Perhaps I am alone in this, but I love the design of certain cameras and lenses, and I would love to see some photos of your gear here! Let me start off with two recent purchases, a Contax RTS and a Contax 60mm f/2,8 Makro-Planar:
I will try to be more artistic with the shots in the future
I don't have this anymore but this was the very first rangefinder that introduced me to a thing called rangefinder in the first place. The year was 2010 and I was still mostly shooting on film, but I also got my first DSLR on that year too.
Digital experience was so much more convenient that I sold most of my film gear but kept this Zorki Mir with 50mm Jupiter-8 lens for curiosity. Ended up selling it a few years and a few rolls of film later, too.
I'm not sure would I ever have gotten into Leica world if I wouldn't have tried that Zorki. The whole shooting experience was so much different from any point-and-shoot or SLR I had used. It took many many years until I eventually got my first Leica (M 240). I still did like the rangefinder experience and that camera was so much fun to shoot, but at the same time very hard and frustrating to shoot. My brain was flicked to auto-focus shooting despite I was using manual shutter speed, aperture and ISO. On top of that also focusing manually was too overwhelming for me. I used it a few years alongside with my digital Canons and Fujis but even after a long period shooting it I was still frustrated with the manual focus (hit or miss) and fiddling. Also the lenses were relatively expensive and I was simply using the lenses I did not like (7-Artisans, for example) in terms of handling and optical performance. Ended up selling it, but after a short period already thought it as a mistake. I wasn't done with rangefinders yet.
Today I'm happily shooting my M11 and I have learned the slow pace of manual focusing.
carstenw wrote:
Let me start off with two recent purchases, a Contax RTS and a Contax 60mm f/2,8 Makro-Planar:
I have no OG RTS camera on the shelf. My earliest model is a NIB 139Q which I have never shot. Damn collectors. I do own the S2 which is an all-manual SLR issued quite recently in the Contax timeline. It is delightfully small in the spirit of FM2 but with a Ti finish.
In theory, I should pair with a CZ Tessar Anniversary for its Ti finish and tiny size.
