The Cult Of Leica
Craig September 17th, 2007
What was Henri Cartier-Bresson talking about when he said it felt like “a big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst’s couch.”
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Leica. The closest a camera comes to a religion. Mike Johnston of the Online Photographer put it like this.
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And if you really get used to a Leica, nothing else will serve, either. It kinda gets under your skin. You get used to having nothing available but prime lenses—no zooms—in set increments within a fairly narrow range of focal lengths. (.72X Leicas can use lenses from 21mm to 135mm, but for practical purposes their best range is from 28mm to 90mm.) Your eye gets used to seeing like your lens does. You practice pre-focusing—that is, guestimating distance by eye and setting focus by feel—and get used to having a rather cavalier attitude toward the viewfinder, which you only use sometimes. You stop getting distracted by depth of field considerations, since you never look through the lens (think about it—with an SLR, you’re always seeing the least d.o.f. the lens is capable of). You get used to the ultraresponsive shutter and addicted to the quiet little “snick,” the one that splits into two parts at slow shutters speeds and that hardly anyone ever notices.
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In the New Yorker’s September 24 issue, Anthony Lanes takes a long, informative look at Leica - the history, the cult and the cameras. So grab a coffee, sit back and have a read. You won’t be disappointed.
