The temple cat

After a dog photo yesterday I had to slip in a cat photo and this one in as it is a personal favourite which has not been on the blog before.Taken in a temple in Myanmar in 2013.

George in the US ,whose vintage camera collection has previously appeared on the blog, has just emailed me to tell me about his latest acquisition -a Panasonic G7 which is a M4/3 so called mirrorless camera.It's a neat little device with a great specification and George is pretty enthused about some of the gadgetry in it .

I am tempted from time to time by the idea of a camera which would offer me access to wide angle lenses and telephoto lenses and zooms .So yesterday enthused by George's endorsement I went and handled the G7 and the current hot camera the Fuji X-T.The proprietor of the local camera shop was very helpful and very indulgent but seduced though I could have been by their specifications I kept returning to the fact that after 53 years of photography most of my best photos have been taken in the last 4 years with my Leica X1.
And the flipside of this is that I have come to realise that many of my photos taken prior to the last 4 years were not particularly good by today's standards.
There are explanations for this.I have been exposed to a lot more very good photography with the expansion of the internet and this has had the effect of stimulating me to lift my own game.
This blog and the ability to distribute my photos to a much wider audience has also had the same effect.Also having a very straightforward small camera with no options in terms of choices of lenses has meant that I have taken my camera with me much more often and has made me much more focussed on finding good subjects and composing my shots using my eyes and my feet not the turn of the zoom ring on a lens.
Also I appreciate the feel of the Leica so I enjoy using it.It is the same charge I got when I used my Leica M6 and which I get from using the Hasselblad.It feels like a precision instrument -not a plastic gadget.

So I have again put thoughts of other cameras behind me but  Leica is announcing a new camera on Thursday (in LA) and maybe that will tempt me.Although probably not as nowadays Leica's pricing has gone from premium to ridiculous premium and I am sure this new offering will not buck the trend.Which is sad but is not at the end of the day a great disaster as long as my X1 keeps performing .