John Shingleton’s story of frustration with his Contax rangefinders brought a little sequel when John pointed me towards the excellent Japan Camera Hunter site and an article by Dutch photographer Steve Karsten, now living in Michigan. Steve moved over to film five years ago and went through a whole bagful of film cameras before having a love-hate relationship with, guess what, the Contax G2. As he says, it broke him.
I had (spent) $1500-1800 or more in on Contax G2 bodies and NONE of mine worked. Eighteen hundred dollars gets you into super tasty ttl M6s, mint M3s with glass, two user M2’s, maybe a user black paint, an M4 plus glass…so many great Leica cameras. All of which would still be working today. I tend to learn things the hard way.
That’s why Steve is a fan of Leica film cameras, despite the high initial cost. He now owns an M2, M3, and M4 but believes that the M2 is his favourite — he’s leaving that story for another day.
Read Steve’s full story of his journey down the Via Dolocontax is here.
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