Chasing a Hot Dog with a Leitz-Minolta CL – By Dan Castelli
Like many photographers, I have a camera that serves as back-up to my primary photography equipment. In my case, it’s the Leitz-Minolta CL with the 40mm f/2.0 M-Rokkor lens.
The CL has its quirks. There are dozens (hundreds?) of articles that can be accessed online that’ll give you an idea how radical this camera was in the Leica world. I won’t rehash the accounts here; that’s not the purpose of this story. I will say, it takes a bit of practice to develop the muscle memory to handle the CL, especially if you’re familiar with the workings of the Leica M series.
I found myself needing some hands-on time with the CL because of my infrequent use of the camera. So, long story short, I took a deep breath, put away both my Leica M2 & M4-P and started to use the CL for the summer of 2017. Let the learning curve begin!