[Leica] the Leica bug, long version

[Doug Herr <71247.3542@compuserve.com>]

My infection with the Leica bug grew out of my childhood passion for wild=

animals and wild places.  When I was about 5 my parents gave me several
books illustrating the birds of North America.  Book publishing in the US=

was centered in New York so the books illustrated the birds of EASTERN
North America.  Not one of these books paid much attention to the Acorn
Woodpecker, Scrub Jay or California Quail of my Palo Alto home.  My
solution to the problem was to make my own photographs of these fascinati=
ng
birds.

I bought a cheap 127 box camera and started photograping any animals I
could find.  Family pets were easy, but with wild animals I could hardly
tell why I had pressed the shutter release.

In High School I took a photography class, and, coincidentally read an
article in National Geographic about how Fred Truslow started in bird
photography.  Armed with just enough knowledge I set out to purchase a go=
od
camera.  "This Leicaflex SL looks interesting" I said to my father, upon
reading sales literature, "with its spot meter".  He suggested I look at
the camera's price, and we settled on a used N**** F.

Arriving for my first year of college, I thought I was cool stuff with my=

N****, until my roomate arrived with his father's Leicaflex.  Ken let me
use the 'flex at times and I was so struck with the camera's solid, preci=
se
feel and the beauty of the chromes that the goofy external light meter wa=
s
forgiven.

In the summer after that first year of college my father and I participat=
ed
in a photo workshop in the Sierra Nevada mountains led by David Cavagnaro=

and Ernest Braun.  I borrowed a 300mm lens, and made several photographs
which to this day are among my favorites.  I was hooked on wildlife
photography.  David urged me to send several to the editors of Pacific
Discovery, a regional magazine in San Francisco.  Some months later I
recieved a letter from a major New York-based conservation magazine askin=
g
me to please, PLEASE let them use my photograph that was on the cover of
Pacific Discovery.  This is pretty heady stuff for a teenager.

In the next year of college, the night security guard at the engineering
building loaned me his Leica III.  At first I thought "oh brother, a wier=
d
antique" but with unusual wisdom I kept my thoughts to myself.  The
Leicameter was dead, the film loading was a real pain and the slow speeds=

were off, but during the student riots of 1970 it was the only camera I
carried.  In that camera was the same smooth, solid, purposeful precision=

of my roomate's Leicaflex in a quiet, discrete package.  I knew then that=
 I
was infected, badly infected, with the Leica bug.

Over the next ten years I used the N**** with my own 300mm lens with some=

success.  When the N****'s resistor ring died its last death I did what I=

should have done a long time before: I bought a 400mm f/6.8 Telyt.  The
only real question was which body to put on it.  The R3 was new but being=
 a
mechanical engineer I was distrustful of those new-fangled electronics an=
d
bought instead a Leicaflex SL.  Silly me.  Within days I was struck with
the responsiveness of the SL and Telyt, and with the Leica images on my
Kodachromes.  It wasn't just the optical quality that amazed me, it was
also how the camera's responsiveness made dynamic wildlife images possibl=
e
where I had only made static portraits before.

Now, twenty years later, I've accumulated 5 other lenses: 35mm, 50mm and
90mm Summicrons, a 60mm Macro-Elmarit-R and a 560mm Telyt.  The 400 is
still my most-used lens.  I now have my photographs of Acorn Woodpecker,
Scrub Jay and California Quail and I'm still delighted with the images I'=
m
making with the Telyt and SL.

Doug Herr