A return to film

Last week I made the somewhat impulsive decision to purchase a Zeiss Ikon ZI. I'd been mulling a return to film for some time but had no idea how to go about it. Let me begin with a little background:

I've been a keen photographer since my early twenties (I'm in my late thirties now). I was comfortable with an old Minolta SLR, enjoyed processing my own black and white film and spent many a weekend ensconced in a tiny darkroom at the top of an old theatre in Clapham. They were good times. Then along came digital and like so many, I bought myself a point & shoot and forgot all about film. Never mind that the quality was poor - the convenience factor and then the web (flickr et al) meant that for me the pros far outweighed the cons. I also thought that in a short space of time the quality of digital files would surpass film and that film would pass into the realms of history.

But wait.. fast forward a few years and here I am, the proud owner of a beautiful black Zeiss Ikon. How did this happen?

I must confess that I'm not entirely new to rangefinder technology. My love of photography resurfaced a year or so ago and through the recommendation of a friend I decided to purchase the worlds first digital rangefinder - the Epson R-D1s. And what a camera. The R-D1s has proven to be a joy to use. So why the need for a film body?

Well, being a big fan of Flickr I began to notice that the quality of some of the images being uploaded by users of non-digital cameras looked significantly better than the digital files I was producing. Of course composition and technique play a big part but there's no getting away from the fact that film images have far more definition than digital images - and that's after being scanned, a process that surely reduces image quality.

Added to this is my suspicion that shooting film aids the creative process. By this I mean that when using a digital camera we all have a tendency to 'chimp', that is take a peek at the results of our shot as soon as we've taken the photo. Personally I feel that this breaks up the rhythm of the shoot and impacts on creativity. I guess it's worth mentioning that the R-D1s has a flip screen that lets you hide the screen away but I find that there's still a tendency to peek. Frequently.

This realisation led me to look at the options. My requirements were:

1. I wanted a rangefinder - if nothing else so that I could use the lenses that I already have.
2. I wanted a well constructed camera that would last for many years.
3. I had a budget and the M7/MP were outside of it.
3. I wanted a the camera to look sexy, to be a camera that I'd want to pick up and use.

I whittled it down to two choices: The Leica M4 or the Zeiss Ikon. Since many have labeled the ZI a direct competitor to the Leica M7 (which comes in at more than twice the price of the ZI) the ZI began to look like the obvious choice. Without further ado I hopped onto eBay and ordered one from Matsuiyastore. Five days later the camera had found it's way from Kanagawa, Japan to a happy new owner in London.

Roll 1: Ilford Delta 400 (purchased at a souvenir store in Liechtenstein).

[Images to follow]

Having spent the afternoon taking the Ikon out for it's first spin I'm now convinced that chimping is bad. The shooting felt far more fluent than any I'd undertaken for a long time.