Leica Lust Revisited

James Russell has a piece at Luminous Landscape called Leica M8 Revisited. The reason I bring it up is that I want one. I mean really want one.

Shooting the Leica is like going out with Pamela Anderson. The camera keeps saying you can make me clean, cook, raise the kids, but I won’t be very good at it., though if you let me do what I’m good at you’ll be very happy.

Even without the Pam Anderson bit, I know what he means. My old film M6 was the most amazing piece of gear I’ve ever fondled held. I miss it. Going through my photos from that period reminds me how much I loved that stupid, expensive, manual-focus beauty.

Mr. Russell knows what I mean…

50% of everything I shoot with it is not in real tack focus, 50% has too much noise, 50% has surprise framing, but no camera I have ever used has touched me so deeply.

So the plan has been to sell the entire Canon kit and shoot with my little GRD II for a while to sort of sweep away the cobwebs. I thought I was going to revisit things later, perhaps with a 5D, but I think maybe deep inside I’ve been missing the Leica, and that can’t go on forever.