View attachment 11766
Big changes. I sent all my photography equipment in two boxes to Ffordes near Inverness (best dealers in 2nd-hand and new gear, in my experience), for commission sales and part-exchange on the new Leica Q2 Monochrom, which took the above. Why?
Well, I'm not a gear person, despite searching for years for "the right camera and lens" for me. I was getting frustrated at not quite being totally happy with any of the gear I had. Two cameras came close: the original Fuji X100 and the first iteration of the Leica Monochrom. The Fuji taught me to love a fixed-lens camera. The concept might seem bonkers to some, but there is something "just right" about having one pair of eyes...and one pair of legs. I never enjoyed carrying and using different focal lengths. The Monochrom because I liked the idea of no colour in the editing suite, which for me is Lightroom 6. I would leave the house "seeing" only black and white. I am not really interested in colour photography, find it unsatisfactory.
I sold the X100 many years ago, thinking I needed more...The Monochrom had slight problems with the sensor, and I found the rangefinder focus was good until my eyes started failing. As an aside, my right eye now has a lens by Zeiss...which is not as good as my natural left eye.
Then the Q2 Monochrom appeared just before Christmas. A fixed-lens auto-focus (or manual) Monochrom camera - my dream! And it turns out to be just that, a dream to hold and use, and the results can be magnificent, to my tastes at least. Despite having just one 28mm lens, with just a deft twist it becomes macro, or close-up, certainly close enough for my purposes - as in the present image. The lens has a new perfectly-matched sensor.
As for my old equipment, I did hold onto the Konica Hexar AF - another fixed-lens camera, film this time - and made £600 profit to spend on a few front-of-lens colour filters, which are said to work really well with the camera, and some printing.
I do feel I now have the right camera
with lens for me. It's expensive, but I tell myself that it didn't cost me a penny...a kind of truth.
Big shout out for Ffordes, who gave and continue to give good, solid advice.