Wednesday 30 July 2008

A brace of Leicas subtly pimped

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This blog isn't going to become just a Leica appreciation society - even though there's much to appreciate - if for no other reason than that I don't own one. I do have a Leitz V35 enlarger but that doesn't count and, anyway, I haven't found a way to pimp it yet.

However, there's no denying that people love their Leicas and equally love to adorn them with all manner of add-ons. (Apologies if this post doesn't read the same as the others but I've just drunk a large glass of wine rather too quickly and can't see straight: I tried typing Babelfish into Google a minute ago and actually typed bblwfiah. Fortunately, muscle memory now seems to have come to the rescue of my fingers).

Further apologies are due now to the guy who pimped these ethnically diverse M6s - one black and one white. I found them on a website in what looked like a Scandinavian language. I searched and searched for an email link so that I could check to see if it would be OK to post them but couldn't figure it out. That's why I was trying to reach Babelfish - only to find out that they don't go in for Scandinavian.

Obviously, if the owner of the cameras objects in any way to their inclusion in this post, I'll ditch them straight away but hopefully that wont be necessary.

The black M6 is wearing a nice Gordy Coale wrist strap, a Leica M grip and a soft release which my limited Scandinavian doesn't allow me to identify. Gordy has a great series of pictures demonstrating how strong his straps are: in short, you can probably abseil with them.

The chrome M6 has a Tom Abrahamsson convex soft release (looks pretty much the same as the one on the black M6 if you ask me), an M grip and a lovely Voigtlander leather strap from Stephen Gandy.

It has to be said that the M6 is a mighty handsome beast, with or without handgrips. If only Leitz had taken a bit more care with the build quality, they might have had something to rival the OM1 ;-)

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