Why Photography?

I bought my first camera on December 28th, 2020. The primary reason for getting into photography at first was because I was trying to go without a phone — just an iPad — and while on a trip to Cabo I experienced just how bad the iPad camera was and how many things I wanted to photograph.

Which Camera?

I knew very little about photography at this time — heck when I got the camera, I didn’t know how to take a photo with autofocus — but I knew that I wanted to invest in a camera that would be good for traveling and everyday carrying. I wanted it to be a camera that would clearly surpass the quality of an iPhone. I also knew that I wanted to use a prime len to force myself to move around and would be smaller and easier for everyday carrying. I also knew that I didn’t want to be spending a significant amount of time editing photos. Primarily because the only computers that I have are Linux machines and they aren’t as well supported as Macs or Windows for photo editing. It wasn’t until much later that I figured out that you could use Lightroom on the iPad.

Fuji x100v

At the time, I was not aware of the x100v’s ability to apply “filters” or “recipes” to the JPGs in-camera. However, I did know that the x100v was recognized for it’s JPG quality. Also, I wanted something manual that forced me to understand the deep fundamentals of photography as I was looking for something outside of tech to go deep on.

After only about a month of shooting with the x100v, I went crazy with JPG recipes. I was hooked on photography. Watching tons of YouTube videos while running on the treadmill to learn every detail about my camera’s cabilities and how to shoot like photographers that I was now starting to enjoy their style. The first photography YouTube channel that I followed was Faizal Westcott’s. I love his style and he used a similar camera. I also knew that a Go programmer that I looked up to — Fatih Arslan — loved the Fuji lineup. I specifically recall this tweet by Fatih that hooked me.

Months went by, I traveled with the camera, ran with the camera and took it everywhere I went. I certainly taught me a ton about photography and I can say that I “grew into” this camera. I knew nothing when I started and this camera helped me mature into a photographer that understand the manual bits of photography much deeper. I grew so quickly in photography that I was ready for more. I loved sharing my photos with my in-law’s and it was during one of these conversations that my father-in-law gave me his old Pentax K1000 35mm film camera. I was pretty convinced that I didn’t want to shoot film. But when I picked up the SLR and looked through the lens to do focusing, cranked that film advance lever and pushed the shutter, wow was I hooked.

35mm Film

I started following channels on YouTube (Vuhlandes, Benj Haisch, 1willcobb, Eric Floberg, Josh Rodgers, Chris Chu, Justin Mott, Lightleaks, linusandhiscamera, Matt Day, Pushing Film, Willem Verbeeck) and trying to replicate that film look on my x100v — it was never perfect, it’s certainly very good. A lot of the people’s style that I enjoyed were shooting with Leica. This was when I was first introduced to Leica and yeah… So at this time I was still loving film, so I was looking for a 35mm Leica film camera. Actually, I was looking for a Canon P range finder camera. We had a trip planned to Boston in August of 2021 and I realized they had a Leica store.

I had done quite a bit of research before going and had my eye on the Leica M-A because it is a 35mm rangefinder film camera that is still produced and it is totally manual with no electronics — i.e., no light sensor. I wanted a challenge and to learn how to meter light without a meter. I almost didn’t visit the Leica store because I expected to get laughed at, but the manager, Jarrett, was super nice. He let me try out anything I wanted. I got to hold a Leica for the first time and it was the M-A. He said he had a used M-A manufactured in 2020 and a Leica 50mm Summicron Dual-Range. We visited the Leica store early in the trip and I thought about it all week. We got home, I thought about it for another week and I ended up buying the M-A and 50mm Summicron DR.

My M-A

I loved the M-A. I was pretty much exclusively shooting film at this time. I was taking my M-A everywhere! It wasn’t getting any special treatment. It’s got some wear marks and had a janky strap that I made and love. Because I took it everywhere, I would leave it on the kitched counter so that I could quickly grab it before leaving the house. However, this lead to the shutter curtain being burnt. I kept shooting for a while because I bought my own chemicals to develop the film on my own and the kit could process about 24 rolls. I developed my own film in October and was so sad to see that so many of the rolls had a bright white spot. It took me about another week of Googling to feel confident this was the issue. I contacted Leica and sent it in for repair. If I didn’t have a warranty ($1600!! for the repair) and I was originally quoted 4-6 weeks on the repair because it had to be sent to Germany. It’s 10 weeks now and the new estimate is 16 weeks. At about 4 weeks Leica customer service offered me an M240 as a loaner. I took the offer.

Back to Digital

At this time, it was hard for me to get excited about shooting film on anything other than my M-A, so I went back to digital, specifically my x100v. I missed the feeling of focusing my 50mm Summicron DR. A completely different feeling than the lose feeling of the autofocus-able x100v. In April, my sister graduated college and she had been wanting a camera for years, so I got her the new Fuji xe4 as a graduation gift and the 23mm f/2.8 “pancake” lens. I convinced my sister to trade me while she was home for Christmas so that I could use an adapter on the xe4 with my 50mm Summicron DR. I thoroughly enjoyed this! I took this to NYC after Christmas and shot without recipes. I was pretty happy! But it was now that I learned that I was less in love with the Fuji crop sensor. I wanted my 50mm lens to be 50mm, not 75mm!

Leica M240 (loaner)

Okay so I had the M240 for a few week at this point. I tried using it the first day I got it and was pretty disgusted. There was a “movie” button that I kept hitting. The LCD screen was absolutely TERRIBLE!!! The settings were pretty confusing and the back buttons are not intuitive. There is an “Info” button that everyone I’ve asked “how would you hit ‘OK’ says they’d hit that button”, myself included. And the “M bottom” has zero function and is super annoying. I looked at the M10 and while it addressed a couple things, it didn’t address enough to get me interested in a digital Leica (and it wasn’t USB-C). I put the M240 down and didn’t use it for a while again. I heard that the M11 was coming and rumors seemed to address all(!?) of the things I hated about the M240. Also around this time (January 2022), my wife and I went on a day trip to Lake Erie and I took the M240. Not because I wanted to give it another shot, but because I had just watched a phenomenal YouTube video on lens focal lenths and I wanted to use my M-mount lenses to experiment.

Leica M11

After the rumors were confirmed that they fixed everything wrong, in my opinion, with every digital Leica to date, I pre-ordered the M11. Now, this is by no means a cheap or even reasonably-priced camera. But it’s exactly what I wanted in a camera.

Leicas hold their value and got me planning how I could pay for this thing. In 2022, I’m going to work on building my portfolio and try to start making money from photography by shooting some sessions.

Other YouTube Channels that I follow

Tools

Cameras

I’ve shot with 4 cameras now, 3 digital and 2 35mm film.

Digital Cameras

  • My first camera, fuji x100v acquired Dec 2020
  • Traded my sister my x100v for her xe4 that in Dec 2021
  • Leica M240 (loaner)
  • Leica M11 received on Jan 23rd 2022

35mm Film Cameras

  • Pentax K1000 gifted to me in June or July 2021
  • Leica M-A film camera acquired in Aug 2021

Lens

  • Leica 50mm summicron Dual Range (Aug 2021)
  • TTArtisan 90mm/f1.25 (Nov 2021)
  • Leica 28mm summicron (Jan 2022)

My Current Editing and Storage Process

The primary goal is to not use a computer and to not edit photos as much as possible.

Editing/Storage Tools

  • iPad Air 4th Generation
  • Lightroom iPad app
    • I rarely edit.

I plug an SD card into iPad, import to lightroom and scan through all of the images on the card, “upvoting” keepers. Images that I want to post to mccurdyc.dev are copied to a separate album and keepers will get downloaded to an external drive and non-keepers are deleted.

Thanks for reading! If you are interested to see my photos, check out my photos page.