A change of direction
The last few months have been very difficult in China. China is still closed off to the rest of the world and as a foreigner working in China, I have been effectively barred from working at live shows or leaving my base city in China. From most people that I have spoken to, it seems that this will be the status quo until sometime in 2023. I have hardly worked since Covid-19 broke out in early 2020 and another two years of no work will be real torture on my bank account and my sanity. Over the last few months, I have been taking solace with my Nikon F2 and the Mamiya 645 camera, but something has changed with the way parcels are delivered now and almost all of the film I am ordering online is arriving with damage to the film. I have lost count of the rolls of film that I have shot, and once I have developed the film, all the shots are extremely damaged. Some can be corrected in photoshop but some shots are unsavable.
The Leica Q2M, hopefully, this will scratch my black and white itch until I can get some film that is not damaged.
This is an example of the type of damage the film has right now. Sometimes it is easy to photoshop out but sometimes it is impossible. It is heartbreaking to shoot a roll of film, and walk away with no images after development. Sometimes it does happen and that is part of the game, but when it is every single roll for the last 4 months, then it really does start to wear you down.
The complete shot from above with all the damage photoshopped out.
So I need to find another way to shoot what I enjoy. I love black and white shooting, but I dislike the results that I get from converting from color, especially when comparing it to the film shots that I used to get. So I decided to order one of the most expensive cameras of my life. The Leica Q2M.
This is my first Leica and my first impression is that it is kind of light. I expected the camera to have more heft to it. Maybe I am just used to using my old film cameras.
To be honest, I wanted the Leica M10 Monochrom but my Chinese bank card will not allow orders so large online, so I had to settle for the Leica Q2M which was the upper limit my bank card would allow for online purchases. If I was allowed to travel inside China, I would have traveled to Shanghai and bought the Leica M10 Monochrom in person but that is not possible right now as my city is back in lockdown.
Comparing my favorite camera, the Nikon F2 with a 28mm F2.8 E lens to the Leica Q2 Monochrom. I do most of my personal photography with a 28mm these days.
The Leica Q2M will be a step into a new direction for me now, as I will slow down on the amount of film that I am shooting because I have no idea if the roll of film is damaged or not. Once I can get some film that is not damaged, I will continue shooting film as I love the process but until then, most of my black and white work will be done on the Leica Q2M.
I love the Ricoh GRiii, it is a great pocket camera and it also sports a 28mm equivalent lens. The Ricoh is tiny compared to the Leica Q2 Monochrom.
My old Fujifilm XE3 with the 18mm(28mm equivalent) lens compared to the Leica Q2 Monochrom.
The Nikon Z6 is slightly larger than the Leica Q2 Monochrom and the 50mm Z lens is monstrously huge next to the 28mm lens of the Leica. I am not sure which camera weighs more, but I would guess it would be the Nikon.
This is my first Leica camera, so I don’t know anything about the camera. During the next few weeks, I will be using the camera and comparing it to my Nikon Z6, Ricoh GRIII, and my Nikon F2. I will try to document as much of this as possible, mostly to just keep myself busy and distracted from the reality of not working for another 2 years. So if you are curious to see how I feel about shooting my first Leica after spending years with a Nikon Camera in my hand, stay tuned to my blog as I hope to post updates each week.
Shaun