Time Waits for No Camera

This was originally published in my Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign-up for a weekly update to your inbox here.

This weekend my M11 developed a fault. The M11 doesn’t have a separate light meter, instead it keeps the shutter open at all times to get a direct measurement from the sensor. On Saturday afternoon I suddenly found I couldn’t get live view to work. Assuming that I’d left the lens cap on I looked, realised I hadn’t and after plenty of fiddling and poking at menus discovered that I couldn’t release the curtain in front of the sensor except when taking a photo. So my M still works and still captured images sluggishly, even reluctantly at times making me press the button multiple times, but was completely manual with no metering at all.

While to many, this may seem like exactly what I always wanted, a feature and not a bug, it’s slightly more manual than I like my camera to be 😅 I knew it was serious because I texted Dan Baker to see if he’d come across the problem and because he’s a lovely human and knew I was in trouble he immediately rang me to give me the bad news. My camera would probably need a holiday to Leitz Park and it would likely take a couple of months.

As Monica in Friends was so fond of saying “Rules help control the fun” and I have a one camera rule which means that with my M out of action I don’t have a proper camera. I have a Sofort 2 and my iPhone but traditionally I’ve wanted to use a “real” camera, different lenses. The whole nine yards.

With friends reaching out to me as though I’d lost a loved one, Leica agreed to loan me a spare M11 and I could not be more grateful to them as I have a trip to Germany coming up and might even be able to collect my camera when I’m there! Now I just have to make sure nothing bad happens to the loaner camera! It’s also way too clean and the paint texture feels different, smoother, less sand papery.

As often happens when I have something to write about for the newsletter, the world then saw fit to provide me with a bunch of stuff that made me think about manual image making, time and change.

An M11 on loan. Thanks, Leica!

 A new, old Photographer

First up was a piece in The Evening Standard about the photography of Bob Mazzer, a photographer who took photos on the tube for decades. His trusty M4 and keen eye have produced some stunning images that touch on some incredible stories. I wonder where half these folks are now?!

Lost to time

On the subject of time and decay and things breaking, Dave posted a great video this week continuing his quest to find places humans have seemingly forgotten. He’s brave going out there only in flip flops as well! His real world test of the Leica Q3 43 is wild, in places, and nearly featured injury and more feet. He’s a right tease, instead, we’ll just have to contend with his thoughts on the APO 43 on the latest Q variant.

 In an instant, 5 years passed!

And finally, Ben’s back, and almost 5 years to the day since he started his channel! I am super impressed by the Polaroid Flip, it looks like the answer to the question “which Polaroid should I buy?” for friends who like to shoot real cameras but don’t want to spend $600 on an I-2. I can’t wait to get my hands on one to at least try out. Oh and it features sonar! How flipping cool is that?!