ROLL-CALL

[martin.davidson@bbc.co.uk (Martin Davidson)]

My name is Martin Davidson.  I am a BBC producer working in London, aged   
36.

I work in the unit which produced the Decisive Moments series which a   
number of Larry Burrows messages have referred to.  (There was a better   
LEICA sequence in a previous film which looked at the famous Che Guavera   
picture, taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda.)

My Leica infatuation was born courtesy of a BBC camera man who lent me an   
M5 in Tokyo.  Five years later and I bought an R5 with a couple of   
lenses.  Unfortunately, these were stolen, and I replaced them with an   
M6, with 50mm Summicron, and 28mm Elmarit.

And no, my partner doesn't know * or want to know * how much they cost!

I use these in conjunction with an old Konica T3 with 21mm Hexanon (first   
class lens); and a Canon 50E with 70-200L  (which together cost the same   
as a Vario-Elmar, with the added benefit of autofocus).  I also use a   
Mamiya 6, with 50mm and 75mm lenses, and a superb old Rolleiflex 2.8C   
that my father gave me (which perfectly happily keeps company with any of   
the above!!), and whose slides I project on an old Rollei P11 projector.

I have  number of compacts, including a Leica Minizoom, a Rollei 35S   
(whose eccentricity I love) and a Contax T2, whose Zeiss Sonnar is so   
good I simply use regard it as my 38mm lens, with a body attached.

But my M6 is my desert island camera.  In terms of the feel, and the   
heft, it is an altogether more pleasurable camera to use compared to its   
nearest rival, the Mamiya, even if, sometimes, the power of medium format   
is hard to beat!  I have never seen a lens that could rival Leica for   
flesh-tones, and, simply, for recording light.  Simply gorgeous.

How nice to find a forum where you don't have to add the obligatory rider   
to every Leica-remark, you know,   
"of-course-it's-no-better-than-any-other-high-end-lens-and-I'm-just-a-hapl  
ess-snob-for-liking-Leica" that I have found so tiring elsewhere!

I look forward to getting to know you all over the next few weeks.