Hello. My name is Emily, and like most film photographers, I am an addict.

First, there was the four lens kit. A fast modern and a slow classic for each of 35 and 75. I resisted. Then came the new four lens kit – A modern 15, a classic 35 and semi-modern 75 and 135 lenses. That’s where I stayed for nearly four years, until I found myself with more time in the wild and less in the city. Then came the SLR, something I could shoot long distance with – a wide zoom, a fast standard and a tele zoom to sit on it.

Now we’re reaching winter, and I’m back in the city. It’s lockdown – if I drive to the woods I could be arrested – I can walk, with a camera even, but only if I stay in my own town. But the light is so rarely where I want it. I find my temptation creeping back in – A 35 1.2 would give me that flexibility, and such beautiful bokeh, and modern coatings to handle more difficult light…

I stop. I breathe. I have a good job, but even then – after my rent and bills a 35 1.2 is still well over a months’ salary. And beyond just the crazy amount of money – if I was to spend that cash more conservatively, what could I do? Service my long-suffering camera, have it’s advance put back to spec and it’s finder recalibrated. Service my 75 1.8; which has been out of commission for months having worked loose after the same accident that bruised my camera. Service my SLR, which sticks at low temperatures. I could do all of these things and still by a couple hundred metres of my favourite film, Eastman-Kodak 5222 – which I have been out of for years now. Then there’s debts to be paid, my car to be serviced, unplanned events that could crop up at any time, especially during the global pandemic.

So this post is a reminder to myself of all the reasons I stopped buying camera gear, why I sold most of my music gear, why I spent my money on better food and used books. And there’s a host of these reasons, simple and complex interspersed.

Reason the first: I got a film camera to stop having to buy cameras. My F2 was a bit of a conceit in 2020. Before that camera, the only SLR I had was another Nikon, one I inherited – it’s in need of servicing, but could easily be brought back to operation. But, it’s big, battery dependent, heavy – and the lenses that it had weren’t up to the standard I needed. Other than the two giant off-brand lenses I inherited with the camera, my own Nikon glass was battered and infested – the result of living in a cold, damp hovel by the sea for half a decade. I could have lived without an SLR, or with the cheap kit I had – but I indulged myself. One tragedy is that the whole kit with three lenses barely cost me over £500 – a somewhat ridiculous price for what I picked up. But this in itself was somewhat of a betrayal of my original reasoning – I bought the M4-P, because (except for a few specialisms, like wildlife) it’s the only stills camera anyone should need. It can comfortably use lenses from 10mm to 135mm, has framelines for both of the most common “three prime kits” and is built like a tank, with no parts that can’t be replaced with new, even forty years after it’s release.

In 2015, I was looking to replace my 5-year old DLSR. I spent weeks researching like for like replacements – and I stopped because it was eating up my life. In 2020, this has happened again, and research has consumed me. Research to find the “Ultimate Workhorse SLR”, then to find a complete lens kit that was compatible with the F2 and would give me the performance I wanted. Research into a faster replacement for the F3.5 Summaron lens I’ve been using for almost half a decade – something I only bought because I thought my Elmar was faulty. Research into other people’s kit – to advise, to compliment, to offer critical feedback, and to entertain – my deliberately sarcastic attitudes to the M2 and M6 (two fantastic cameras, for the record – just with flaws that people tend to gloss over) have provided myself and a great number of others with many hours of enjoyable argument on Leica’s subreddit. It was fun, and it kept me busy during the first lockdown when I had nothing else to do – but it’s taken up far too much time of late.

Reason the second: #BuyBooksNotMegapixels. A personal parody on a popular film photographer slogan – buying a new lens or camera teaches you nothing, especially when it’s a direct replacement for something you already have. Researching what to buy only teaches you how to buy things better – a self-destructive circle in itself. Books teach, books enlighten, books bring joy – far more than the most well-machined camera objective. I’ve certainly spent crazy money on books as well, most notably my copy of Minamata, which I jumped on for a mere £100, after seeing them for sale at ten times that. Currently, they go for around £150 – so money well spent. But books like Minamata, and the Magnum Contact Sheets (I paid around £60, currently selling at around £150-£300) can hardly be called budget-friendly. My collection of James Ravilious’ work is also extensive, and was not an inexpensive library to create. But, they have proved their worth time and again, and a hardback book will last as well as any camera lens with love and care.

But there are also plenty of works that cost little – widely popular reprints of work like Koudelka and Moriyama tent to cost in the low double digits, and there are many examples of books that fail to reach the lasting cult or academic status that works like Minamata have achieved, and consequently sell for low prices. To give a comparative exemplar we can look at a very high contrast. The first side of this is “Relationship” by Zachary Drucker and Rhys Ernst. This book dealt with the gender transition of a couple, a niche subject even today. The book was published reasonably widely for a photographic monograph, but never reached “airport kiosk” status. However, the niche interest of the work has led to it being commonly available, frequently under £10 in the UK. Our counterexample is a monograph sold purely on the name of the photographer, rather than on the interest of the subject: “What I See” by Brooklyn Beckham did reach the shelves of near every WH. Smiths, while receiving a spectacular train of entirely justified mockery at the idea of a child being worthy of this honor on the basis of: his parents are famous, and were rich enough to give him a Leica M (Type 240).

The point here is – his work was widely derided as an unchallenging snapshot of privilege, which only exists through that same privilege. It was sold in order to capitalise on his popularity as an influencer, a market that has proved predictably fickle. The intent was that people would buy it for the name – which did happen, and as the young target audience aged the book was discarded – which has lead to a common sale price of around £5. It certainly doesn’t compare to a work like Minamata, nor does it compare to the similarly “snapshot-based” Relationship, as “What I See” lacks by definition an inherent purpose. However that’s clear upfront, making it difficult to waste money by accident. If you buy this – you know what you’re getting. And I haven’t bought books in a long time. Perhaps even something like Beckham would teach me something new, if only “don’t give book deals to children”?

Reason the third: I chose my kit to be small, light, agile. I’ve definitely ended up with more cameras than I need, and more lenses than I need. My current four-lens kit could easily have been a three-lens kit of 15/4.5, 35/1.2 and 75/1.8. They share a somewhat consistent visual both in what they capture and their physical nature, and they share a single filter mount that’s common and accessible. Perhaps, if I was buying from scratch today that is what I would do – however when I was buying my kit, the 35/1.2 III was not on the market. The earlier versions of this lens were much larger and heavier than the current model, and all three are designed around precise focusing with a long throw – so knurled rings are the order of the day rather than my far preferred approach of a focus tab, which I find quicker.

I chose the 35mm Elmar because it’s just about the smallest Leica-mount 35 ever made. When I decided to replace what I thought was a faulty lens, the E39 Summaron was chosen for also being very compact, while giving the “modern comforts” of an aperture ring with modern increments, as well as standard filter and hood mounts – things I sorely missed on my little brass pancake. Even the new “compact” 1.2 is still half as long again as my Summaron, and the 52mm filter ring is enough to know it’s far larger in other dimensions as well. Switching to the Nokton would mean changing other parts of my equipment in turn, for example my bag – which will hold two lead-lined film boxes, two m bodies and two lenses – but not two lenses like the Nokton.

The biggest problem in paring down my kit though – is me. The 135 and 35 Elmar’s both see little use, my 50 Summicron is nothing more than a radioactive curio, and with two M4-P’s there is never a need for my “finderless” M’s to see actual use. And yet, I struggle to part with any of them – they all have moments and images associated with them that I love, which ties them to me. A new, fast, big lens would be exciting – for a while. But then I’d become trapped in the nostalgia of what I have and gave up. And to keep both old and new? Unforgivably self-indulgent. And that leads me to the last reason:

Reason the fourth: choice. I could get rid of everything I have, and switch to an E46 35/75 Summarit 2.4 pair. Or to a E43 Nokton 1.4 II and the old matching 75m Heliar 2.5. I could sell the Elmars, and put that money towards a 35 1.2 III and a slightly bigger camera bag that could actually fit it. The reason I don’t is because I choose not to chase the vanity of bigger and better. Thousands of photographers didn’t have this choice, and were able to create the greatest works of the last century with the dated, simple glass they had. Others like Ravilious did have the choice and chose to use the older kit anyway. If these people were able to create such marvellous work with such limited kit, then that same kit must be perfectly adequate for me as well. I could have caught the last hour of light today and shot in empty streets filled with soft mist. Instead, I chose to write this post. I have no regrets, as I needed to remind myself of my old decision, the reasons and the impacts. But this choice exemplifies why my old choice was so important. It doesn’t matter what you shoot. Just shoot. I haven’t been, and I should.