“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.”
― Eudora Welty
I love photography. Since my fist internship years ago, I live to take pictures. Most of the time I do it without any plan. I take out my smartphone to capture moments and situations. Actually in those moments I don´t care much about light or sharpness because I want to keep the moment. But from time to time, I take my “big one” and my equipment and go out to find moments. Those are the places and/or moments I want to create. That´s a different thing to me, because I create the moment already in my mind because I press the button.
Now, one of the advantages with working in advertising is, that you come closer to a various number of products of different brands. Normally you get as close to those products as people directly working for those brands. So I was more than happy to see Leica as one of the clients for the agency I´m working for now. So one of my first things I needed to find out was to check out the possibilty to get my hands on those cameras. Normally those cameras are simply way above my budget. Paying 6.000 EUR+ for a Leica SL (without lenses that can costs easy 4.000 EUR+) is normally not the amount of money I can invest in this hobby. But those cameras are in normal not in usage of hobby photographers like me. They are used in professional environment.
So, I´m more than happy now to get my hands on those cameras (even just for testing over the weekends)….but like we use to say in advertising “You have to know your clients products.”. So my first camera will be the Leica T:
This camera costs with the lens around 1.600 EUR. For a Leica, that´s really kind of “cheap”. But it´s focus is not the “Pro´s”. The first thing that really is a little bit uncommon is the miss of the seeker. I´m not used to take pictures by watching on a screen for years. Second thing that puts a smile in my face is the feeling holding this block of aluminum. I have to admit that I never had a something similar in ragards of cameras in my hands. Even without knowing the price you recognize from the start that this is high quality (and hell of expensive).
But talking too much about cameras…like we use to say in Germany “Ein Taucher der nicht taucht, taucht nix.” I need to take pictures with that camera. Just starring at it doesn´t make any sense to me. Here are some pics I shot:
Well, what can I say in the end after this weekend? There are still some rules that apply here:
- An expensive camera doesn´t automatically make you a pro-photographer.
- Leica is a commitment of people that truly love photography and want to show it.
- I still prefer to have a camera that has a seeker (call me “old school”).
