Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/07/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Today is my birthday. While I'm not the oldest member of the LUG, I'm probably in the top 5%. In other words I still remember when the two kilo 6 x 9 cm. Kodak Medalist was called a "miniature" and real street photographers used Speed Graphics. My family treated me to a picnic party with joke presents. One of my gifts was a carefully wrapped roll of slightly outdated (8/04) T-Max 400 film which my wife discovered in the back of a drawer. My kids insisted that I use it to film the festivities with that "old" Leica I took their baby pictures with. That old Leica, a 1954 first edition M3, had been sitting unused on a shelf in my equipment cabinet since Sherry Krauter did a CLA on it six or seven years ago. Now I've been using mostly plastic digital cameras for the past few years and I've gotten accustomed to their light weight, auto focus and auto exposure. My first observation at handling the M3 was "This camera is HEAVY." The second observation was that during the period of disuse, the camera's selenium cell Leicameter had died. I would have to estimate the exposure by using the Sunny 16 rule. Obviously both my muscles and photographic skills have atrophied over the years since I was fully aware of the camera's handling peculiarities, its weight, and the necessity to mentally calculate exposure. Twenty years ago it all would have been done by reflex action. Still, I enjoyed a return to the middle ages of photography. It took a while to reactivate dormant skills but by the end of the party I was clicking away like old times. I have a shelf of old classic 35 mm cameras in reasonably good condition, a few Leica LTMs, another later M3, a CL, and a pristine Contax IIa. There are a few carefully wrapped bricks of film in my freezer. I doubt that I will reactivate my wet darkroom for printing but I have a good scanner and a nearby Kinkos that will produce high quality paper prints up to 24" x 36". But before I return to the wonderful world of film photography, I'd better schedule a few workouts at the weight room of the local gym. Larry Z