Leica - Part 2

When you repeat an action, but expect another result it.. I believe, is the definition of insanity. And if that is anything to go by, then I am insane. Because, yes, you guessed it, I've bought another Leica M.  After my last post, almost a year ago, where I explained in excruciating detail, why I couldn't make the Leica M system work for me.. I've gone and purchased another. However.. I might have cheated a little. And when I say a little.. I mean a lot. 

I mean.. insanity means you can do what you want.. think what you want. and change your mind when it suits you.

And so I purchased a Leica M10 Monochrom. Which.. had been sitting in the back of my mind ever since I heard of Leica's first Monochrom camera back in 2011 with the M9M.  So why is it a cheat?  Well, first off, it's digital, which means that the long wait between badly exposed photography and getting the pictures back from the lab went down from several months (the average time a roll lives in one of my film cameras) down to.. instant. And secondly.. because unlike a Leica M film camera.. with an M10 I can actually use a digital viewfinder and see through the lens. And that changes EVERYTHING.  The whole M equation is completely flipped, upended, rendered moot.  Now.. I can see what I'm doing, and I can get what I want out of the camera (a black and white image) right out of the camera.  This is truly.. amazing. Ok, let me be very clear. This is AMAZING! 

Why? 

Because my love of photography started with black and white images developed in the school darkroom in Sydney in 1982.  And all through my journey through different camera models and film stocks, mostly Tri-X and then Ilford XP (that's how long I've been shooting.. when it was just XP, not XP2!), then digicams, then DSLRs, then mirrorless digital.. I was always searching for the perfect black and white image.  Of course I also shot colour, and enjoyed colour. But it wasn't what I wanted. And I spent endless hours toggling images between colour and black and white, to see which worked and which didn't. And that's time of my life that I'll never get back.  Now however, from the get-go, I have my image in black and white. And with an M10, it's a better image than I've ever been able to achieve with a bayer filter camera (basically all digital's out there)..  Not only is the quality amazingly detailed with it's 40mp sensor, but my camera can see in the dark at ISO 100,000.  Sure, it maxes out at that number, the same as my Nikon Z8 in Hi 2, but at that ISO, the M10 images just look like film with a bit of grain.. Absolutely usable images. Whereas my Z8 is simply garbage.  I now shoot at night.. walking around.. with my M10. Simply outlandish! 

Not only that, but with 3 buttons on the back of the camera, and with a menu written for a child, it is possibly the simplest digital camera I've ever owned.  The Rolex feel of the buttons is not quite there, to the level it was with the M3.. but the M3 was Leica's masterpiece. However the M10M feels sculped from a block of brass, all hard edges and corners in a way that they just don't make cameras anymore.  

As for lenses.. well, remember that 90mm f2.8 Elmarit-M that I said I didn't use much? Well.. I found another.. a South African photographer who's downsizing.. we had a meeting of minds and an exchange of cash, and now I have my least used lens again :-)  Though I may not use it often.. it is a beautiful lens to work with, and with my high ISO, I can use it with impunity. 

Second Leica lens is quite an unusual one, the 50mm summicron Dual Range (DR for short) which focuses down the the rather useful 40cm.. much closer than the standard 0.7m of newer Leica lenses, which makes it an excellent close quarter portrait lens or semi-macro (nothing with Leica M's is ever truly macro).. Possibly the heaviest densest lens I've ever owned.. it is a joy to use in the same way the M3 was a joy. Mechanical perfection. 

More to say about this development in the weeks to come, but understand this, I haven't felt this excited about photography in quite a while. And it's not about holding a beautifully made object, it's about the images that I'm creating now.. 

 

 

Leica.. or photographic madness

A few years back (or more preciceliy, in 2018) I more or less forced myself to love Leica.  I found an M3 rangefinder in a niche serial number range with most of the later upgrades but with the more aesthetically pleasing buddha ears.. 

Confused?!  Well then, you, dear reader, are not a LEICA PERSON! I admit, I went full bore with my obsession, watching every online video I could find, and eventually purchasing the seminal work of Erwin Puts (1944-2021) called the Leica Compendium, a more or less complete catalogue of all their film cameras and lenses.  

I purchased the book directly from the man, so just a few years before his passing.  I pored over MTF charts, read his lens reviews, before settling on just ONE Leica lens, the 90mm f2.8 M. An absolute work of art, an engineering marvel.. and a lens I hardly used.  To this I added a more functional Canon "Sumilux".. a 50mm f1.4 LTM lens (for those few readers who are not a LEICA PERSON.. it means Leica Thread Mount) which saw marginally more action.. but far too little to justify the expense. 

Leica M3 with Canon "Summilux", with buddha ears hidden behind a leather strap

You see, though I might have considered myself a LEICA PERSON.. I was definitely NOT a rangefinder person.  I knew this of course, when I was given my father's Canon 7 with the absolutely magnificent 50mm f0.95 lens.. which after a few rolls ended up sitting in the cupboard (it's still there, after all these years).  So why persist with the rangefinder madness?  Perhaps my problem was that I had used an inferior Canon rangefinder, and the Leica was the ticket. And the Leica M3 WAS superior in almost every way to the Canon. The weight of a gold ingot, machined to Rolex levels of mechanical perfection (or maybe it's the other way around.. Rolexes are machined like Leicas..). It was truly a work of art, and a fabulous machine, and one that I simply could not use.. In the end I sold it for a modest profit, but I did not miss it. I mean.. it's not like I could wear it on my wrist!

However.. the love affair with Leica HAD been kindled, and so I decided to try out their SLR line, being more in tune with my personal preference. My first serious camera had been an SLR, the Yashica FX2000 followed some years later by the Pentax K1000.. the most basic camera you could hope to find.  So off I went to Ebay in search of some Leicas to play with.. and found myself with three. Just sounds like a good number I guess. First up was the R4, followed closely by an R7, last of the "traditional" SLR Leicas.. and rounded out by the Hunchback of Solms, the R8.  I fell for the R8 after trying out a friend's camera, as even though it was chunky and heavy, it has hewn from a solid block of metal, and evoked the spirit of the M3 with it's watch-like precision, that the R3 to R7 line simply did not, with plastic dials and bubbling top plates.  Then came the lenses, bought and sold in feverish fashion, as I tried to find optical perfection (with an eye to budget).. I mean optical perfection would have set me back several tens of thousands of dollars, so I had to tread carefully.  True, R lenses are generally cheaper than analogous M lenses, but ever since film-makers discovered they could adapt these Leicas to cinema cameras, prices have been going up.  I bought and (stupidly) sold a 50mm f2 

Summicron, thinking the f2 was too slow, and then just as quickly bought and sold a 50mm f1.4 Summilux.. which was absolutely dreadful wide open. I mean, why would one buy a fast lens and then shoot stopped down to f8.  And then I bought another Summicron, which in my experience is the sharpest with the most pleasant bokeh of any of the 40 odd 50mm lenses that I've used in my life. Even better than my Canon 0.95 dream lens (you remember, the one that's still in the cupboard?).  I tried some late zooms from Leica, the rather astounding 21-35 f3.5 and 34-70 f4 and both were beautifully built, with ranges that were quite useful.. but the relative slow speed and resultant dark viewfinder meant they were not my favourites, and were soon moved on. 

Two stunning zoom lenses of Leica design (earlier ones were Minolta derivatives)

But in the sine-wave that is our life's journey, my period of expansion into the Leica R world was followed by a period of contraction.  Gone now is the R7, fun as it was to use. 

Possibly the most comfortable R to hold, because of the extra bit at the bottom

Gone is the R8.. 

which I regretted as soon as I'd sold it.. But in my mind.. I had a plan.. to own the best that was ever produced, of anything. And what's better than an R8?! Well, an R9 of course!  Released in 2002, 6 years after the R8... I must say, in 6 years they didn't make any major changes! BUT... it is the very last film slr from Leica, and the refinements are quite nice. Lighter, focus and recompose actually works (my R8 would reset the meter when you recomposed.. defeating the objective...pun intended). And it's rather chunky design is actually quite pleasant to hold.  A lock on the mode dial, which I was constantly moving by accident on my R8, and a nice little frame counter on the top plate. Small things. But they perfected the already pleasant design of the R8. In black of course..

As for lenses, I've settled on a trifecta. A 35mm Sumicron, which a LEICA PERSON knows is an f2 lens.  Then my 50mm Sumicron.. which is simply stunning. And finally an absolutely dense lens, the 80mm summilux f1.4.. a singular portrait lens!  These would by my only lenses.. a perfect numbers. Oh, but wait.. I haven't mentioned my other camera.. the one I didn't sell?  Leica's last fully mechanical SLR, the R6.2. In absolutely perfect condition. But if I'm honest.. I shoot with the R9 more often. The second body is just so I can swap between colour and black and white. Or when I want to be a bit more discrete, as it's profile is about half that of the R9! 

Will this be the end of the story?!  Or will I be tempted by yet more bodies and lenses? If (my) history is anything to go by, if GAS principles hold true, and if the perfect number of anything to own is N+1, with N being the current number owned... then yes, I will most likely indulge in a lens here or there.. My penchant for landscapes means I will eventually need a wider lens. And I quite enjoyed the 135mm focal range in the past, so having another (lighter) portrait lens may be welcome. However those are only desires.. my needs are most assuredly already met by what I have! 

Why I sold the Z7ii.. or how relaxed and learned to love film.. again

Yes.. I've sold my Z7ii.  I know, this may not come as a surprise to you all, considering my last post.. but I have to admit I am more than saddend by it's departure.  I... miss it!  I know I've harped on about all the Z7ii's failings and short-comings, whilst tempering my excitement for it's positives.. It's a dainty camera built to D750 levels with a D850 sensor.. It's mirrorless, and that's new so it's great. What was even greater, and perhaps rather unsung, was it's ability to take lenses from other marques and.. autofocus them.. in may cases better than on the original cameras. And with the focus zoom function, you can really nail focus on the eye. So out I went and purchased every single Canon L lens I'd ever wanted.. and away I went.  By most indications I did shoot quite a bit with it.. A total of 10,000 shots. In 23 months, so just under 2 years.  That may not seem like a lot, but I'm not a big shooter, and though more recently I'm doing more sports shooting, I prefer portraits and landscapes, where spraying and praying is not really required.  Only one other camera averaged the same volume in my stable, and that was the D810.  So notwithstanding all the shortcomings I alluded to in my previous post, this, in fact, was quite a successful camera for me.  Maybe the lack of bulk and weight made me want to take it along more often? Maybe the added joy of using different lenses from different makers made me want to experiement more with it?  Who knows.  I simply have to conclude that it was a great little camera, and more than suited to my requirements.  Who knows.. I may hunt for a used one as a back-up camera :-)

Why I don't like the Nikon Z7ii

 

 

I have been an avid photographer (subtext - amateur) with some forays into professionalism (event photography, product photography) for the better part of 39 years. Wow.. Thats a long time.  I've managed to transition from manual focus to autofocus, and then from film to digital slr's, and now the latest transition, from DSLR's to Mirrorless.  While waiting for Nikon to get it's act together, I experimented with the Sony A7RIII full frame Mirrorless camera, and then just as promptly dumped it, as it wasn't for me.  The philospohy of the two camera makers couldn't be any more different, and my acquired muscle memory of Nikon controls meant that I was constantly fighting with a camera that would simply not co-operate. Plus the colours looked terrible.

Nikon then did the inevitable and caught up with everyone else and released their Z6/Z7 duo, and I was invited by Nikon to one of their launch events in Australia.  I was mightily impressed, although like many I was also perplexed at the glaring omissions to the camera's functionality, like dual card slots.  I voiced my concerns with Nikon, and strangely for once, they seem to have listened, and barely 2 years later released an update, the Z6ii/Z7ii duo.  Or maybe they listened to the tens of thousands of other photographers clamouring for the same things.. I can't be sure. 
Aaaanyway, in the mean time I'd sold off the Sony, and was back to using my Nikon D3s, and really felt the need for a higher megapixel camera capable of using all my plethora of lenses from various mounts.  I finally took the plunge (again!) into mirrorless and bought a Nikon Z7ii.  The camera felt reassuringly similar, yet also strangely different, and this was immediately apparent when I tried to control the camera.  Pro level controls were not present - more "prosumer" controls á la D600 or D750 were in their place.  Strange omissions still continued, like the two-button format option present on just about every Nikon DSLR since time immemorial.. Gone..  I discovered much to my dislike, that they had removed the manual DX lens selection option.  And the final cherry on the cake (not!) was the fact that they'd removed the Picture control option for scanning negatives.  

Now don't get me wrong.. I undestand all about marketing tiers and creating levels of products for customers to oogle at.  That's all fine.  And as Mirrorless stands today, it is clearly positioned by Nikon to be inferior to their pro DSLR offerings (D6, D850 and D500).  Those cameras have a totally different design philosophy and their differentiated controls echo that.  However right now the Nikon Z7ii is MORE expensive than the "equivalent" D850, with which it shares an important attribute, the sensor.  So different controls, different viewfinder, but same image quality, and comparable in price, though with a clear pecking order.  The "cheaper" camera.. is the better camera.  Yes, I know, the D850 is near the end of it's life and hence price is lower, and the Z7ii is at the beginning of it's 2 year product life.  The two cameras have very different Autofocus capabilities, with one sharing the AF of the flagship D6 and the other a newer though (currently) less capable AF technology, Mirrorless.  Nikon WANT you to buy into Mirrorless, however it is still not as good as DSLR in that important category.  Instead of sweetening the deal though, they have arbitrarily taken out features much the same way Canon or Sony have done for centuries.  Well, ok, years..  Once upon a time this would have been anathema for the more engineering oriented Nikon...  Well, I guess we all have to grow up and stop playing with our meccano sets and start selling houses in Monopoly.

You see, to put this all into context, Nikon was the bastion of pro photographers for many many decades, and though Canon and Pentax and Leica and Minolta (now Sony) and many others tried to compete, it was the accepted wisdom that Nikon was the best.  They made camera bodies that were tough as nails, and lenses that could be used through successive generations of bodies.  But times change, and technology changes, and small advantages turn into big differences down the line.  And essentially two big changes destroyed Nikon's dominance in the imaging business.. AutoFocus and Full-Frame digital sensors.  Their delay in adopting and offering viable options in both those areas meant that they went from Nr 1 in the 1970/80's to Nr 3 in the 2020's..  Yes, even consumer electronic giant Sony sells more cameras than them.  

(Arguably a third technology, communications, has dealt all camera makers a blow, as in reality the Nr 1 spot is not Canon, but Apple with it's iPhone...  But let's not muddy the waters and keep it Camera body centric discussion).

Out of all this comes a newer more modern Nikon, finally releasing full frame (FF) Mirrorless cameras to an awaiting public, and trying to recapture some of their past successes.  In so doing though, they have adopted many of the consumer electronic tricks that the older Nikon, the engineering Nikon, the Nikon with a thousand and one accessories for the Pro shooter, would never EVER have considered.  And in so doing, Nikon has become what we hoped it wouldn't.. a Canon or Sony!  Before any fanboys from either brand make any comments about my impartiality, I do have to mention that I have used Canon SLR's and DSLR's EXTENSIVELY before finally moving to Nikon, and I much admired Minolta SLR's and later Sony mirrorless cameras (though disappointed with their A7RIII).  I know my stuff with them. Seriously. Don't try me! 

So whereas the "old" Nikon gave us hit's like the Nikon D3 and D700, the D810 and D500.. and lately the D850.. all great pro-level cameras (not to mention D4, D5 and D6), they are treating Mirrorless like the consumer animal it is.. whilst still charging "full price" for them..  Notwithstanding their "firmware updates" that are improving the sorely lacking AF of Mirrorless, they are not really increasing the usefullness of these cameras as they had implied they would.  And they are really just getting us used to the endless treadmill of two steps forwards one step back upgrade path that Canon and Sony have been practicing for 20 years, and have gotten down to a fine art.  

So to summarise this rant.. I am REALLY UNHAPPY with my Nikon Z7ii.  Notwithstanding the fact that it produces truly spectacular images, the fact that it's framerate is superior to my D3s, the buffer is amazingly deep, there are two card slots making it easy to get images off it, and surprisingly compact and well made.  How could Nikon improve this?  Give us back what you took away!!!! Give us the negative scanning profile, make DX imaging area user controlable and not automatic, give us the quick format option that EVERY Nikon before had.  And this will become a truly great (prosumer) mirrorless camera!

Come on Nikon. Please! It's just firmware!!!!

 

Footnotes:

1) The format card option via button press is a unique feature to Nikon DSLR's! For everyone else it's a menu-dive.

2) The Negative image profile is a feature unique to Nikon DSLR (singular, only the D850 has this option)!

3) The manually selected DX/FX area is NOT unique to Nikon (Sony also allows it), however Nikon DX lenses (unlike Canon, for example) mount on all Nikon F mount cameras and adapters (FTZ) and some DX lenses have imaging circles that cover the FX sensor in some or most situations.  I was on safari some years back and had just ruined a 80-400 lens, and my ONLY option was a loaner 18-200 DX lens on my D700 full frame camera. I was able to manually select FX image area and used the lens at infinity and actually created a competition-winning image.  There IS a usefulness to having that sort of manual control of your camera. WHY did you remove it Nikon.. Why?!

4) MF lenses are supported with a 20 bank memory that are user controlable EXCEPT for the focal length, which are pre-fixed to Nikon specific focal lengths.. You cannot manually select 90mm for example (eg. using a Leica M mount lens).. it either goes to 85mm or 105mm!  How idiotic!!!

And an afterwards... after checking with an Internet Luminary who shall remain nameless (Hi Thom).. apparently all the above items are well known and have been discussed ad infinitum amongst Nikonians/Nikonistas/Nikophiles... So I am just late to the party is all...

GAS

No, not that kind of gas!  In fact not any type of gas you may normally associate with the word GAS.. Gas in this case stands for.. wait for it..

Gear

Acquisition

Syndrome

Most comonly suffered by the male of the homo sapiens sapiens species, although the females have their own version (shop therapy, shoe acquisition syndrome etc).  Oh, and before my female readers get their knickers in a knot.. SATIRE ALERT!

GAS normally relates to technological items of a complicated and convoluted sort, something that takes us males ages to understand and make work properly, and once we've mastered how they work.. we turn to the next item on our G.A.S. list..  GAS items normally include cars, cameras and lenses, complicated pocket-knives, watches (normally of the expensive swiss kind) and, strangely, bags.  Something in common with our female folk.

 

If you have been bitten by GAS you will know exactly what I'm talking about.  If you haven't or are female then let me explain.  The male mind (and yes, generic gender generalizations will be the feature of this "article") revels in complicated dials and switches, mechanical movements made by the hands of "man" (in case you think me a misogynist, check out pictures of a Nikon factory in Japan.. mostly women!) for the hands of man to control.  However our minds are on a constant search for the perfect complication.  Be that the nice mechanical click sound the latest camera makes, to the imperceptible high-frequency beat of a mechanical watch that sounds like an old fire-engine on steroids, albeit very very far away.  If you've ever paused to LISTEN to your watch more than once, you my friend have GAS.

Now GAS can range from the relatively harmless to divorce level material, insofar as it interferes with one's ability to connect with one's better half (again generic gender stereotype, as how could one half be better than the other?!).  However it does allow man's desire for infidelity to find a relatively innocuous release, especially when viewed by our spouses.  Think for a moment which your wife or partner would prefer.. you going out with the latest model blond bombshell... or swapping the merc for a bmw?!

GAS also allows for the male mind's desire for total and complete control of something rather complicated.  Seeing as we are unable to manage to control our spouses in any discernable way, or indeed to understand them, we concentrate our attentions on an inanimate object that must follow the immutable laws of physics as well as the less clearly defined rules of logic.. depending on who's logic was used to create the item in question.  This has brought the western male mind into contact with ZEN thinking that is the basis of Japanese design, as well as the art of the needless complication as exemplified by Swiss watch manufacturers.

And how has GAS affected me?  Well I suffer from multiple manifestations of GAS driven in part by the fall of film camera prices, the almost instant availability via platforms like EBAY and the ability to dispose of some of my income indiscriminately.  My kids are still young so planning for university fees hasn't quite hit me yet. Or that's what I'll tell then when they come asking for money and I peer above my mountain of used cameras and lenses...

GAS can get out of control, and in this day and age of the internet where access is but a click away you can lose a lot of time window-shopping and selecting bid or buy.  Back in the day you'd have to search out your favourite camera store, the monthly nic-nack market, or wait for the weekly autotrader mag to see what vintage model soft-tops there were.. or whatever forum there was for your GAS item of desire...  But today the acceleration of GAS is given by the almost always on internet shopping possibilities, as well as being able to go to far-flung corners of the world to find stuff.  I mean I got a bit of camera stuff from LATVIA the other day.. posted to Australia.. and now on it's way to Mozambique.  The power of online shopping, fast shipping and willing mules has made my GAS explode exponentially.  But now my wife is starting to wonder if I am wed to her, or to a camera store.

My GAS takes other forms as well.. sadly of the even more expensive kind.. Watches.  Although here there is a practical aspect limiting my purchasing, and that is that I have only 2 arms on which to wear my watches. And because they are all mecchanical, it takes a lot of time every day to keep them all ticking along.  One could make the same argument about my cameras, i.e. only having two eyes, but I find that putting 2 cameras to my face slightly (note I said only slightly) ridiculous, and in fact the different cameas I have serve different purposes and indeed take different film formats which changes their characters completely.  At least that's what I tell myself.  My wife can't tell the difference between a photo taken with one camera or another...or with my smartphone for that matter.  And.. neither can most photographers.

With lenses the equation changes substantially.  There I can go wild.  I'm told the average photographer owns 2.2 lenses.  The poor bugger with the .2 of a lens must be really be pissed off! However the reality is that most people buy an SLR with one consumer zoom lens and live happily ever after.  Then there are the GAS guys (invariably guys!) who have to absolutely cover every focal length from here to infinity and struggle with bags of 8 or 9 lenses.  I make sure the average stays up!

And where will this take us, this GAS?  Well, have you ever heard of an estate sale?!  Rarely does one's offspring take as much care or interest in the things that we took so long and worked so hard to amass.  In fact they probably have an aversion to those things, seeing them as useless baubles, or things that took their parent's time away from them.. And so many end up on the auctioneer's block.  Or worse Cash Crusaders.  Guess where I'm headed next?!

Xefina Revisited (Again)

Some of you may (or may not!) know that in 2008 I published a photobook via Blurb called "Xefina Island".  That book was made using photos shot over a two year period, from 2007 and 2008.  I had been visiting this small sandbank of an island for much longer than that,  and have managed a few trips back since my book, although the last was in early 2017...  What could more that 3 years do to an island already ravaged by the forces of nature?  A lot, as I learned this past weekend!  

However the island continues to live in an eerie calm, just perched at almost walking distance from the Costa do Sol beaches of Maputo.  Although it maintains it's mystery for most Maputans, except for a few intrepid kiteboarders, it is a habitual haunt for a significant number of fishermen that use it's beach as a launching point for their expeditions.  A small village is home to some of the poorest people in Mozambique, though rich in pride and humility.  I was fortunate to have had had a nice interaction with some of them while taking these photographs.

I have to confess that the impetus for this trip were a photographer friend, Nii Obadia, as well as my wife.  Through the former's insistance and latter's organisation, we were able to make it onto the island.  Here are some pictures from yesterday's trip.  Hope you enjoy.

 

 

Fisherman on structure

 

Wait, am I in your photo?

 

New beach structures

 

Claw

 

Monolith

 

 

Fishermen and structures

 

Differing horizon lines

 

My favourite structure

 

Local fishermen with their catch of oysters

 

The long walk back to our boat

 

 

For the technically minded these photographs were taken with a Canon 1Ds mark III, which was released about the time I started photographing this island (2007!).  Coupled with this camera were two Nikon (!) lenses, a 17-35 f2.8 and an 85mm f2.8 Tilt and Shift lens.  Other photographs (not shown yet) were taken with a Hasselblad 500CM with a 50mm f4 Zeiss lens on Kodak Plus X 125 asa film.  Oh, and for the record, I used the Gitzo tripod I saved from oblivion as reported in this blog page.

Fixing a Gitzo GT1541OT

 Photo by Cavell from Facebook - used with permission

So today's post is about one of my pet likes.. fixing things.  I was browsing Facebook's marketplace when I chanced upon an advert for a Gitzo tripod for $80!  Intrigued, I read on, although the pictures explained exactly why the tripod was going for so little.  A tripod that in it's day (+/- 2009) retailed for 800 POUNDS!  The guy who I eventually bought it from said he paid over AUD 1000.. still a big chunk of change.  As I am living away from my trusty Giotto tripod (Chinese clone of Gitzos), and still waiting for my Peak Design travel tripod, I was in need of some stability.. so to speak.  So I met up with the seller and after a bit of haggling bought the tripod and head for a measely AUD60..  However the scars were deep and they were many.  The centre column has completely crushed in the middle and was disintegrating at every attempt to raise or lower it into a position, where it could be tightened and put to good use.  The leg joints were completely loose and 2 legs had lost their original bolts and were held together by your bog standard galvanised bolts, all rusty and not really doing the job.  Still, could be worse...

 Photos by Cavell from Facebook - used with permission

And indeed, when I got home, on looking closely at one of the legs, it too had been wacked, although thankfully the scar seemed mostly superficial.

Note to self, bring my reading glasses when examining photo equipment!  

The most pressing problem was the centre column, which in it's present state was totally unusable, as the legs did in fact work, though in a wobbly fashion.   So I immediately set about dismantling the legs..  Priorities!  What I found both disheartened and delighted me.  At some point this tripod had sat in the back of a car driving across Australia.. Only that could explain how everything had gotten loose and in some cases lost.  Washers were missing, bolts replaced..  Anything that was a screw had some issue with it!  Someone though had tried putting the legs back together at some point, and where there was once brass, we now had either a galvanised washer or none.  Eventually I managed to get everything off, cleaned and then re-assembled the legs using the original parts to complete 2 of them, with all the "spare parts" used to complete the third leg - two perfectly working with all the right parts.. and one.. sadly a frankenstein.  A quick visit to the "net" revealed that Gitzo, 10 years after releasing this tripod, still stocked spares!!  I was totally amazed.  Not only that, they had an exploded diagram of my tripod with all the spares marked.. You could practically build a new tripod out of parts!!!

Gitzo parts manual for GT1541OT

However Gitzo is not cheap, and the centre column and leg bolt set would set me back US165.. Not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but I thought I could do better.  Also, I wanted to use this tripod NOW, not wait for the vagueries of Christmas time shipping!  So I started searching for suppliers of bolts and washers in Brisbane, Australia (I'm here now) and found a few, one just 10 minutes away.  So at 2pm on a Friday afternoon I shot off down the road to try my luck..

Items required:

2 stainless steel button hex bolts M8 15mm long
2 brass washers 6.7x15x1.5mm
2 stainless washers

After 10 minutes the pregnant storekeeper handed me a little bag with part that approximated my need, but weren't exactly the right size.  Note to self.. next time bring along a caliper.   Total spend AUD 1.18.   Well at least I wasn't too too out of pocket!

So as that hadn't gone quite as I hoped, with the hex bolt heads being a bit too small for the tripod, I headed to Bunnings Warehouse, where low prices are just the beginning..

While there I found larger philips head bolts.. not the most elegant solution nor as easy to tighten, however a much better fit for the tripod leg connection.. more brass washers just in case the first lot weren't perfect and then.. well, what about the tripod column?! Yes, I'd need to deal with that, so some glue, sandpaper and gaffer tape..  You'll find out just after the break..

Before we continue with the rebuild though, I thought I'd talk a little about this tripod, which doesn't have much in the way of literature about it.  A long and almost fruitless Google search did however provide a few pointers.. I finally found one video with barely 15 likes that talks about how this tripod is built, which at only 4:44 is definitely worth a watch.  If you don't have time, let me summarise.. Stainless steel parts so tripod can be used in the sea with salt water.. aptly called Ocean Traveller (the OT part of the GT1541OT model number).  So this is a Gitzo traveller tripod, one of the first with reverse storage legs to make it smaller when packed, but almost as large as normal tripods when opened up and extended.  I'm not a fan of tripods with big centre columns as they tend to sway in anything but a whisper of wind.  Not this tripod apparently.  The load rating is low at 4kg, but I believe that to be conservative.. Maybe not for large format, but medium format should definitely balance on top.

So back to the rebuild of this Ocean traveller.. The centre column.. Well, in it's present state it was all but useless..however I'd read somewhere about shortening broken carbon fibre tubes, and so set about doing just that.  After a tap test (tapping the tube to hear changes in sound) I worked out that roughly half of the tube was damaged.  I then proceded to wrap the gaffer tape around the tube along where I wanted to cut, and just next to that with scotchtape, leaving just a thin sliver where I would cut along.  This would help prevent spintering as I cut through the fibres.  I did a test cut into the broken tube first to understand how my handsaw would react with the carbon, and proceded to make a huge amount of dust as I cut into the tube.  So if you're doing this at home, then make sure you wear a dust mask, have a cloth or piece of paper underneath.  The cut was almost perfect, with very little splintering.  The tapes were doing their job.  I then cut into the channel I'd left uncovered between the 2 tapes and with bated breath proceded to make another almost perfect cut.  Now I had little less than half a perfect carbon tube.. However the open end would be at risk and would need to be stoppered, so I took the off-cut end and removed the metal stopper, and then glued that with epoxy glue into the open end of the good part of the tube..  Perfect connection!  And you can hardly see any glue.  Wow, I must be getting good at this after years of model planes :-)

So we are done!  Perfectly working tripod with a shorter centre column, ready and waiting for my camera to go take some pictures.  But wait.. there's more..

Because I'm a bit particular about these things, the AUD1.18 bolts were not doing it for me, and so I decided to splurge on the Gitzo bolts and washers, which in actual fact were a bit wider and held the leg more securely, so off I went to their website, ordered the parts, and 2 weeks later they arrived, right in the middle of the Christmas rush! Well, Christmas came early for me, as the parts were spot on, and now I have a perfectly working, perfectly looking (short) Gitzo tripod.

With Gitzo spare parts, and the other consumables I ended up spending $60, and with the tripod at $60, a total of AUD120, or for those inclined to use greenbacks, around USD80.. Not bad for one of the highest quality tripods I've ever seen in my life.

And one last word about this ST version.  The stainless steel used in this tripod is a special cast type which is non-porous and therefore even more rust resistant than ordinary stainless steel, and therefore weathers the elements perfectly.  This tripod is 10 years old and not a spot of rust on it!  Obviously this process must have been very expensive because Gitzo (now made by Manfrotto in Italy, after it's UK holding company closed the French factory down) no longer manufacture this type of steel.  All their tripods have their standard greyish laquer paint, which is nowhere near as resistant to chips and bangs and marks, and eventually rust.   Sad.  You will not see a more beautiful tripod around than this one..