[Leica] Re:Contax to the rescue! And more about that IIIg

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

Guy Bennett <guy.bennett@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

>i don't mean to sound snide, but the iiig is a nearly 40-year-old
camera and thus it doesn't seem all that surprising that it might
'fail' during a shoot.

>what i do find surprising is that a professional photographer would
be using such old cameras for assignments.


Hell, my IIIg isn’t old - like fine brandy it’s just matured a little!
Now my Contax II was built before my dad met my mum - that's old
<grin>

I may be taking pictures for publication, but I’m not a professional
photographer in the commonly-accepted sense of the term. (If I was
relying on my limited photographic skills to earn my living I’d
starve.) I’m a journalist, a species which wields a pen and notebook.
25 years ago I often had a tame photographer in tow who’d take the
pics I needed, but in today’s world of technical journalism, the
"hack" usually has to take his own pics.

The choice is thus to fumble with the office ‘loaner’ camera, or to
use your own (which you are familiar with). Given that technical
journalism isn’t exactly the road to riches, the equipment which is
used tends to reflect the age of the journalist, so it’s not unusual
for us grey-haired geezers to be toting classic kit from the 1960s or
1970s. (For example, one fellow-editor uses a beautiful black-paint
Canon mechanical SLR.)

Since my ‘hobby photography’ is almost entirely done with classic
Leitz-era Leicas, every time I head for a trade show or facility, one
of those cameras is pressed into service for work. At a press facility
or equipment demonstration, I’d normally use either an SL2 or an M2.
(My M6 spends to much time in the Leica repair department to be a
candidate.) However, at a trade show my shoulder bag will gradually
fill with dozens of press kits and brochures, so I want a camera which
is as small and light as possible. Normally that means my CL, but with
that needing its shutter cleaned and re-lubed, the choice fell on the
IIIg (whose shutter had been tested at a recent Leica clinic and
pronounced spot-on).

I'd become so used to the reliability of classic Leicas that I'd never
really thought about getting them CLAd. If they weren't broke, I
wasn't going to fix them (a philosophy you often hear expressing
during LUG discussions on the need for CLAs). Alas, in the course of
two years, most developed shutter problems.

Taking the Contax II with me was unplanned. It was a recent purchase
which I’d had no chance to use, I had a free day in Paris before the
trade show began, so on a last-minute impulse I decided to take it
along.

Anyway, the Farnborough air show is only a few weeks away, so with
both the CL and IIIg out of action my newly-acquired Contax TVS II
will be the weapon of choice (I don’t need pics of aircraft in
flight). After all these years it will be strange not to be using a
Leica...

Are there any other print journalists on the LUG who have to take
their own pics? If so, own up guys - what kit do you carry?

Regards,

Doug Richardson