Pure serendipity.

I wa staying downtown San Francisco at the St. Francis at the turn of the millennium, and when I leaned out of the hotel window, this is what I saw:

Natural Redhead. Christmas, 1999, San Francisco. Leica M6, 50mm Summicron, Kodachrome 64

The original slide was digitized on a Nikon 2000 film scanner and is otherwise unprocessed.

I have been lucky to own many Leitz 50mm Summicron lenses, as befits the greatest optic of the past century. These included a collapsible screw mount one (very early) which I used on a IIIG ‘Barnack’ body. For my M2, M3 and M6 I variously owned single and dual range versions of the fixed mount 7 element design in that gorgeous chrome that only Leica could do in the 1950s. Then there was the six element variant – the one without the infinity catch and the last with a removable head which you could use on your enlarger. I did. And finally the magnificent first version of the Summicron-R for the Leicaflex, which I used on my SL and R4. That one combined Nikon vibrance with Leica subtlety in your color snaps.

All were dear friends, participants and collaborators and if I admit to a favorite – a cruel task indeed, as to elect one for the top rung is to relegate all the others – it would be the six element on my M2 or M6. Many knocked it, and the satin black finish was so …. ugh!, but I liked the high contrast compared to the earlier versions and the low weight. In some respects, its images felt more Nikon than Leica. You know. Where you elect punchiness and contrast over detail.

It’s a trade off I was willing to make at that time of my life – a long time, come to think of it, as that Summicron was a colleague for nigh on twenty years. Do you think you will be able to say that in twenty years regarding your latest purchase?