Champs Elysee

Back in 2017 I was  in Paris with my family, for a short vacation.  I had recently bought my first Leica – the M6TTL – and two Zeiss lenses. My main digital camera back then was the Fujifilm X-Pro2. I brought both cameras on the trip to Paris. I shot 3 rolls of Tri-X film with the M6, and a couple of hundred frames with the X-Pro2. I have chosen the five pictures I was most pleased with, from each camera. First out is the M6.

Notre Dame

One thing that struck me was that the pictures from the M6 is different. Not only in a technical point – but also from a photographic. I sense that I have put more effort in each picture, compared to the X-Pro2 pictures. That is also how I remembered the shooting it self. Pressing the shutter on the M6 was much more thought trough every time.

The Metro

The M6 is a camera with a built in lightmeter, which makes photography rather easy. It is not exactly point and shoot – but you wont have to think so much about getting the light measured right. The meter in a Leica M is not like the meters in modern mirrorless cameras, but still it gives you help. This has left me thinking about getting a Leica M without a lightmeter – an M3 or an M4. This would force me to think about every frame even more.

The Park

I love the Kodak Tri-X 400. I have used it since the 1980:s and it gives me the feeling of creating a picture. I suppose it origins in the work I did in the darkroom. I have found great ways to transform digital pictures to look like Tri-X – but then; why not do the real thing and shoot film? Well the simple answer is; “time”. I have got used to the direct result from the digital cameras – and at the same time I want the slow photography from the old film cameras. That doesn’t add up.

The Tivoli

I think I will have another go with analogue cameras. I think I must consider it a totally different kind of photography. I must have a totally different mind set as I shoot film. One should think that I would know this already – and I do. But it’s another thing to do it. I must learn to think even more like I did back in the film days. To think more about each frame. I don’t always need 300 pictures – sometimes five is enough. In the next post I will choose five of the 300+ X-Pro2 pictures from the same journey.

My first M6 in Paris