Of cheap cameras, expensive digits, and the twain that never meets.

I've got a little pt and sht digital, of course. Piece of crap. One of the Panasonics that are rebadged as Leicas, but I didn't buy the Leica and saved $400. OK camera but it has a spec of internal dust that, these cameras, essentially being pinhole cameras, shows up on the image at times, especially when I zoom.

OK, I can deal with that...never zoom. It's mostly a grandkid shooter, and travel notebook, so what the heck, keep saying I should get a good one, keep delaying, even the $80 a small digi on a blister pack feels like too much.

OK ...  so this weekend I was out at Bonneville Salt Flats shooting with that thing and my Leica CL, -- a small rangefinder camera made by those lovely German folk back in the 70s, although this particular one was actually built by Minolta to Leica quality specs -- shooting fine grain black and white Ilford Pan F film in the Leica, but as I was shooting I noticed that at the end of a roll, or near it, I'd wind and the camera would feel funny and make a brrrrr type sound and feel rough and I went

"Hmmmm?"

So I got home and took the film out and looked and, silly thing, the drive gear, that toothy thingy that pushes the film along, is broken. Unlike every other Leica on the planet, in which that thing is machined out of solid brass, this one is metal core with the teeth put on around it like a tire, made of plastic, and on one of the two toothy thingies (is there a name for those?) the tire had broken, there's a small little gap there, so the tire is not gripping the hub, and if you push it moves.

Hmmmmm.

So I pondered -- this is my favorite travel camera, it is also my first Leica. Get it serviced?

Wow. $200 for starters, plus parts, can you imagine what the part would cost? I can: A lot. Plus this camera has had 38 years of hard labor -- lots of wear, a coupla bumps, the odd ding, the usual.

So I looked at KEH camera brokers, an on-line dealer in Atlanta, good reputation, which had one in Exc condition on their ebay store (also on their listings, I suspect) for $430, shipping included.

Pondered for a whole five minutes and hit "buy."

So I guess what this says is I'd rather drop $430 on a real camera that will probably last another 38 years, than even 1/4th that much on a digital camera that will turn to crap overnight, practically.

I like to think this says good things about me.

Here's an image from the CL. Still works, but it's overlapping pics when it slips. Not good.

And one showing the slip--actually a kinda cool double exposure:

It's also worth noting that $430 will barely buy me a halfway decent Digital SLR -- while it also buys a classic film camera capable, as just proven, of lasting, by actual demonstration, 38 years.