Dulled by electronics ?

[dee]

I recently discovered Leica II / IIIc / IIIF , which was like a light in fumbling darkness .
Though i mess up many shots , it's a real world away from auto exposure / auto focusing / plastic everything .

Enter my M 8 , dream camera , if ever there was one - an impossible dream until an inheritance brought it all true ...

But now I can view the results of my attempts instantly - my memories of how and why , not distanced by the time waiting for slides to return .

And one lense . 50mm going on 66 on the M 8.[ Well , several actually , but all 50mm! ]

I was certian that a 35mm equivalent was the next on the list , but no , a 90/120mm is the 1st ''essential '' for closer architectural dee'tails .

i had been ''dulled '' by a decade with a 35/100mm [ nominally ] zoom , on my 1997 35mm Minolta SLR , and laterly , my Canon G2 - i no longer realised what focal length , I had set - I just mindlessly zoom in and out .

This shocked me - just as I had lost the ability to overide the meter , simply by turning to manual and bracketing - all buttons and switches on a modern camera .
It will not be for everyone - but a return to 50s simplicity-with-pixels has awakened all the stuff I learned in the 60s about creating pictures - i will never be '' good enough '' to show pics in this company , but i was shocked at how much '' knowing '' had been eroded .

dee