New Camera

 

My old Leica pretty much wore out so I got a new one. The last one was over 6 years old and I tried to trade it in at the camera store and get credit for my new one. The camera store looked at my old one and said they had never seen such a hard-used camera. The camera store guy termed it 'exceptional wear', and would not take it. So they are sending it back and I will continue to use it until it does not work anymore. 

The old camera has a 28mm fixed lens and the new one a fixed 43mm - so they will serve different purposes. And with the old one I do not mind taking it kayaking in the rain or skiing. It has already paid for itself. Since I bought the old Leica I have worn out 3 different Fujifilm cameras. Leicas are impressively durable, and I am hard on cameras.

But hey, there is no point in babying a camera. If you don't have the camera with you - then you can't get the picture, and there was no point in getting the camera in the first place. I take my cameras elk hunting in the rain. 

Modern digital cameras are expensive, but if you think of it in terms of cost per picture they are FAR, FAR cheaper than the cameras we used to use back in the days of film. Back then I'd keep a camera for years (I used my Pentax from 1979 to 2006), but you had to buy the film and pay to process every roll. It cost something like 20 dollars for every 36 pictures. And that's in 1990s dollars. Basically back in the days of film you paid for the pictures as you went along. These days you pay up front for all the pictures to come.

I really like the new Leica. It is a little slow to start up, but I think it takes better pictures than the old one. I prefer the longer lens too. The old 28mm was just too wide - I like a lens that is more focused in on things. And if I want a wide angle landscape I'll just stitch a bunch of pictures together. I've found that 35-50mm pictures stitch together better than wider angle pictures do - less distortion. 

Anyway, here is to another 6-8 years of Leica abuse and hard use! In the end I bet I pay less than 50 cents for every good picture that I take with the new Leica camera. And that's totally worth it.

Patrick