A journey through countless images: Defining what Leica means to me wasn’t an instant revelation — it took time, a photographic journey and a collection of memories.
Connecting and reconnecting
For me, Leica isn’t just a tool; it’s a philosophy that resonates deeply, connecting me to my past and to fellow enthusiasts. It made me find new friends and reconnected me to a colleague (Claus Sassenberg of the Leica website, Messsucherwelt) from university.
I had to choose just two images from the 40,000 captured with my Leica Q1—a compact, user-friendly full-frame camera—and 27,000 with my M10, known for its classic rangefinder design.
Memories of the journey come back
As I scrolled through my Lightroom catalogue, starting with the Q in 2018, I was quickly overwhelmed by memories. One wonders what makes a Leica so special — after all, any full-frame camera can capture a beautiful image. And there it was, the answer. The images told stories about our life over that time.
The pictures tell stories of vacations, familiar landscapes, and even destinations that no longer exist.
The simplicity of the Q, paired with its metal casing, the thoughtful arrangement of the dials, the awesome 28mm f/1.7 lens and its perfect colour rendering made it a pleasure to carry it around. It was always present for telling picture stories. I found myself utterly captivated. My wife and I started to argue about who was going to use the Q.
One morning, sitting on a rock in the Palatinate, I was approached by a man who asked if I still used that Q for landscape images. But he went silent when he saw the final image and the exposure values of ISO 100, 1/15s, f/1.7. He hadn’t seen a crystal-clear image over the full frame at f/1.7 before.
Recalling a photographic journey
This addiction resulted in a used M10 and two Summicrons, 35 and 50mm being added. The fight over the Q ceased. The times when I had used a manual focus system had long passed. The arrival of the M10 forced me to learn how to focus from scratch again.
Across the landscape
Many of my pictures are landscapes. It doesn’t require a lot of complication: tripod, lens set to infinity, grandad’s cable release, done. Simple, quick, and predictable results. And I love to do ultra-long exposures. Leaving home hours before sunrise with just that small bag with the M10, a couple of lenses, and a tripod.
To be honest, there are tasks that neither the Q nor the M10 can accomplish. I learned to respect that. But they made me want to go back to film photography for joy of it. They made me interested in vintage glass; resulting in a couple of purchases one of them a 15 blade Biotar 58 from the early fifties.
Connecting the past and present through a photographic journey
It seems like Leica can connect the past with the present and beyond. By using the M10, I felt connected back to my manual cameras. Is that the magic key of Leica?
One hundred years ago, Leica laid the ground for the full frame format, a size that was a revolution in photography back then and was the most used until smartphones entered the arena.
While smartphones offer convenience, they simply cannot capture the weight of history and emotion that my Q and M10 embody.
Discover more:
| More from Dirk Säger on Macfilos | Learn about the Leica Centennial |
| Leica Society International | The Leica Society (UK) |
| Leica Fellowship (UK) | Leica Cameras |
A cup of coffee works wonders in supporting Macfilos
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You have an amazing back-catalog. I’m glad we were able to experience a minute fraction of it. Though, I think it may lead people to want more.
An exquisite article and pictures.
I find manual mode and focussing makes me slow down and be more methodical on my image capture.