[Leica] Re: Birthday party

[philippe.orlent at pandora.be (Philippe Orlent)]

A very happy birthday to you, and many more photographic evolutions  
to come :-)
Philippe


Op 25-jul-07, om 18:08 heeft Lawrence Zeitlin het volgende geschreven:

> 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 my gifts was a carefully wrapped roll of slightly outdated (8/04) T- 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
>
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