★ Making moves, some time soon

ecently I picked up a Panasonic GF1 as a ‘travel camera’ as I’d had some dramas with my Canon G9 that weren’t going to be cheap to fix. This was my first experience with the micro four thirds format, and also with a Panasonic camera, and I must say I’m completely and utterly besotted with it.

Apart from the size and ease of use, one of the main reasons I’m loving the GF1 is that I have full manual control over it and the ability to switch out lenses without having to lug an SLR around with me. Another thing I like about the camera is that the form factor feels a bit like a rangefinder in your hand, specially if you’re a manual focus fan like me.

Ok, so bearing all that in mind I’ve decided I’m selling off my Canon EOS 7D, all my lenses, flashes, bags, assorted other accessories. Yep, you read that correctly. It’s all going, going, gone!

Last week I was in Adelaide, and one day while walking around the city I came across a camera shop. In this particular camera shop they had Leica M8, and oh my gosh it is one good looking camera. I got to handle the Leica M8 a little, shoot a few frames on it, and it felt a lot like the GF1 but you know, tougher, stronger, sturdier, more professional, and just plain better… And well for an $8,000.00 camera you would expect that right.

Once again I fell in love…

Long gone are the days where I could just go out an buy a camera of that value, I just can’t justify having a Canon 7D with a bunch of lenses, the Panasonic GF1, and also the Leica M8.

Also long gone are the days where I photograph bands, other event photography, and pretty much anything in the studio. Of late I’m pretty much just shooting ‘life situations’ and travel, and realistically speaking I don’t see that changing ever again…sure I might do the odd model shoot some time in the future, but I can do that with the Leica M8 without feeling like I’m missing anything.

Over the weekend I spent some time doing some research on the Leica M8, and well I wasn’t overly impressed with what I was reading. There seemed to be a bunch of niggling little issues, most of which were resolved in the M8.2 release however I wasn’t convinced it was the right move.

And then I start reading about the Leica M9. It was all I could do to stop myself from maxing out my credit card straight away! This camera was ticking all the boxes, and then some, so now all I have to do is work out what lenses to buy. Arghh that’s always a tough decision!

So there you have it, all my Canon gear is heading to eBay and once all the money is in from the auctions I’ll be dumping it down on a gorgeous new Leica M9….hopefully by then I’ll have worked out which lenses I’m grabbing too.