Although I've often thought about it, I didn't think I'd ever buy a Leica, too eccentric, too expensive and too quirky. When the M6 was still available new I researched them and started looking for a used 0.58 'finder (I wear glasses) but couldn't find one anywhere near any sensible budget (and then there's a lens...). Later, I couldn't understand why they'd swap the convenience of a rewind crank for a knob (MP & MA) - although they'd sell you an optional crank adaption for a not-so-small-sum. Even later I wondered why they decided to omit a meter from the MA - I can live with a meter-less camera from the '60s when they were difficult to perfect, but surely today they should be standard? The lens names sound like something from a Cold War code book, leaving an un-educated user scrabbling around trying to translate them into focal lengths & apertures...
I'm a Pentax SLR user mostly (some electronic, some mechanical and some meter-less), I have mechanical delights like an S1a, Spotmatic, KX & MX, an LX (possibly one of the best SLRs ever made), a decent set of Takumar and Pentax K lenses and countless oddities to call upon. My favourite focal length was 40mm (SMC-M40mm f/2.8 pancake), later becoming 43mm when I could justify the FA43/1.9. Why would I decide to buy a Leica with all the expense involved and limitations of a rangefinder?
Partly the reason to experience one, maybe there's something in it I've been missing all this time (and my Zorki-4K fails to deliver). A discussion on another forum mentioned that many of the expert repairers are retiring and there won't be the skills or parts to repair even mechanical cameras at some point - I surmised that as Leica look likely to be building them for the forseable future that they'd be the best bet, the last ones to hang up their pin spanners...
The real catalyst though has been a huge lesson in life, a horrid year of dreadful ill-health of a family member, constant hospital visits, supporting each other, no time for anything but (hard won) sleep. Fortunately things are slowly now turning around, improvement, some 'spare' time (not much really but something) and hope for the future. The lesson has been to grab what you want while you can, activate the rainy day fund when it's already been pouring down for months and try and make some part of your day happy doing something you want to do. It's been a tough lesson, it's taken time, but I've now bought a Leica.
It's a bashed about silver M4 (possibly from 1966), it wasn't enormously expensive, it met my criteria for being a user camera and I won't be afraid to scratch it. I bought it with a Voigtlander VM 40mm f/1.4 (MC) lens - my favourite focal length. The M4 doesn't have 40mm frame lines, but it brings up the 50mm lines - I simply frame for 50 and allow a bit extra (I struggle to see the 35mm frame lines with my glasses). I'm starting to understand some of the magic, sometimes using a meter and sometimes not but my understanding of light is improving with every shot, although I'm still a bit 'finger & thumbsy' when handling it.
Some of the results from a walk with it and a roll of FP4+:
Halloween Guardians by
John Halliwell, on Flickr
Vape shop window by
John Halliwell, on Flickr
Two benches by
John Halliwell, on Flickr
Five Trees by
John Halliwell, on Flickr
Gigs by
John Halliwell, on Flickr
Meaningful message by
John Halliwell, on Flickr
I'm drawn to photographing graphiti/urban art but have generally stopped posting it - the above is an exception because the message seems so important today.
John.