A Bessa in my hands
Which way should I go? – Ilford HP5 – Rodinal – Bessa R2A
When Chris and I went shooting on Sunday, we swapped cameras. He’s always wanted to shoot a Leica, so I brought my M6 to town and let him have at it. He was kind enough to bring his Bessa R2a with him, another rangefinder. For the time that we spent together, I used the Bessa, he the Leica.
Of course, given two cameras, photographers can find a reason to have an impassioned argument about which is better, blah, blah, blah. Who cares? This post is my impression about using the Bessa:
First, I like the handling of the Bessa. It has a nice little protrusion on the back where your thumb fits quite naturally. A very well thought out addition. This is missing on the Leica and would improve its feel quite a bit, but as I am used to it, no big deal. The Bessa is slightly larger and bulkier. This could be an advantage to those with larger hands. The sound of the R2a is not a solid as the Leica. The Leica just ‘feels’ and sounds like a better machine.
Inside of the R2a, the display uses red LEDs to give you the selected shutter speed in a glowing red LED and the recommended shutter speed in a flashing red LED. I found this rather distracting and was the only thing that I didn’t like about it. I liked the simplicity of the Leica’s opposite pointing red arrows. No flashing at all. Also, depending on the scene, the R2a’s display was sometimes difficult to see. I’ve never experienced this with the M6.
Film loading in the R2a is much more familiar to the way I loaded it ‘back in the day’; however, as I’ve gotten used to loading the M6 in the quirky Leica way, I find it faster. That said, though, I’m usually at a loss as to what to do with the bottom plate as I’m loading, especially if I want to walk and load. Sometimes I just drop it into my pocket.
I’ve had the M6 and a 50 mm Summicron lens since I’ve had the camera and it is the only lens that I own for it. I’ve always wanted to try a 35 mm lens and Chris’s Bessa had such a lens on it. He’s wanted to try a 50 mm and that’s what I had, so it all worked out well.
As for the photos, I really enjoyed the process with the R2a. I especially liked the 35 mm lens. It gave a wider view. I came away that the 35 mm is closer to what I actually see. The 50 mm is a more narrow view. It makes me consider getting a 35 mm; however, I have come to like the lack of having a choice to change lenses. I never have regrets. 
Overall, I’d say that I really liked the Bessa and if I were in the market for a rangefinder, I’d probably purchase a Bessa and a lens for the same price as I paid for the Leica body; furthermore, the manufacturers of the Bessa did a fantastic job of “borrowing from” the Leica design. Sure, they made a few changes so you’d know it was a different camera: Back load instead of bottom, LEDs instead of arrows, a few switches on the top, etc, but overall, you can tell where the design came from.
It was a good experience and one that I’m glad that I had. Thanks for the loan, Chris.
Is there an M9 in my future?
My good friend, Monte, has given me a good shot to the ribs a couple of times about saving money for an M9. This all started when he, Earl, and I had dinner when he was in town. I made an off-hand comment that I ‘might’ get, or was thinking about getting a Leica M9. To be sure, it was just a thought.
Previously, I had exchanged a few e-mails with Paul Butzi about his experience with his M9. He provided very good feedback. I asked a few questions about usability and how close it felt to the M6, as he was an M6 power user, shooting thousands of rolls of film with it. He assured me that I’d just fall right into line with the M9.
The thing that I couldn’t get over was the price. $6995. OK, let’s just say $7K. I can think of lots of better things to do with $7K including taking a pretty damned exotic trip with my D300 or M6!
Anyway, like I said, it was just a passing thought, and to be completely honest, I just cannot see myself spending that kind of cash on a new camera. That was simply thought up in a moment of laziness, instant gratification desire, and overt consumerism.
We never know, but more than likely, I will NOT buy an M9. I have always wanted to live simpler life, free from the rampant consumerism that I see here in the US. I need to stick to that because it is what feels right for me; however, every once in a while, that consumer bug bites me, or should I say, I’m drawn to the church of consumerism. Meditation is a good repellent for such things.
It’s all gone now
Found memories
This is an image of the former YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). When I was younger, we’d catch the bus downtown and walk to the YWCA. They had swimming for 2 hours for $1.00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was fun stuff.
Last year, I made a book for SoFoBoMo, In Retrospect, which can be found here. It was inspired by a trip that I made back to Ohio to visit my sister. In the book I took you on journey from elementary to high school. At the time of that writing, my high school, Central-Hower, had been closed.
When I went back this year for a visit, I found that both my middle school, Goodrich Middle School, and my elementary school had been closed as well. The elementary school, McEbright Elementary, has been torn down and is being replaced by what they are now calling Learning Centers. These are two floor, high tech elementary schools.
I took Chris Klug by the school to show it to him, as he was interested in where I lived and where I went to school. I was shocked to see that the school no longer existed, but found instead, the skeletal beginnings of the new learning center. Time marches on. Now, even as I type this, I remember my old school, the faint smell of coal dust from the furnace in the basement, and the sounds of traffic that passed on Cole Avenue. The school was so old that it was not air conditioned. I wish that I could have walked the halls once more.
So, the moral of this story is, if you are thinking about doing a book, or anything, do it now. Don’t wait for tomorrow, for tomorrow, you might not have the opportunity … it just might be gone.
Suddenly, my walk didn’t seem so long
This is a photo of my favorite statue in Akron. It’s a sculpture of a Native American carrying his canoe between the waters of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers. Carrying a canoe or watercraft between two navigable bodies of water is called a Portage. This sculpture is on an appropriately named street, Portage Path. The history of Portage Path is that it was an 8 mile portage between the previously mentioned rivers. The Native Americans used this path to carry their canoes between those bodies of water.
I walked a good deal this weekend. Nearly 11 miles on Saturday morning and about 9.5 on Sunday morning. Monday morning, I had to give my feet and joints a bit of a rest, only walked about 3, perhaps 4. Anyway, I stopped along the Towpath trail, which is a trail between Akron and Cleveland, Ohio. This is the same path that the Erie and Ohio Canal used to get goods between Akron and Cleveland. Of course, I didn’t walk the entire distance or I doubt that I’d be writing this right now! I would have been exhausted.
As I was walking, I thought of how they carried canoes across those vast distances. 8 miles is no joke just walking; however, carrying a canoe and walking, well, that’s a whole different story. It’s no wonder they were in such great shape!
I’m glad to say that at no part during my walk did I have to carry anything heavier than my S90!
Flashback: Childhood memories
During this morning’s walk, I had a childhood memory flashback. We were about half way through the walk, heading northwest, or thereabouts. I looked up, saw this cloud formation and immediately thought: Look! There’s a porpoise. Immediately, I had a flood of childhood memories.
I remembered reclining on the grass, a blade of grass sticking out of my mouth like a proper country boy, watching the clouds go by, their amorphous shapes shifting in and out of recognition, limited only by my imagination. My memories tell me that I spent lots of time doing that, but in reality, it was probably for brief moments of time, as it was summer, school was out, I always had something else to do.
Thinking of that reclining on grass, I remember when I had to cut the same lawn. It seemed like acres and acres, but it was really a postage stamp sized lawn, easily cut in a few minutes. But, when you don’t want to do the task, it can seem vast. That connected to another memory of when I became industrious and put the lawnmower to use by going around and offering to cut lawns for $5.00. I made quite a bit of money. During the off-season, I collected soda bottles, which had a deposit of two cents, glass milk jugs were worth 10 cents, but were rarely to be found!
Of course, like any proper, well fed young man, all of my money went to junk food … that was before I discovered cameras!
Great having a camera around all the time
Though I will probably never take as many photos in several years as Juha takes in a single year. That guy is prolific!!! I’m really enjoying this camera. I keep it in my pocket at all times, even during the business day.
It comes in handy, especially at lunch time when I’m sitting outside eating. So much to see! For example, I was sitting at a table near this fountain and this little girl came up, plopped down on the bench next to it and was in her own world. I pulled the camera out of my pocket and snap, snap, snap, there you have it. Convenient, unobtrusive!
This afternoon, some coworkers and I were working in one of the conference rooms. They took a break to go out to Starbucks to get some coffee. Me? I noticed the cool looking shot that I could have from the conference room window of the next door tower, Hearst Tower. Out comes the camera and click! There you have it.
I’m rather liking this thing even though it is a Ca … Ca … Ca … non! LOL!
Canon S90: On the street
The other day, I went and took some snapshots in the field across the street. As I said, it was hot and so I was not really in the mood to experiment much. Now that I’ve had a couple of days to play with the camera, I can do a bit more with it.
The first thing that I wanted to do was to see how it worked while walking. So, Thursday morning I drove into work, parked, and left the parking lot on my usual route to work. I tried a number of shots while walking. It takes some getting used to. It seems a bit unnatural to hold a camera out in front of you rather than looking through a viewfinder. That’s just the old school coming out in me. I will say that the S90′s screen is pretty peppy as far as the update is concerned. As I moved, the camera’s screen updated almost instantly.
Of course, being an older guy who now uses reading glasses all of the time, even as I type this, I have to find the correct distance to hold the camera so that “my” auto focus works! The camera does just fine, it’s my eyes that have the problem.
Walking and shooting is sort of like playing one of those fighter pilot video games where you have to get the circle inside of the square and the square on the target to get locked in. With the S90 is a matter of getting the square on the subject, pressing the shutter release half way, and getting a green square. The challenge is to do it while watching the display bob up and down, left and right, all the while trying not to run into anything. I was able to accomplish it a number of times. If you put camera on servo auto focus, as soon as you acquire a subject, it will do tracking for you and then you get a blue square, but I have turned this feature off because it keeps refocusing. I want to compose, move, shoot.
I took this photo while walking back from lunch without even breaking my stride. As you can see, the guy is looking directly at me. What’s he gonna do, spray paint me? Hmmm, I suppose that he could have! Haha.
Ove mentioned in a previous comment that the photos that I took looked flat and needing of a bit of sharpening. True. I took them basically right out of the camera, didn’t push the saturation slider at all, etc. So, I guess you could say that it wasn’t a fair assessment of the camera’s abilities. Everything was shot raw, so things do look a bit dull.