GEAR TALK - September '21 Wrap-Up

EDITED FILES BY CAMERA BRAND

Today's pictures are all from the past month, but rather than recapping all that, digging into which cameras had been the most productive (for me) over the past 16 years based on the number has been something I have wanted to tabulate for awhile. Chalk it up to curiosity. The topic is dull, but there is a small anecdote at the end. Moving along, the first table is based on the edited raws (referred to as edits or PSDs from herein) from vacations, local pictures, friends, etc. Product pictures were excluded. The table is grouped by camera brand:

Table 1 - Edited RAWs by Brand

Consistent with my "gut feel", the Canon 1Ds Mark III leads the pack. The Leica M9 and M9-P were 2nd most productive camera - I suspected this, but given that I not particularly like the M9 colors, the second-place ranking was somewhat surprising. There are a couple trends. First, by the time I exited Canon dSLRs in 2013, the Leica rangefinders had accumulated an almost equal number of edits. Second, By 2015 I was feeling burned out and ready to drop the photography hobby. But then in 2016 the numbers began to rebound, and we will get to that - that anecdote teaser.

EDITED FILES BY CAMERA TYPE

This next table regroups the cameras by type. There is not much to see here other than highlighting my lack of interest in mirrorless cameras. I have tried a bunch, but none really stuck and that is shown by the lack edited raws. The medium format category looks a bit better in this context, but certainly not great. The Mamiya ZD dSLR had a good run, and the original S2 did okay (benefited from a vacations in terms of driving up the PSD count).

Table 2 - Edited RAWs by Camera Type

THE MONOCHROM EFFECT

This last table is a "what if" scenario - what if the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246 had not been purchased in 2016? As noted above, by 2015 I was feeling burned out. In theory that trend would have continued had the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246 had not been purchased. Take away the M-246, and 2016 plummets. Ditto for '18, '19, etc. Had I checked-out in 2015, it is very unlikely the M10-P and M10-R would have been purchased. And if no M-246, no reason to upgrade to a M10-M. Thus, 2016 an onwards could have been a bunch of zeros. Pardon the hyperbole...

Table 3 - Edited RAWs without Leica Monochroms

So... the anecdote for today's post was to illustrate how one camera changed the (my) trajectory - the Leica M Monochrom Typ 246. Ironically, the Leica M-246 was an impulse purchase. At the time I wrote, "This is just an introspective experiment to see if I want to shoot a dedicated black & white camera - an itch that had to be scratched." Since then the Monochrom's = 75.2% of the edited raws. As Chuck Berry would say, "You Never Can Tell" 😀