Heeeere's Johnny!

[SolaresLarrave]

Well... look who's back? 🙂

Yours-truly.

In fact, I came back yesterday afternoon. My flight, an Air India direct from Frankfurt, landed in Chicago in the afternoon, at around 4:00 PM. I lasted a few more hours having dinner with the inlaws... but after some time, I simply collapsed.

Today, I picked up the mail, helped unpack and restore some livability in the house, packed my 33 rolls of exposed film and after a long afternoon sorting out mail (both, personal and institutional, as I have a mailbox in my office too), I decided to ask, finally... what happened in my absence?

From quick looks at this and other forums, I gather that...

Kodachrome is out at last (if not, the threats are more serious now)

The much-expected digital Leica is about to come out

Joe finally got an M6

Ralph sold his Hassy

Frank S switched to 35mm glass

Markinlondon found a good 12585 lens hood

Brett has now a Zeiss Ikon body

Ken Ford bought another 25mm lens

Am I correct? 🙂

I'm glad to be back... Now, time to get some more work done! 😀

 

[FrankS]

33 rolls! Got any good shots? 🙂 Welcome back, Fransisco. What was photographically speaking, the best you experienced/saw/photographed and what was the (whatever the opposit is)?

No, I'm still a 50mm guy!

 

[back alley]

welcome back my friend!!

not this joe with the m6...

joe

 

[SolaresLarrave]

33 rolls! Got any good shots? 🙂

I certainly hope so! Otherwise, it's the camera's fault.

What was photographically speaking, the best you experienced/saw/photographed and what was the (whatever the opposite is)?

Nice question and thanks for bringing out that particular aspect of the trip.

First of firsts... the landscapes (and I'm NOT a landscape fan) were breathtaking. I didn't do much of them because, at a givem moment, after having viewed a lot of them that really didn't move me, I attributed their value to the fact that the shooters experienced them and their pics were just a very inadequate vehicle to convey what they felt. However, in my walks I found a curious contraption used by hunters: the Jaegerstand (a chair on stilts, which is basically a hunter's chair). The way this particular chair looked against the green background of wheat and the sunlight at 8 PM made me do it! 🙁

Sorry, I digress.

Best spots (for my taste) were cities like Nürnberg and Leipzig. The first because of the people in the streets (as well as it's nice ambiance) and the latter because it's architectural wealth is simply striking: there's no street in which you cannot find a little jewel above a doorframe.

After those two cities, Dresden, especially the Neustadt: lots of DDR-looking facades and striking constrasts of East- and West-Germany. Trier had a nice human landscape in it's small streets.

The one I liked the least: Köln (Cologne). Don't misread me: the architecture is gorgeous, but the shopping district (too close to the cathedral) is not.

Interesting detail: I only saw one person using a Leica, and it was a German photographer. It was interesting to see him in action with an M6 and a 'cron 50. He approached people, chatted them up at times, or simply snapped a quick shot at other times (I saw him sneak a picture of a particularly interesting face with what to me was a surprising boldness). His name (of course, we had to talk) is Rolf, and I will contact him soon.

Otherwise, everybody around me was shooting digital cameras, and I observed the abundance of white-haired digital shooters. In fact, the older the photographer looked, the smaller and more feature-laden was his camera. I think almost all the D-SLRs I saw were Canon (with two exceptions), and most of the digital P&S cameras looked to me like Optios or Fujis.

In sum... I had fun!

 

[SolaresLarrave]

welcome back my friend!!

not this joe with the m6...

joe

Then, if you're not the Joe with the M6... what happened?

BTW, did you find a Rokkor? In the end, I didn't go to Solms and didn't get to browse any Leica items. All I had left was a huge market for used Praktica cameras (which looked, at least some, like slightly imperfect versions of my wife's Pentax K1000).

Thanks for the welcome! 🙂

 

[JoeFriday]

are you saying I picked up a ZI? I wish I was that lucky, but no dice.. glad to see you back, tho!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

(I saw him sneak a picture of a particularly interesting face with what to me was a surprising boldness)

Indeed, there's a planet out there. Glad to see you are back ok. Post a few to keep us lusting...

 

[SolaresLarrave]

Good thing some avatars haven't changed... Thanks for your interest in my pics, Gabriel!

Now... time to keep on trucking! 🙂

 

[oftheherd]

Welcome back! Looking forward to some of your photos.

 

[Ken Ford]

Hi, Francisco - welcome back, just in time for the heat wave!

Bought and sold a C-V 25mm, actually - I decided that, while it was a great lens, I wanted to stick with focal lengths supported by my .72 M6's internal framelines. So, the 25 was sold for a used C-V 28mm 3.5.

I also picked up a used C-V 75mm, so my M kit is complete as far as focal lengths go. If these work out, I hope to replace the C-V lenses with Leica as budget allows - say, one every ten years or so. 😉

I also picked up a CL to go with my 40 and 90. The jury's still out on this one - it's a nice body and makes for a compact kit, but I haven't "connected" with the CL way of doing things as of yet.

Again, welcome back to the land of corn!

 

[jaapv]

Hi Francisco! The forum was not the same without you. (Now is that good or bad 😉). When you post some results in your gallery please let us know!