It's cooling off, dribbling rain and monotone gray outside. I'm inside kitting out my camera.

Austin Downtown. 

Leica SL (original)

Panasonic 20-60mm lens.

The Leica Q2 is.... cute. By that I mean it's designed (visually) to be better than it has to be in order to do its job. If you believe that its job is to make photographs. I mention this with full intention because I believe you really don't need to bring items that are not well designed into your life even if they do function just fine and cost less. Design is usually its own reward.

Whenever a Leica product is reviewed or mentioned on Digital Photo Review's website several people will write a comment saying how well designed or beautifully designed the product is. Then, without fail, several commenters will make the statement that they Never Consider aesthetics or design when shopping for a car, an appliance, or a camera. I feel sorry for people who are incapable of seeing good aesthetic design as a valued feature in the material goods they choose to bring into their lives and use daily for years; maybe decades. It just doesn't make sense. A preference for good design is one of the things that differentiates us from robots. Or straight-line thinkers. 

Sadly, I think I've spent far, far too long having to budget pennies and watch expenses. Now that I can actually afford to buy myself a wasteful but fun camera I find myself worried about the consequences of rough handling. Edge wear on the bottom edges of the camera from putting it down on rock walls and setting it on the pavement. Dings and paint chipping from bumps and scrapes. If I was really wealthy none of these things might bother me. If my camera got too scratched up (and if I cared about that kind of wear) I'd just trade it in on a new one. But my brain certainly isn't operating in that lofty, elitist sphere most of the time.

I thought I'd do what most paranoid, luxury camera owners do and try to protect the object as well as possible. To that end I started researching half cases. Half cases are what we old timers would recognize as the bottom halves of leather "every-ready" cases that came packaged or were available as protective, fitted cases for cameras. You may also know them as "Never Ready Cases." Camera makers supplied versions for each of their SLR cameras back in the 1970s. Something that vanished completely for a while but which are being resurrected for cameras now by high end camera makers and also many third party companies. A "half case" protects the part of a camera that seems to get the most incidental damage. The bottom plate and the bottom corners and edges of a camera. 

I started out by looking to see what Leica might have for me and found that they make a nice half case for the Q2 camera but for the princely sum of $220. A bit rich, I thought, for something that used to come as standard for even most most base level interchangeable lens cameras from the past... So I researched further on one of my favorite online sites for a seller of all things Leica. Much to my shock, horror and amusement one can spend $350, $450 and up to $950 to purchase a small, leather half case from a number of companies which specialize in Leica cases, bags and straps. I want protection for my new camera but don't feel as though that protection should cost more than the monthly payment on a Tesla.

With my cheapness on full display I headed for the refuge of every bored bargain hunter: Amazon. There I found an assortment of Leica Q2 half cases which ranged in price from $17..95 up to and including the nose bleed options from Leica. Amazon, wisely, seems to have drawn the line at full on absurdity and are not currently helping to move many of the "over $500" half cases. And I have to say that unless the materials include leather found on some exotic off-world expeditions held together with unicorn mane threading I just can't see the difference in value of a luxe Leica branded case and any of the more "esoteric" cases. 

I took a chance and ordered a Mega-Gear branded case for a whopping, eye-watering $28. Free shipping with Prime. The case arrived quickly as it did not require armed guards to ensure its safe delivery. The case looked just fine, smelled like real leather and also came with a leather strap. It fit snuggly on the first try but over the last few days has loosened up and feels more naturally fitted now. There are little trap doors on the bottom that allow one to change the battery and SD card without full case removal. The trap door works well on the battery side but is a bit misaligned on the SD card side. Nothing that can't be fixed with a little work and the sharp edge of a Kershaw Leek pocket knife blade. But the case does what I wanted it for quite well; it creates a good, stiff, resilient barrier between the sweet black anodized body of the camera and the harsh chaos of the outside world. 

I might try one more case in the $60 range but then again I may just decide to be happy with this one. It does the job. The step up might do the job with a slightly better fit...

Certainly I'm opening up myself here to the scathing rebuke of some "witty" commenter who will no doubt contrast my willingness to "overspend" on a camera ("should have gotten a Sony and a bag full of lenses!") but be too cheap to spend Leica-Style money on a case for the same. Let it fly. I agree. I can only blame this particular shortcoming on being raised by depression era parents who thought things like college educations for their kids and retirement accounts were higher priorities...

Once I solved my equation concerning a good compromise for keeping the body of the camera in good shape it occurred to me that I should also depart from my usual, "No gratuitous use of non-essential lens filters" stance and figure out how to protect what is probably the most expensive part of this expensive camera; the lens. 

My usual take on lenses is that they are replaceable, meant to be used naked, and perform best with the fewest added air glass interfaces. Meaning no filters. Especially cheap filters. The urge to toss a "protection" filter on every lens, from crappy kit lens to weird third party optical catastrophe lenses bugs me. But as I started to ponder this use case a thought made it through my thick skull and I realized that this camera was a complete system with a non-removable lens and one scratch or chip on the front surface of the lens could be financial armageddon. I can't even guesstimate the cost of replacing a Leica front lens element on a Q2 but I know it would not be cheap, reasonable, slightly expensive or even "a bit pricey." 

I shoot out in the elements a lot so I ordered a high quality 49mm filter and put it on the front of the lens ASAP. So now....just now....I'm ready to venture out into today's mist and take a few shots with this pampered German art piece. I hope it's worth all the trouble. 

And.....yes.....I am crazy enough after shooting with the Q2 for only one weekend.....to actually be considering what kinds of things I could also do with a Q2 Monochrom. But I'll have to wait for a full recovery of the stock market before I even begin to go down that road...and my crystal ball is hazy there.

Over time I'm sure my prissiness about the "expensive camera" will wear off and I'll use it the way I've always used cameras. And stop babying it. That was the trajectory with the SL2 and now I consider it in the same light as my old and crusty SL cameras. Everything hits its equilibrium in time.

 

You don't need one mentor you need a whole tribe of mutual influencers and role models... And you need to give as well as take.

 

A portrait of one of my friends across decades. Famous advertising and editorial photographer, Will Van Overbeek. Here's his website: https://www.willvano.com/

I was over at Will's house on Friday. We were sitting in his enormous yard just a quarter mile or so from Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. Mark was there with us too. Mark's not a photographer per se. He spent most of his career as an emergency room doctor. But here we were watching the December sun drop down and blur into the horizon's haze, drinking glasses of wine and talking about life. How to retire. How to stay young. How to persevere doing the stuff you love. 

Will and I have known each other since the late 1970's when we were both at the University of Texas at Austin. He was in the Photojournalism school and I was vacillating, year by year, between an engineering college and the English department. Our common interest from the outset was photography. 

Will has spent the last 45s pursuing magazine editorial work. He beat me to St. Petersburg, Russia and Moscow by over a decade. He's been to exotic places like Azerbaijan. He's spent time in central Mexico and also spent more Summers vacationing with his family in the South of France. 

In some ways he is my polar opposite. He cares exclusively about the photographs. The finals. The prints. He is bored and unengaged by camera gear. For years he shot amazing stuff with an ancient Olympus RD35 film camera. It was a cheap compact camera. He loved it because he could sync flash at any shutter speed. That was all he cared about. I've never seen him with a Leica unless he was trying to act curious about some new camera I was smitten with in the moment. He's probably spent $10 on cameras and lenses for every $100 I've spent over the years....

I've learned so much from Will. He took me on a shoot about Mesquite furniture done for a shelter magazine and I watched him direct ultra-rich home owners with exactly the same attitude he used with car mechanics, restaurant workers and kid models. He brought me along on an assignment for a famous business magazine when he needed a last minute assistant. We were going to photograph the CEO of an up and coming (and now huge) Austin-based computer maker. I watched as the marketing director for the company tried to tell him how he wanted the shot to look and what should be in the background. Will said "no" and the marketing guy for the computer maker stuck his heels in and said that his suggestion was the way the photo was going to go. 

Will very calmly starting packing the lights and cameras up and I helped him. The subject of the article and his marketing guy were dumbfounded. They asked Will why he was packing up. He responded with a no nonsense delivery. He told them he didn't work for them. He worked for the magazine and the magazine hired him for his point of view; not theirs. If the computer guys didn't want a spread about their fast growing company in one of the world's biggest business magazines that was fine with him. They folded on the spot and Will did the job exactly the way he wanted to. It was an amazingly powerful lesson for me. I've used what I've learned from Will on nearly every shoot I've done since. 

He is brilliant, curious, always well informed and he understands his working techniques forward and backward. 

I'm sad that younger photographers aren't getting the opportunity to work with people like Will now. They learn what they think they need to learn from YouTubers like Peter McKinnon and legions like him. It's at best superficial knowledge created mostly in the service of selling more camera gear. Not making art. I'm lucky to know people like Will and from time to time I've been able to help him with snippets of post processing techniques or equipment recommendations. But he sure didn't need me to tell him how to work a band when we shot a rushed shoot with the B-52s. Or countless other celebs. His secret? He treats them like everyone else. And he treats each shoot like he is the final arbiter of.........everything in the frame. 

We had a nice sunset happy hour. He's a great host. And his biggest secret? He genuinely likes and respects almost everyone he meets. He's the definition of a highly talented artist who is at the same time non-judgmental. Nice guy. Seems to finish ahead of the pack most of the time.

It was one in a decade long series of casual conversations with good friends. What a holiday gift!