Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Alastair Firkin wrote: > > Lets hear about you and how photography entered your > life, and how the LUG has emptied your bank account ;-) Here's a thumbnail sketch of the life of a LUG lurker... My photographic addiction started early. At age ten or so, my parents started teaching me to take pictures. My mother let me use her Voigtlaender Vitomatic IIa, while my father taught me with his Bolsey and a Polaroid 250 automatic. As you can see, I was spoiled from the beginning. In the sixth grade, I received the first camera that was really mine. It was a brand new Nikon EM. It was black. It was cool. It was small and I could carry it around all the time. After two years of automatic exposure and nothing else, though, I really wanted a camera that would let me set my own shutter speed again. I started reading the camera collector column in Modern Photography magazine, living to mow lawns and put away money. At the end of Junior High school, Leica completely emptied my bank account for the first time. Through the newspaper, I found a Leicaflex with 50mm f2.0 and 35mm f2.8 lenses. I did enjoy that camera. It was a tank. No other word can describe it. It weighed a ton, and the little light meter window in the pentaprism certainly was absurd, but the images it took were beyond compare. (I'm just speaking of color and resolution here. My photographic skills are abysmal.) My Leicaflex stayed with me for quite a while, but during a trip to Europe in High School, I discovered that there were pictures I wanted to take that were beyond the capabilities of the tank. Some subjects were too far away or simply too fast for my poor reflexes. I abandoned Leica in favor of a Nikon F3HP, an MD4 motor drive, a big flash and long zoom lenses. The Nikon served me through the rest of high school and college, but disaster eventually struck. I had to sell all of my photographic equipment to pay rent and other bills before leaving the dismal Colorado job market and heading for Seattle. Luckily, I worked at Microsoft, so for a couple of years, I didn't have time for delirium tremens brought on by not being able to take pictures. After coming to my senses, I started working at Aldus, where I could at least work with digital images (and work on a Macintosh). Soon, Adobe bought Aldus, moving me to California, where I could play with Photoshop whenever I pleased. :) Confronted by the beauty of Santa Cruz and the Big Sur coastline, I couldn't do without another camera. After some deliberation, I bought a Contax RTS, an RTS II, and a suite of lenses. What a terrible experience! My 50 mm f1.4 surprisingly fell apart in my hands one day. Repeatedly, I sent both cameras and lenses back to Yashica for service. Luckily, I stumbled upon the Rollei mailing list which shares this server. The traffic on that list convinced me that wonderful equipment existed out in the world that could make me forget my Contax blues. I found a Rolleiflex 6006, 50mm f4, 80mm f2.8 and 150mm f4 lenses. I have since acquired a second 6006 and many accessories. I could not be happier. The Rolleiflex suites my mentality and pictures of Yosemite under a surprise Spring snowstorm cannot be improved upon. The Rolleiflex often isn't appropriate for wildlife photography, however. In some situations, I feel that I need the advantage of a small, silent, completely automatic camera. After deliberating over much courteous advice from LUG members, I will soon have a Leica R4 to accompany Rollei. In spite of the R4's reputation, I'm hoping not to have a repeat of my Contax curse. I am completely psyched over the prospect of owning a Leica again. Thanks for reading. - -- Erich Champion : mailto:echampio@adobe.com : 408.536.6497 Voice User Education : Adobe Systems Incorporated : 408.537.4040 Fax - --