f20090074tmax400_contact014, originally uploaded by photokalia.

Above: Clare unimpressed with the camera/lens setup. She prefers the Leica maybe?

It’s complicated, but since I am in the blogging mood, I might as well explain. I got a new lens for my mum’s old Olympus OM10 camera. It’s a 50mm f/1.8 lens that used to be sold as a kit lens together with the OM series of cameras.

I have been shooting a lot of film lately, and one of the problems I always run into that digital shooters never have to worry about is the issue of having black and white film in my camera when I want to shoot colour, and colour film in my camera when I want to shoot black and white (normally in horrible lighting situations where I know that I will end up with people looking like green-skinned aliens from another planet).

I toyed with the idea of getting myself another Leica, but I wasn’t willing to shell out that much cash for a camera that I essentially see as a spare, unless I’d made the decision to shoot film for the rest of my life and not look back on digital.

But I started out in digital, and I still think that digital generally does a better job at reproducing accurate colour compared to film. At its best, film colours can beat all the photoshop in the world, but most of the time, the results to me haven’t been worth the trouble, and I have come to the conclusion that if I want colour, I might as well just bite the bullet and go digital for that.

So I thought of getting one of those micro 4/3 cameras (still thinking hard about the Panasonic GF1 and 20mm pancake lens) to shoot colour, but again the cost is an issue. After a year in the land of Leica and film, I see how quickly digital cameras lose value, while the classic film cameras and lenses seem to hold their value quite well over the years.

That led me to think, “If I’m going to shell out cash to get a digital camera, why not just skip the GF1 and save up cash to go for my first choice?” I actually want to get a Leica M9. It’s full frame, and it’s a Leica rangefinder. Now that I’m hooked on rangefinders, this is a no-brainer for me.

Except… that the camera body alone costs a cool $9,000 to $10,000 at the moment. So that leads me to consider the Leica M8. Sure, it’s a 1.33 crop, and I will need those silly UV IR-cut filters to avoid getting purple instead of black when shooting black objects made of synthetic material, but it is at least more affordable at $3,500 for a used body.

But… if I’m going to save up and spend $3,500, then I’ll have to postpone that holiday that I desperately need.

So for now, my poor man’s solution is to spend less than $200 to get a decent lens and put it on a camera that I already have. The OM10 now has colour film in it, and my M6 has black and white in it.

And is all at peace now? Not quite. I love the lens, but I still prefer using a rangefinder compared to an SLR. As manual SLRs go, the OM10 is a great camera, but stacked up against my M6, there is no contest. I think it’s probably more of an emotional reaction, but I like the feel of the M6 much more. I have come to hate the shutter slap and viewfinder blackout of the SLRs, and I find focussing accurately on the SLR a challenge compared to the M6 (although this could be because the M6 viewfinder is much brighter).

So I’m still thinking very very hard… but at least thinking doesn’t cost me anything. Not for now anyway.