Death in Venice... And How mju:ii Came to the Rescue

[domagojs]

My wife and me went on our first trip without kids in three years to Venice last week. I thought long and hard what cameras to take, with the aim to be able to take different pictures, but not to turn the trip into photography only trip. In the end I decided for:

- Bessa R2A + M-Rokkor 40mm f/2.0 (for causal b&w snapping) + Jupiter-8 (for vintage portraits and cityscapes)
- mju:ii - for casual family color snapshots (the only pictures which will be of interest in few years time)
- YashicaMat 124G - for slow, thought out photographs, with main intention to shoot Portra 400 in it

Nice setup and right for my wishes, right?

We came to Venice, embarked on a Vaporeto, I started snapping away with Bessa, everything was just as I hoped. Life was perfect... And then I press the shutter on Bessa and heard cli... There was no ..ck to be heard! I pressed the shutter once again, and it sort of just fell through :-( The camera decided that half hour into my long imagined trip was the perfect moment to give up on me!!! And to think I left my Nikon FMs at home... I took of the lens and the inside shutter was half-open :-( I gently touched it, nothing. I tried, gently, padding on the bottom plate in hope that whatever got stuck will unstuck. Nothing! Then I strted to curse in my native language, I'll spare you of that 🙂

It was time for mju:ii to step into the light and save the day... And it did, the of us merrily snapped away those two days and I'm very satisfied with what came out of that... It's so nice to have such a small, and yet capable, camera in a pocket with you!

I always though backup cameras were something National Geographic and war photographers needed, not a casual shooter like me. This experience changed my mind 🙂

Here are the pics little mju took, I hope you like them!

 

[Vobluda]

Odlične slike, dobra priča🙂

 

[domagojs]

Odlične slike, dobra priča🙂

🙂 Hvala!

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Nice selection of shots and you now have the perfect excuse when you find another camera that you fancy: "it's a backup, darling. Look how many lovely pictures we wouldn't have of Venice, if I hadn't taken a spare camera with me".

😉

 

[btgc]

My mju lost AF while on trip so yes, backup cameras are fact of life.

 

[nongfuspring]

I keep an epic stylus 80 zoom as backup, or when I can't/shouldn't take my good digital. It's a total POS but has been buried in snow, dropped into rivers, onto rocks, bounced down cave shafts, stairs, you name it, but besides the scratches and chips it still works perfectly. When it eventually dies I'll buy one of the fixed lens versions like yours, but until then it's my favourite camera and the only one I actually feel sentimental about.

 

[Richard G]

Very nice pictures, especially the one in the canal. The Mju II maybe has a sharper lens than the Mju. My Mju was all I took to the US one trip, and I take it every year to the beach to use standing in the water and in the spray of the surf. It got a bit of sand under the cover one year. A little time and effort got rid of that. It teaches you that a 35mm lens and nothing else is all you need. I will be taking my iPhone and the X100 on my next trip I reckon.

 

[Ronald M]

3 cameras is non photographic. 4 would make you stand out as a photographer.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

3 cameras is non photographic. 4 would make you stand out as a photographer.

Depends on the camera/s 😀

I stand out, visually and audibly, with one, Hasselblad 500c/m.

I like the results, brings back happy memories, many years since our visit but never forgotten.

 

[Monochrom]

great you had a backup camera....i remember long years from now in my first trip to europe my camera went dead, the shutter release broke down and i could only make shots with the timer setup...so for every shot i had to wait ten seconds 😀

Hope the bessa comes back to life!

 

[Vics]

I took an mju-II with me on my trip to New York and DC in October, and it was nice to have it when I wanted to go out without the Leica. I could just stick it in my pocket and forget it til I needed it. Gave it away in the RFF Christmas Giveaway. I need to go back to the goodwill store and get another one.

 

[raydm6]

Nice photos! Glad your backup camera saved the day. Had a similar problem in Venice this past September but not with any of my film cameras.

I decided to travel lite and just enjoy the trip with my girlfriend. It was my first trip to Europe so I decided to just use my iPhone4 and Canon S90 for touristy snapshot shooting. I ran out of space on my iPhone4 in a few days (I took too many videos) so switched to the Canon. I eventually freed some space on the phone however. We went this past September when the weather was still hot but the light was just exquisite and beautiful and I ended up taking over 1,800 photos between the two cameras. She was patient and understanding 🙂

Glad things worked out for you!

Hope it's ok to share a few...