I’ve been intrigued by Contax SLRs for a while so I eventually caved and got an RTSii and I’m blown away. It’s beautiful. a Porsche designed solid hunk of metal with a luxurious feel. Black leather grips, a red led digital viewfinder readout and a minimalist design. All that’s missing is the Knight rider theme tune and the smell of Drakkar Noir. It’s a high quality piece of kit and I’m surprised that they don’t cost more on the ‘bay.
A few years ago my parents got me my first own camera – a Leica Vlux 114. Before that I just shot my pictures with cameras, which I lent from them. Soon after that I bought a Leica M6 and Elmar 50mm f/2.8. That was the moment when I was bitten by the Leica-Bug.Since then I bought and tried many cameras, lenses and films.
The Olympus Trip 35 is a much vaunted little camera and has many admirers, me included. I feel like I came to the party late on this one. Having shot film pre-digital (there wasn’t any alternative then) and completed a City and Guilds in black and white photography using my now late fathers Pentax K1000, I had given up on film and sold all my gear, the K1000 included (shame on me) and bought a small digital compact.
At the beginning of this year I found myself in one of Japan’s second hand camera shops. Wherein I fell in love with a Rolleicord II. It seemed as if it was meant to be for I have never owned a medium format camera before. Being in a foreign country, this seemed like a faultless opportunity for me to try new things.
It’s been 8 months since I made the decision to leave Australia and move to Osaka, Japan and it’s been an incredible experience. One of the biggest challenges I had when packing was choosing which cameras to bring over to use during my time here. After much contemplation I settled on these three: Fujifilm XT1 (digital, I know), Fujifilm GA645 and the Lomo’Instant Wide camera (which I barely ended up using).
