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For about 15 years, I used Canon A-1s & F-1s...They are very good cameras.
I decided to buy a Leica M-3 in 1999 and started thinking about the M-6 as
well. If I had bought an M6 in 1984 when they debuted, I could have had one
new for about $600...By the time I decided to "Bite the Bullet" the M6 had
topped two grand! If I waited till I could afford one, I might never buy one,
so I figured, just do it...My theory is: "If you buy a new car, you tend to drive it
more often...If you have a new lover in your life, you often make more love...
that said, if you by a new camera, you'll take more pictures" This turned out
to be true! Since a surprising amount of good photographs, happen when you
least expect it, it helps to always have a camera and to shoot anything that
seems even a little bit worthy. Film is still cheap and digital is even cheaper.
Always carry more film than you expect to use! Nothing's worse than finally
seeing something perfect, and not being able to capture it!
I'm not a digital expert, but I think extra batteries would also be the way to go...
My favorite lens is the 35mm 1.4 Summilux Aspherical. It's very costly,
but worth every penny! The 35mm is also the widest angle lens that has
absolutely no distortion to the edges of the image. I often use the 28mm
as well, but sometimes it becomes obvious that I used it and I prefer
if the lens doesn't distract from the detail in a photo, unless necessary...
I can say that TRI-X is a good all around film (you already know that!)
Many swear by HP 5 I tried Neopan 1600 once and didn't like it at all.
3200 Tmax is good, but I found that TRI-X rated at 1200 can provide much
better grain and better blacks (you know this too, so I'm wasting my time)
The T-Max liquid developer is real simple to use and seems just fine to me.
I love Ilford Galerie paper, but it does cost a fortune! I recently started to
print with Kodak again. Their Polymax Fine art paper is thick and seems
to allow for quicker printing times with my old enlarger (a 4x5 Beseler
If you want to learn how to print black & white photographs, you should read
Ansel Adams' book "The Print"
I find that tech talk is pretty boring... ("I use Acufine...I love Rodinal's grain!")
So it seemed like a good idea to add this page to my site, in order to try and
fend off all the e-mails I get, asking what camera and what film I use! Sorry...
OK, I was wrong! HP5 to me, is a better film. It is about a half stop faster than TRI-X and it's grain is finer too...Oh well, live and learn!
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