First roll with a Leica M2 (and a recently serviced 50mm 1.5 Summarit)

On Monday, being as it was the easter bank holiday, me and the wife decided it would be nice to visit some friends and family in her home town of Reading. Her best mate from school – quite conveniently for me as it would turn out – met and married a man named Ben. I happen to get along with Ben quite well, but it’s probably fair to say that our friendship has grown faster through a mutual appreciation of most things photography – especially film photography. And where that convenience comes in specifically, he also has an appreciation for a Leica.

Being somewhat of a jammy git it seems, Ben managed to pick up a Leica M2 a few months back for about £250. I have to be honest and say I expected it to be a bit of a dog. I was wrong, it needs a bit of a clean of the viewfinder, but otherwise its a beauty.

Since I have been banging on about my M3, Ben had expressed a keen interest in trying one. I was also keen to have a go with an M2… So for the next few weeks, we have swapped.

Monday turned out to also be the first good opportunity I’ve had to really see how well my 50mm 1.5 ltm Summarit fairs since it has had a bit of a clean.

In short, the M2 was, as you might expect, quite lovely. The Summarit is also much nicer to use. It used to be a little stiff to focus, but it’s fine now. In terms of the results from the Summarit, it still glows when shot wide open, but it can’t be far off the Summicron when stopped down past about f2.8, at least in terms of sharpness. It really has such a wonderful character when shot into the sun too.

As were my thoughts last time I put a roll through this lens, it’s not the best all rounder, but it certainly has an endearing character.

So hear they are, a selection of shots from my first roll with a Leica M2, taken with a fairly clean Leitz 50mm 1.5 Summarit and Portra 400.

Hark at the lovely weather! Love it! 🙂

Cheers for reading

Hamish

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