At Beauly Priory... beneath where the crows or pigeons roost. It stank. Really stank. Don't tell me - I know - it's a crap photo.

Stopped off here for a Blip hunt, whilst on my way to the nearby Ffordes camera shop. Promptly bumped into one of their staff, along with two friendly salesmen from Leica, and some potential Leica customers. I'd forgotten there was a Leica demo day on today. The reason I'd forgotten was that I've no desire to buy one of their cameras... nevermind the lenses to go with them. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against Leica. I've just never been attracted to their 'stuff'. The fact that my humble job has a salary of the meagre variety, may play a part... though I was on my way to Ffordes with the hope of buying a none too inexpensive camera and lens at the time - been saving for a while.

Leica salesman tries to get me interested, and hands me a camera. My goodness. It was much bigger than I'd expected. Very much heavier too. I didn't like either of those features. Looked through the viewfinder, and (of course) manually focused the lens with the rangefinder thingy. Nothing struck me about that as being special in any way. I thanked him, and handed it back. He didn't seem to believe me that I wasn't really interested in one.

Chatted a while; visited the bank; and then went off to the shop. The secondhand camera that I was interested in, was also a rangefinder. And it had an M-mount, as Leicas do, so can take their lenses. But it wasn't a Leica. Took one look through its viewfinder, and - unlike the Leica - there was a pause... "Wow!" I've never looked through such a large, bright, indeed, 'glorious' 35mm format viewfinder. Fantastic. I was sold. The camera body was smaller and much lighter too. But then again, it is a film camera.

Next item - a lens was required. Likewise not a Leica one. A Zeiss 35mm f/2 lens. I was amazed at how small it was. Lovely wee thing. Very classy. That was more than enough. Away home to load a film, and go out to play. The manual had been downloaded and read a few days before.



Nikon F100 : f/11 : 1/100" : 40mm : ISO 400

Lens: Voigtlander 40mm f/2 Ultron SL II (with K2 yellow filter)
Film: Kodak TRI-X 400 (B&W negative)

[Frame : 08]