semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
It is a matter of priorities.
A few people were surprised when I bought a new M6 in grad school, on a pretty minimal income; they didn't think about the fact that through more than 90% of college and grad school, I did not waste money by owning a car, and I managed to live cheaply. I chose to go to grad school in Portland, where (at the time) the cost of living was low compared to places like San Francisco and Boston, yet the graduate stipends were comparable. Over the same interval I paid off two of my three student loans. I also don't have cable TV and I borrow CDs and books from the public library. My wife and I share one eleven year old auto, and take public transit a lot of the time. We live in a beautiful corner of North America, and most of our vacations are local and involve camping or hostels, rather than fancy hotels. All of these savings add up.
We feel fortunate to live well -- by our own standards -- and to have productive and enjoyable jobs at this time when the economy is so difficult.
I am patient. I have saved money for my gear over periods of years, and I hang on to my gear for a long time. My first SLR, purchased with funds from newspaper delivery in high school, was a cheap, used K-mount Ricoh with a 50 mm lens. My second SLR, a Nikon, was paid for by work that I did for the same newspaper, using the Ricoh. Over the ensuing years I ended up with 3 Nikon bodies and several lenses. For most of this period, I also bulk-loaded and developed all of my own film.
Then in grad school I sold almost all the Nikon stuff to buy a new M6 and two used lenses. I've since sold one of the Leica lenses (for more than I paid for it, making a decade of use essentially free), but I will continue to shoot the same M6 until I can no longer get film or the camera is lost or destroyed.
Today you can get absolutely marvelous cameras used for very little money. A Nikon FE or FM in terrific condition with a great 50mm lens can be had for $200 to $250. A fixed-lens rangefinder can be had for even less money. For practical purposes, these cameras will do what my M6 does, for somewhere between 1/5 and 1/10th the price.
I'm not kidding: that battered old Ricoh body (today worth maybe $25) is sitting on my desk as I write this, freshly loaded with Tri-X and fitted with a Pentax 50mm lens that I got for $30. I'm as stoked about taking that camera out as I am about the M6.
Here are MTFs for the Leica Summicron-M and Pentax 50mm f/2 lenses. The Summicron does better wide open but by f/8 they are almost indistinguishable, except in the very corners of the frame.
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