Lovely little movie. I may ride a different bike—Moto Guzzi—but the dream of riding in the emptiness and beauty of early morning's cool, slowly, drinking in the glory of another sunrise, and making photographs with such a beautiful machine as a Leicaflex SL is the dream I woke to for most of my life. For if I can see another sunrise, and hear the quiet chug of the machine taking me across this world, I have been able to live another day. And there is no greater joy than that.
The Leicaflex SL I first came across at the camera shop in my home town, Camera Craft, in 1969. I picked it up and fell in love with it instantly. Heavy, solid, beautifully made, every surface on it a joy to touch. Owning one was a fantasy until 2013, when I found that no one was valuing the Leica reflex cameras for some odd reason. I had two for a while, and a big batch of lenses, and they were every bit as wonderful to hold and use as my fantasy had held them to be all those years.
I kept one of them, a black one made in 1972, and a modest kit of lenses (19mm, 50mm, 60mm macro, 90mm, 100mm macro, 180mm). I use it rarely and always with great joy. Although I have a great fondness for the Nikon F plain prism that reminds me of my first "real" camera, the Leicaflex SL is my all time favorite 35mm SLR. No other 35mm SLR has ever had that feel or those lenses ... brilliant and superb.
They're expensive to repair, parts are scarce, meters are sometimes funky as heck, prisms are old enough to be delaminating, etc. None of it matters to me.
G
Leicaflex SL + Summicron-R 90mm f/2
ISO 400 @ f/2 @ 1/500
