it for the same price as I paid for it, which is not bad 🙂 After searching eBay for a good M9 I found one in Munich which had a reasonable price, good condition and an OK shutter count – I picked it up last Monday 🙂
My only regret is not doing this earlier as all my Nikon stuff lost a lot of money just sitting on the shelf…