With the cooperation of Camera West, I shipped off 3 M cameras and fast lenses, a Linhof Super Tek V kit, a Kowa Super 66 kit, etc. and in return received an M10 Monochrom and a Fuji X100F. (And I still have a bit of store credit.)
I have been meditating about this sort of consolidation since last fall. Not only does it reduce the enrollment in my camera daycare and the attendant sense of obligation (
when did I exercise the M3 last...?), it is a necessary bow to the growing difficulties I have had with a cataract in my dominant eye. Until it is safe to have the pre-surgery evaluation—this summer? The fall?—I cannot use a rangefinder at f1.4-2.0. The M10 M mounts the Typ 020 EVF I use on the Leica T, and the combination of red-peaking / critical-focus magnification makes using the Summilux wide open possible.
Over the past ten years of being part of RFF, my development values and favored tools have changed, too. And Lightroom has improved considerably since 2010. So I am going through a catalog of nearly 20,000 images, applying the new workflow to images it can improve, and culling the rest (except those with special value—for instance, people gone from my life since 2010).
Aside from this, Linn and I are lucky to live in a spacious home in an old wooded neighborhood where most houses maintain a 1-4 acre distance. We have gardens to take care of, we have our piano, violas, guitars and practice daily, we have our pack of terriers and cats who look after us as we look after them. We’re planning a Zoom dinner party with my cousins/in-laws. We catch up with neighbors on our dog walks. We stream church services (I.e., the rector, the organist in the otherwise empty Episcopal church) on our big screen. We pack cameras and visit non-infectious four-legged friends at the horse farms.
I do pine for a street-photography trip, but that can wait.
