Leica M4-P – Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2 ZM – Fujifilm C200
Cake
I’ve sold my Leica at least five times. I know I sold it once to pay for a 55mm f/1.2 lens for my Canon F1, this was back in 2017, not long after I bought the Leica itself. I sold it again when I wanted to get a 120mm f/4 Makro for my Hasselblad. I’m pretty sure I sold it to pay for my Schneider 90mm for my Tachihara, and again when I upgraded my Alto 150mm for a Schneider 150mm. I think its sale might have also enabled an upgrade from GW690 to a GW690 MkIII.
The problem is that I never actually get around to selling it, I tell myself I’m going to, I spend the money I’m hoping to make from the sale, and then I ‘forget’.
The upside of this is that I have all of the things listed above, and I have my Leica, so I get to have my cake and eat it. The downside is that the Leica has been on borrowed time since I bought it, and I’ve never really felt committed to it.
It feels like I have too much money tied up in it. I didn’t pay what I should have paid for the camera, but like equity in a house, I’m haunted by the adventures I could have if I chose to liquidate the mythical value tied up in it, and continually question whether I can justify having one.
Examples of images made with the 7Artisans 50mm f/1.1
Fear of Commitment
Over the last 12 months the Leica has seen more action than everything I’ve sold it to buy combined. It’s become clear that the Leica is probably here to stay, and that I should probably engage with it as if it were staying.
A quick aside for the uninitiated, my Leica is a Leitz M4-P from the early 80s making it the budget Canadian Leica, and about the same age as me. When I got it, I got it with a 35mm Voigtlander which I didn’t like because I’m an idiot. I sold the 35mm for nowhere near enough money, regretted the sale, and I’ve been using my trusty 7Artisans 50mm f1.1 for the duration. (I did own a 7Artisans 35mm f/2 for a while, I’m not convinced I actually took any pictures with it).
The 7Artisans 50mm has been, to my eyes at least, fine. I’ve blamed any failures on my technique rather than anything optical, and it’s been nice to have all of that low light gathering potential, even if focusing at f/1.1 is a bit of a gamble.
It’s also pretty big and heavy, two things I can usually work around but there is a third problem.
Being able to shoot at f/1.1 comes in handy from time to time.
Optics of a different kind.
Using a Leica with a cheap lens has always felt a little odd, perhaps a little improper. It’s true that I’ve never been dissatisfied with the general performance of the 7Artisans but I have always felt that I ought to have a sexier lens.
I’m a grown man and a professional photographer, I shouldn’t care what other people think and yet I feel silly handing the Leica over for inspection with the 7Artisans on the front of it.
When people ask me about the lens, and they do from time to time, any pretence to existential enlightenment goes out of the window as I feel my own judgement reflected back at me.
After rediscovering the Leica for the 19th time last summer, I approached Hamish of 35mmc for a recommendation as to which 50mm Leica lens I should go for. (I could have done loads of reading and YouTube research, but Hamish has forgotten more about Leica lenses than I could ever learn.)
Hamish wanted to know whether I wanted to chase contrast, clarity, or whether age appropriateness would be more important. I realised I had no idea. Choosing an age appropriate lens would make sense, given that the optics I appeared to be worried about were concerned with what others thought of me and not the performance of the lens.
At the fulcrum
It feels like this is where the collector in me, the performer, the fetishist, and the photographer meet. I was chasing a Leica/Leica duo because I was more concerned about the appearance of the camera that the pictures. No matter which way I cut it, I was going to end up spending quite a lot of money on what was an entirely aesthetic decision.
I wound my neck back in.
The arrival of a new meter, a KEKS KM02 late last year brought the issue back to the fore. Once mounted the camera became that little bit bigger, that tad more unwieldy. Over the last few years my Canon EOS1 has done the bulk of the heavy lifting as far as 35mm film is concerned and the Leica was now as heavy and almost as big. It was now less like chucking a MJU into a pocket, and much more like packing an SLR for an adventure.
I figured that I wanted a smaller lens, which meant sacrificing the enormous aperture that the 7Artisans offered, I had by then begun using the 7Artisans at f/2 almost religiously and assumed that a sharper lens would perform better wide open at f/2, than the f/1.1 would stopped down. This put me in the market for a 50mm f/2 lens.
Bugging Hamish once more I asked if I could borrow his Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2 ZM. It meets my optical criteria while being smaller and sharper. It also feels like a more deliberate choice than the 7Artisans, might quell my feelings of inadequacy, and purchasing one wouldn’t sting as much as buying a Leica lens.
The Zeiss is superior to the 7Artisans. After almost six years with the 7Artisans I’ve become accustomed to what images out of the Leica are going to look like and the jump in clarity and contrast is jarring. A few look like I shot them with my R5 and emulated Portra’s tones, they feel almost incongruously sharp.
After a three month loan I’ve bought the planar from Hamish, (or rather, I’ve agreed to buy it, I haven’t paid for it yet). The 7Artisans is going to wait in the wings for bit, I can’t imagine not selling it, but I don’t want a repeat of the Voigtlander fiasco. (This isn’t one of those forget to sell deals, this is just for a bit, even if reviewing images for this post has made me question the entire exercise.)
I should note here that the KM02 is great. I’m still a little ham-fisted with it but the results seem to be working. I’m hoping with practice I’ll get a bit quicker, and be brave enough to start shooting some more adventurous emulsions.
Monkey
All of this vacillation, questioning and confusion has come about because my relationship with Leica has deep roots. Having one was a dream for a long time before it gradually became a possibility. Between the luminaries who’ve used them and the expense associated with joining the club, I spent years wondering whether I would have one, could justify one, needed one, could use one.
This continues to this day both with regard the M4-P that I already own, and every now and I go onto the Leica website to choose a digital body. I put one in the basket with a 50mm lens, look at the 5 figure price tag and imagine hitting checkout.
I read greedily of Leica World, in Wetzlar, and the museum/factory tour, hotel (and shop) and imagine swinging by and picking out my new M series.
I can’t quite imagine ever having the kind of money that would enable me to follow through and await a delivery. Even if I were wealthy, there would always be something that money could be spent on. Indeed, my attitude to my ’cheap’ Leica would suggest I might be purchasing £10-15k’s worth of buyer’s remorse. (How long could I spend in the woods photographing bears with that kind of money?)
Leica M4-P – Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2 ZM
I can’t decide if I’m a convinced consumer struggling to escape the thrall of a luxury brand, or a pianist fogging the window of a Steinway dealership. Either way it feels a little grubby to be obsessing over the cache equipment has instead of thinking about the images I’m making.
Leica ownership has come with its own set of challenges, it was months before I felt confident using the M4-P, and longer before I was happy with my results. All the while I wondered whether I’d bought myself membership of a club I didn’t belong in.
As it stands I’m in it now to stay, I’m a club member whether I deserve to be or not, and for the moment that will be with my M4-P and a Zeiss Planar.
The purchase of an age appropriate Leica lens for the M4-P is, to be honest, something I still think is going to happen eventually. This may be one of those itches that can only be scratched by actually scratching it. (I may borrow one for a bit, get a few rolls under my belt, and see if I can get that monkey off my back.)
The other monkey, the luxury monkey, the monkey that plans trips to Germany, and chooses one Summicron over another will likely stay. It will remain as one of the few true ambivalences of my life, and I’m probably going to be wrestling it forever.
Images made with the Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2 ZM