Monday, March 24, 2008

The Leica M8; help me think, people!

isn't she lovely? the first time i saw a Leica rangefinder in person was when i met Bill Allard (yes, the National Geographic Magazine staff photographer!!!!!) at a gallery showing in Charlotesville, VA; he was wearing it (Mr. Allard actually asked my opinion of a particular photograph and he agreed with me; i nearly passed out). i have a thing for German cameras. actually, i have a closet full of Contax SLR film cameras and Zeiss lenses that i won't use often because they're...well, film cameras. it's painful to shoot with film and not know if i've got the shot or not and then have the expense of film and processing when i could be shooting digital. okay, i have an embarrassing little point and shoot, which is okay for taking snapshots, but how do you put filters on a point and shoot? how do you manually adjust your aperture on a point and shoot (okay, yes, i know, you can use the cute little pictures on the dial to adjust it somewhat, but you can't get that custom fine tuning you get with fully manual control). how do i shoot macro (my favorite thing to do in the world just for me, by the way) on a point and shoot?!? okay, the little fake macro function is so not working for me!



okay, so the Leica M8 is $5K just for the body. add a couple of lenses and...well, let's suffice it to say that it would take me about 10 years to save up enough money for this camera.



so i had this brilliant idea (you should know that i have a long and winding history of really bad ideas for business ventures) that i would start an on-line camera store, specializing in professional cameras as well as day-to-day cameras so i can get it at cost. that would bring my saving-up time down to maybe 5 years...even less if i actually earned money selling cameras, right?! okay, i realize this is probably a bad idea. and i'm sure that your brain is way more functioning than mine, so send me your ideas! just look at her...she's also lovely in silver...!


4 holla'd back:

Admin said...

I so need to learn more about taking pictures... I thought the "macro" function on the camera actually did something! But I could never figure out what? I just make sure it is on all the time because I really like the cute little flower icon that comes up. :)

sandi said...

Teehee; you are too cute! The Macro function allows the camera to focus on something a lot closer up than it normally would. So, like, the close up of the pink ice plant flower from my Monterey trip was taken with the macro function. I didn't have anything with me to shade my LCD, so I couldn't see the shadow of the camera in the picture before I took it, LOL! (And believe me, I agonize over it on a daily basis). I also had no manual control of aperature, and so no control of how in-focus or out-of-focus my background was. I've never tried to shoot a distance shot with the macro function on, but with my Zeiss macro lens (on my old film cam), doing that would blur out my background and be good for portraits. If you want something to be in focus from near to far (in other words, everything in the photo from foreground to background), use the little mountain icon. That closes down the aperture to allow less light in, thus creating farther range of focus. We should get together for a photography lesson! It would be fun (at least for me!).

Lisa said...

O.k., so first of all, I love the blogging you're doing! LOve your blog...so you...in a good way!
And as for the camera idea........
let's just say I'm still voting for a book written by our own little Sandi Miller! I'm just sayin!

Are you totally geared up for the 28th?! Have the best time! Who's watching Bryce?

Anonymous said...

Instead of selling cameras, you should look into being a photo journalist for a newspaper, they buy the expensive equipment and you get to use it whenever you want-that might bring your delay down to 2 years.

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