Leica Leica X1 Image Thread

X2 in New Zealand - last 3

And 3 more to finish.

Some hiking on the cool springtime slopes of the volcano Mt. Ruapehu
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A typical "bach" (cottage or cabin to most...) on the western coast
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What the guts of an active volcano looks like: White Island volcano, off the NE coast of North Island
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OK. If the X1 were not brand new to me, I'd just put these in the black and white thread, where I'll probably double post them anyway, since it gets more traffic. But these two come from my first walk out with the X1, within minutes of unboxing it. (I've heard about that box, but it really has to be experience.) My kit, which looks brand new, came with the camera, the Leica optical viewfinder for it, the accessory grip, three Leica batteries, a Leica SD24D flash unit (which works like a charm with this camera), the filter attachment with B&W brand ND and polarizing filters, and last (and to my mind least by a mile), a brand new, unused ever-ready case 187544 -- the prettier but equally useless one -- all for $700. I think it's a steal. If anyone likes those cases, I'm probably going to sell it cheap, but the last one sold on ebay was in November, so I guess there about as popular as I think they deserve to be. Sorry. Photographing with the front flap of a case hanging down never made sense to me. But I digress (as I'm wont to do). The pictures:

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The black & whites are really nice from this camera as I recall :) Will be nice to see your colour ones too :)

Before getting into digital photography, I was a black and white shooter almost exclusively for years. After a back injury I sold my 4x5 outfit for my first digital camera -- the Olympus E-300, I think. (Too bad, because my back is pretty strong these days.) I'm never happier than when I'm visualizing black and white images. I see forms that I don't see when I'm thinking color. The world, in a sense, reveals itself to me with possibilities I'd never guessed when I'm thinking in black and white. I'm more often astonished by the world in that medium, which in some sense seems more real to me. I have both black and white and color portraits of people I love and have loved; invariable, the black and white seems to go to the heart of who they are. To me. Oddly, the world seems more pregnant with possibilities for discovery in monochrome, and it was the magic of silver gelatin prints that drew me into taking pictures in the first place. The reason I still shoot film. Color -- again, for me, I only speak for me -- can be like the environmental noise that I put my hearing aids on program two to mitigate. a distraction. And I think really good color photos are very, very hard to get.

But there will be plenty of color from the X1. I have a 99th birthday party in the family within a couple of weeks -- for which (God help me!) I'm flying to Boston.

By the way, I got my first hearing aids two days before my Leica X-1, a really good week. Participating in a conversation in a noisy cafe this afternoon, instead of withdrawing and nodding stupidly, was just wonderful.
 
Well, it's 2015. Today marks my ownership of my 3rd X1! This one is a pristine Steel Grey beauty. I've been from M9, XVario, X2 ...my overall favorite has always been the X1. Of course the M9 was fabulous, sadly I had a progressively difficult time focusing with it. The little one is great to pop into my pocket and just have fun when I don't want to have my full Canon rig in tow. With both my SLR and the X1, all is right with my world now.
 
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