What do the current Leica 50mm Summicron, 50mm Noctilux and 75/90mm Apo-Summicrons have in common? They all lack a focus tab, something that I find near essential, especially in a smaller-diameter lens such as the 50 Cron.

Everyone loves a bargain. Earlier this year I tested one of Leica Mayfair’s D-Lux (Typ 109) contacts and thoroughly enjoyed the process. I took it to the Bièvres Camera Fair, near Paris, and it showed its mettle as a compact, thoroughly competent travel company. Since then I have been lusting but refusing the get out the credit card. I rather fancied a used example although, it has to be said, such are as rare as rocking horse manure. The D-Lux is extremely popular.

From an early age I had a compulsion to keep a diary, admiring famous diarists such as Samuel Pepys, although I suspected (rightly as it turned out) that I would never have anything to say that would be very interesting to others. No chance of Mike Evans's Diary in twenty volumes. It would be an exercise in vanity publishing and I would surely be the only reader. I never ceased trying. Every year I would buy a one-page-per-day annual journal and start out in good heart on January 1. Yet I believe the longest I survived was a month; I cannot remember which year. 

For the past month or so I've been trying out the new Fuji X-T1 and am now working on a short review. It's an X-T1 with fewer knobs. The X-T10 give up nothing much to the more expensive and heavier X-T1 other than its lack of weather proofing and its slightly less belly-and-whistly but nonetheless wonderful viewfinder.