After a short experience using a Fed 1 I acquired my first Leica in early January. It's a IIIf red dial with a red dial Elmar 50/3.5. It was actually a flukey find as I was on my Honeymoon thinking "Leica" somewhere way back in my head (hey you take a lot of photo's when you travel) when my wife and I (on a 2 day stop over in Seoul at the end of our journey) went into an underground / under intersection shopping arcade. It was this crazy little space that's all terrazzo concrete and 1970's fit out. And what do we see? A Leica shop and I'm real temped by an early III (and my wife's going "buy it, buy it" btw
) but it's a bit too expensive for the condition ... the guy doesn't speak English ... wasn't looking to buy a camera today ... perhaps ... and the guy doesn't take VISA and so on.
So we go off to 'think about it' and we end up in another little underground arcade and what do you know? Another little Leica shop - and this guy speaks a little English and has three IIIf's and I can choose any 5cm lens / any body combination that I like for a fixed price - so I pick the best lens and the best body that I can see (I wasn't thinking about matching serial numbers) and I slap down the old VISA card which was crucial for this deal to happen as I can't withdraw more than a thousand Australian dollars a day from my savings account and
Seoul is expensive and I will drink the odd cup of coffee and my wife likes to eat. And so off we go, all smiles.
And how did that first roll of film turn out? Absolutely shocking! Don't believe that film is safe going through x-ray machines. Digital yes - film no. But the second roll ... Aaah delightful!