Odp: [Leica] I.R. Collector

["Krzysztof Szecowka" <szecowka@ch.wssk.wroc.pl>]

Bravo Mike!

Thanks for the nice story. It resembles me myself. I was fascinated with the
cameras since early childhood. As I grew up I tried almost every camera on
the market and there I am all alone with two M bodies (M2 & M6) and only one
lens (50 mm summicron) - the purest way to deal with photography ( I have
traded my R8 for M6). I hope to get 35 and 90 soon.

Chris
- -----Wiadomość oryginalna-----
Od: Mike Dembinski <mdembin@it.com.pl>
Do: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Data: 30 listopada 1998 11:25
Temat: [Leica] I.R. Collector


>Self-deprecating title of this thread will be understood only by fans of
>Hanna Barbera's excellent 'I Am Weasel' cartoons.
>
>A few weeks ago, a brave soul (didn't archive so forgot who), stated that
>many of us like cameras more than they like photography.
>
>Wow. I thought about that for a while. Indeed a profound observation. This
>would explain why I spend more time looking through the small ads in
>photography mags than reading technique articles or looking at portfolios.
>Why I'd spend lunchtimes looking at camera store windows rather than
>photographing passers-by on city streets or visiting galleries. Why I spend
>Sunday mornings at the Gielda Fotograficzna rather than snapping the
>characters in Warsaw's many churches. Cameras and photography? This posting
>made me search my soul. A 60%/40% ratio. Once it was less. Happy with a
>single M2 body and 35mm Summicron-M, doing only black and white, home
>darkroom, relative poverty. Today I have cameras and lenses everywhere,
want
>more more more of them, and the darkroom has long become the nursery. I do
>only C-41 snaps (roll or two a week), processed at the local Kodak Express.
>
>I am afflicted by something that also gets to golfers and anglers - better
>results through better kit. Trying to stop this madness I've decided to
>limit myself to cheap Soviet equipment, but even here I've begun seeking
out
>faster lenses, rarer bodies etc.
>
>Yesterday my 5-year old daughter asked me to show her my Kiev-4a (current
>toy). Soon we got onto the Leica M6. Then my Canon F-1.
>
>The Canon she drooled over. 'What else does it do?' I took off the
>pentaprism, then the focusing screen, showed her the mirror box, opened the
>back, explained what the controls do. 'I like this more than those two (the
>R/Fs)' Have you got another interesting camera?' I took my Exakta Varex 11a
>out of the display cabinet. 'Look at the way you use the left hand to wind
>on and the right to trigger the shutter and stop down the lens'. Obvious
>5-year old interest. 'Does the top come off?' Opened up the vertical finder
>and its magnifier. 'The image is the other way round... do you see? and
>look, you can put on a pentaprism just like the one from the Canon...'
What
>else does it do?' 'Look,' I said, opening up the back. 'Here's a little
>knife, when you unscrew this knob, which comes down and separates exposed
>film from what's left in the cassette... and look at the shutter speed dial
>- it gives you 'B' which works like this, and 'T' which works like this...'
>I could see as deep an appreciation of the Varex as you could get from a
>child this age.
>
>'Dad, I like the Exakta best. Then the Canon. Have you anything else?' Got
>down my battered FM2. 'What does it do?' Not much. 'Top doesn't come off?'
>'Nope.' 'Don't like it then.'
>
>I feel my daughter has inherited my rather sad fascination with
photographic
>equipment.... One day she will start to value optical quality as well as
the
>'toy factor'.
>
>I feel I must get that darkroom back - for the sake of my sanity!!
>
>Mike
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