Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/08/10

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Subject: Re: [Leica] RE: Re: Leica 1
From: Byron Rakitzis <leica@rakitzis.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 17:58:10 -0700

On 10 Aug 2000, at 6:56, Paul Chefurka wrote:

> I don't think you'll find that it's the working pros who are trying to
> justify camera ownership to anyone.  It's the amateurs like me that have a
> hard time explaining why a third M body is an absolute necessity.

I was on a long trip this summer (7 weeks in Europe and New Zealand),
I've just gotten back. I tried to keep things very simple and my M6
with 4 lenses (15/35/50/90) fit nicely in a small Lowe pro bag -- this
is a time when it's really handy not to have any of the faster lenses
on hand: my 90 is the dreaded tele-elmarit, for example. I have to say,
I could have used a 2nd or even 3rd body on several occasions, as I was
shooting both transparency and B&W film. My staple of B&W film stocks
are both Delta 100 and Delta 400, and it can be annoying to be stuck in
the middle of a roll of one when you want the other.

I used the middle-of-the-roll rewind trick on several occasions, but
it's a hassle when it comes down to it.

I have an M2 (which I got from LUGger David Rodgers), but I couldn't
have brought it along and still fit it all into the small pouch, so it
got left it behind.

The purpose of my trip was not photography, otherwise I would not
have hesitated to bring more stuff.

Regarding X-rays: my hand-luggage was X-rayed at different times and more
often than not my request for hand-inspection was honored. One stupid
security checkpoint in Scotland featured some inflexible personnel, so I
put as much film as I could into my jacket pockets and then put it in the
little basket next to the metal detector  along with my keys and coins.
For some reason this was okay, but a visual inspection of my film from
my camera bag was not!!!!!

At London Heathrow they were very okay about calling the supervisor
for an inspection, I believe the trick is to be polite but insistent:
They will try to ridicule your belief that X-rays are harmful to
film.

One thing I've never seen before: New Zealand customs X-rays luggage
coming in to New Zealand. I don't know what they are looking for.
A lot of warnings are up concerning the import of plants, meats,
cane, presumably because of the fear of pests. But how much of this
shows up on X-rays?

Byron.