Secret Santa

In the Gearmills of your mind…

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of my favourite lens of all time. After owning one and then selling it, I recently re-bought one, in secret…

I’ve been through a fair amount of kit over the years. My constantly bubbling morass of a collection absorbs and ejects stuff like simmering stock.

The collection has grown and shrunk as I’ve tangentially explored photography. There was a period where I wanted as many cameras as possible, then the desire to reduce and concentrate became overpowering. The last few years have seen just such a condensation as unused cameras have been sold to make way for different, perhaps better or more niche ones. 

A larger collection has now given way to a smaller more valuable one, to continue the analogy, I’ve been reducing it on a rolling boil, making it stronger, more potent, (perhaps thicker).

The upside of this process is that the collection gets stronger and more focused, the downside is that on occasion I’ve parted company with something I wish I still had.

I think most photographers have unicorns that they’d love to catch, and that most also have a faithful steed or two that they wish they hadn’t released.

There are a few items that I’ve parted with over the years that I regret not being able to play with anymore, but I console myself with the knowledge that the flavour of my current collection wouldn’t be as strong and as vibrant if I hadn’t sold them and added the more recent ingredients.

It’s for this reason, and because I want to maintain the illusion that I’m not just randomly buying and selling stuff, that I rarely re-buy stuff that I’ve had in the past.

Like a wheel within a wheel

Last year saw a focus on the larger things, shooting my large format view camera as much as I have in a few years and getting to grips with one of the more recent additions to the stock, a Fujica G617.

As a result, my smaller format cameras haven’t seen as much action as they normally would. My Hasselblad has barely left the house and my 35mm cameras have been relegated to additional bodies and testbeds. They came out of the bag when the big guns were out of ammunition.

When the time came to review my images from 2025, I noticed that my favourite 35mm images of the year were those taken of a group of Fiat Cinquecentos on the day trip to the Barbican back in April. I made them with my EOS1 and EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, a pairing that I had with me because it had film in it and I had room in my bag.

I like the images, but what I really like is the parity between result and original vision, and the ease of manufacture.

After drafting a post about how hard I’m trying to make my M4P ‘an extension of my eye’, I keep wondering whether I’m barking up the wrong tree. The EOS1 has auto focus and the metering and consistently returns images I like.

The Leica may have the heritage and the caché, but if what I really want is a camera that gets out of the way, then is it time I learned to stop worrying and love the EOS1?

The circles that you find.

I bought my first 50mm f/1.2L back in 2015, brand new and on finance, (making it extra costly). The expense was leavened when it became the cornerstone of my personal and professional load-out clocking up 35000 keepers/deliverable images in 6 years. It had such a profound effect on my photography that I spent a few years considering a tattoo of its optical formula.

I couldn’t afford to keep it in the face of the crushing expense of moving to mirrorless. I held my breath in the hope that its legacy would live on in the RF 50mm f/1.2 IS USM. (It did, the RF is an amazing lens that I love and use more than any other in my RF collection.

I told myself I would not look back, and tried not to, but whenever I saw one for sale, (whenever I looked to see what they were selling for) I would crinkle my nose and wonder if I could make it work. I’ve very nearly bought three of them over the last few years, and each time I’ve sat on the fence and let someone else have them. Each time I told myself that nostalgia was just that, nostalgia, and then congratulated myself on being strong and sensible.

It turns out I am in fact weak and irrational.

The Windmills of your Mind

The idea that the EOS1 could be the eye-extension that I’ve been looking for hung on in my head. Remembering the improvement in image quality that came with upgrading the 50mm for my Leica, I may have accidentally looked to see how much a replacement EF 50mm f/1.2 might be, and then, tempted by a reasonable price, I might have placed a call. 

My second copy of the f/1.2 is a 2017, and I bought it for significantly less than I sold my first one, so you could say I saved myself the depreciation.

One of the advantages of being your own Santa Claus, (I’m bearded, fat, and often jolly) is that you don’t have to wait until Christmas to play with your new toys. I got shooting immediately, taking it out for the Christmas fair in Worcester, and then just shooting most of the Christmas break with it.

Somewhat unsurprisingly I really like it.

The combination of the lens’s wide aperture and the EOS1’s fast shutter makes for a flexible combination, 1/8000th of a second lets you shoot shallow even in bright light, and f/1.2 lets you shoot when it’s pretty dark.

I’ve paired it with Kodak Ultramax 400 because it’s a grotty and grey time of year and have taken it everywhere. I’ve re-learned how heavy an extra 400g feels on your shoulder and have been reminded that, just because you can shoot at f/1.2 doesn’t mean that you should.

I had planned for the 50mm to disappear into my studio and be just one of the lenses I had had ‘for ages’, but spending that much money on myself just before Christmas, felt wrong.

In the end I had to come clean about my secret purchase and I was placed firmly on the naughty list. While Santa didn’t bring me coal this year, he didn’t bring me anything else, which I see as perfectly fair, ( I hope to make it back on to the the nice list this year).

What remains to be seen is whether the extra expense, weight and extra friction with gift giving legends is worth it, can one tell from the images that this is a heavier and more costly lens? I’m not sure. What I do know is that I’m engaged with 35mm film in a way that I haven’t been for years.

(There is an irony that I recently parted company with my Canon 5D Classic, a camera that may well have seen a resurgence in interest upon the arrival of the new 50mm, but that left to help fund the 100-500 I bought for the Slovenia trip etc etc.)

Never ending or beginning.

So I’ve got a ‘new’ walk-around camera, one that gets out of my way, it meters and focusses and lets me stay in the moment. I’m embracing the flexibility and ease of use, I’m three rolls in and having a great time.

It would seem that the Leica might be due a bit of a rest, while I re-explore the capabilities of this set up, and yet I now find I have a new quandary.

I recently received my first roll of Leica Monopan film, the first film Leica has produced. A new black and white film with an ISO of 50 from any other manufacturer would automatically have gone into the EOS1 as my defacto test-bed for new films, but I’m genuinely conflicted about which camera to shoot it in.

Can I realistically shoot the Monopan in the Canon though when the Leica is there on the shelf? I mean, surely Leica film must go into the Leica camera?

Rockwell Moment

I don’t have affiliate relationships but it might be useful to know that my EF 50mm f/1.2 USM came from London Camera Exchange, (in this case the Reading branch). Everything in my bag came from LCE, the EOS1, the Kodak Ultramax and the Leica Monopan.