Leica

Film camera is another hobby and it's been more than 20 years since I started taking photos.  First camera I've got was Nikon F2 which was handed down from my father when I became a college student.  That time, film camera was still the mainstream while digital camera may have started to be shown on the market.  Films were readily available and there were many shops to develop films.  My favorite films were Kodachrome (ASA25) and Ektachrome (ASA100), and it was really fun to take photos with those films.

I really enjoyed taking photos with films, however, it became gradually more difficult to find films and photo shops stopped developing and I rarely took out this camera from the bag.  One day, however, I happened to find vintage Leica on my favorite magazine, "free & easy".  Since I loved antiques and vintage, I felt I wanna get one and then I started to look for my first Leica.  After that, it actually didn't take a long time to collect many lenses like this.  :-)

Here is a brief introduction of my vintage Leica collection:  Camera body is M3 from early 60's and the lens on the body is Summilux 50mm F1.4 (1st generation).  On the far right, small lens: Super-Angulon 21mm F3.4 (2nd generation), on its left: Summicron 50mm F2 (1st generation), biggest one: Summarex 85mm F1.5, on its upper-right: Tele-Elmarit 90mm F2.8 (1st generation) and slim/long one: Elmarit 90mm F2.8 (1st generation).  All of them are from 50's and 60's but all still looks brand-new...

Well, let me introduce some of the photos I have taken with those camera and lenses.

Taken with Summicron while I forgot shutter speed etc...  It seems monochrome films are quite suitable for this kind of antiques because it shows their patina more effectively.  Since "direct print" from reversal films is no longer available, now I mainly use monochrome films such as Kodak's Tri-X or Ilford.  

My house under the sunshine and it's taken by Super-Angulon.  Since monochrome doesn't have colors, it seems it's good idea to apply the light (e.g. sunshine) effectively.

Another photo by Super-Angulon.  This photo shows interesting contrast between close-up of the objects in short distance and the view in the far distance.

The last photo was taken by Summarex.  This lens was designed in 40's and I was really curious how the photograph would turn out.  The range of the focus is quite slim and the photo creates very impressive atmosphere.  Old lens is very interesting...

These films were developed and then I scanned to take them into my PC, so I would say these photos are digital...  Printing on the paper is still expensive and I enjoy photos by scanning into PC but I occasionally print on "baryta" paper to hang on the wall.  Direct print has very rich tone and the photo can bring warm feels.  

Digital is actually easy, but I love analogue as Alden shoes are also made by human hands spending a lot of time and human effort.  It's not handy and it takes time to see how the photo was actually taken but I love enjoying such a process from inserting film on the camera until developed...  :-)