Yet Another Post

Just feeling talkative.

Anyway, here is the latest inspiration: a fellow who uses the camera he owns as a reason models should come shoot with him. I've heard of people claiming that their cameras made them professionals (or that other people's cameras meant they weren't.) But this is a new one on me.

Now, maybe if he had that life-size Polaroid camera, I could see that. That thing is freaking cool. But this?

http://www.modelmayhem.com/118

Let me get this straight. He's having an old Leica rebuilt to have modern automatic stuff in it, and therefore models should pay him oodles of money to be shot with it.

This. Makes. No. Sense.

He's basically taking the two things that make modern and vintage Leicas unique and building something that has neither component. Old cameras are cool because they are more demanding of the photographer (call any Leica demanding and the ghost of Matthew Brady will appear and break an 18x24 sheet of glass over your head, but still) and require them to be utterly in command of their technical art. Modern Leicas are cool because they have all the Leica elan while having modern exposure control technology. Put it in an old Leica and you have... an old new camera.

I won't claim to know enough about Leicas to know that this isn't the Holy Grail of Leicadom, but still, in the end, it's a 35mm rangefinder camera, shooting what is likely excellent glass but 35mm format glass all the same. Would it kick ass for photojournalism/docmentary work? Almost certainly: We might very well have to import ass from underdeveloped third-world countries just to have sufficient ass for it to kick.

But for stuff that a model wants and can use and would pay for?

Dude, give me a Hassy every time. Or, even better, unless the model plans to take out her own billboards, spare the umpty thousand dollars on Franken-Leica OR Uber-Large-Formatotron and buy some good lighting and hire a makeup artist and a hair stylist and a wardrobe stylist. Then the model might get something for her money. But a 35mm rangefinder is a 35mm rangefinder and it don't make no difference what you've wrapped around it, you have a relatively small lens and a 36x24mm frame of film and you get what you get.

M