Ok so I’m in conversation with a friend and he mentions something about Leica lenses and trending prices of one versus the other, and then this just comes out of me like a projectile vom moment. It’s so good I’m blogging it. Slightly modified for context and clarity, sort of.
35 cron has always been THE lens to have with Leica cameras. It’s like a right of passage lens. It has nothing to do with the quality of optics or what people do with the lens, but it has this mythical status of achievement.
First you go from digital to film, and get into the film scene, and then you get a few fixed lens rangefinders and claw your way up through that lineage from cheap clean Konica’s to Yashica’s, Agfa’s, Olympus’s etc, and finally find that sweet Canonet, and lust for a QL17 GIII, and realize that it’s actually usable, and really produces some hot-shit pictures on your favorite film. Some people will go on to medium format beaters, and modular systems, Lomo, specialty, low financial impact cameras and into that camera obscurity rabbit hole.
Somewhere along the way you make the connection between that Canon/Nikon rebel and this new film thing your into, and start thinking about cameras that have lenses, and rangefinders and the Russian Fed/Voigtlander Bessa/Konica Hexar/bashed up Zeiss Ikon inevitably steps in and makes you a rangefinder photographer. Then its one, two, or a few used Screw mount Canon/Fed/Voigtlander lenses, and you’re always striving for that mountain peak of a Leica lens, and in the middle of all that comes a choice Zeiss ZM lens, something that puts you a little closer to that mountain peak.
One paycheck, after a christmas bonus or something, you can fill in the gap between your savings and that figure that sits in the back of your head, the one that you can deal with as a credit card debt, and that’s the day you can start getting serious about all those watched items in your My eBay, or forum classifieds, looking for that perfect Leica Camera deal. Whatever it is, maybe an M4, M2, M3 or even an M6. Your new bling Leica with your choice Zeiss, Voigtlander or Konica lens.
But in the end all you really want is that fucking 35 ‘cron.