[Leica] Box collecting and other challenges

["4Season" <4season@boulder.net>]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Ted Grant <tedgrant@islandnet.com>
>Thank you sir for clearing this up, hopefully the "box collectors" will now
>be be able to sleep tight to-night.

Not long ago on eBay, I saw someone selling a collection of Leica boxes,
including one for the M3 and M4, and the bidding was up to $120--and rising!
And if I owned those boxes, I'd do exactly the same thing--it'd keep me
stocked with Ting (the Jamaican grapefruit soda, not Mr. Lee--nothing
personal, you understand!) for awhile.

Photographically speaking, this was a trying day: I had gotten out to catch
the evening light playing across the meadows at Chautauqua, but on the first
exposure, the focal plane shutter in my Hasselblad 2000FC/M wouldn't shut,
so I tried a new battery, and still it wouldn't shut. Passers-by looked
kinda startled to see me banging the thing on the palm of my hand! Finally
twiddled with the shutter speed dial, and Click! it shut and all was fine
again.

Weather-wise this was the kind of day that is photographically rich if you
can make it work, and wretched if you can't, with wonderfully blue skies,
great cloud formations and some of the best greenery to be seen all year.
Cloud formations just weren't cooperating though, an a surprising number of
passenger jets kept intruding into my composition, so I experimented with
completely eliminating sky from my compositions, and this provided some
satisfaction, though I soon found the camera sliding around, and realized
that my Really Right Stuff QR plate had worked it's way loose. It's never
done that in the year I've owned it, and I wasn't carrying a hex wrench at
the time. What to do? For want of any better idea, I jammed one of my house
keys into the hole and managed to do a fair job of tightening down the screw
again. Made a real mess of the key though! I probably ought to get in the
habit of preening my cameras better before a shoot.

The Cokin filter system has been kind of fragile in my hands, and so far,
I've managed to break the caps, adaptor rings and hoods, and I'm not really
rough on my gear. I'm beginning to want a proper compendium shade real bad!
Kind of want one which folds flat, and if I can leave the adaptors on the
lenses semi-permanently, so much the better. That's for the Hasselblad of
course--on a Leica M, I probably wouldn't be able to see past the hood. I
want more filters for the M as well, but which ones? I'm partial to M lenses
which have the built-in hoods, but this does make one's selection of
polarizers in particular kind of tricky. Heliopan seemed to work, and the
reference markings on the ring are helpful. B+W did not clear the 35
Summicron hood.  Anyone tried Hoya's new ultra-thin models, or found
anything else which works great, when stacked? Looking to buy (a bit later
this year) polarizers, yellow, yellow-green and orange in 39 and 55. Must
clear the hoods of the current 50/2.0, 35/2.0 and recent 90/2.0. Forget
Leica's pricey swing-away device, since it won't accomodate my 90mm lens. I
generally don't get too intensive with filters on the M-system, but
sometimes, it's nice to have the option.

I've been feeling the urge to take on some new challenge (the creative kind,
not the kind associated with recalcitrant hardware!) and think I'd like to
try the following a bit later:

- --Taking a single roll of Ektachrome 100SW, and attempting to get 36 fine
(and different) photos that wouldn't work without color. Haven't decided
whether or not to allow traffic lights, street signs or flower pictures!

- --Going into my favorite nearby woods, where I hardly use anything but a
normal-to-wideangle lens, this time packing only the 90 Summicron.

Should be an "eye opening experience"

Jeff