Brisbane Arcade, originally uploaded by Martin~. The Brisbane Arcade connects Queen Street with Adelaide Street and arguably contains some of the CBD's more upmarket fashion and jewellery boutiques. With retail spaces on two levels, the arcade is resplendent with beautifully stained wood panelling and has an antique charm well suited to the style of vendors it harbours.
This is the second occasion I have photographed the arcade from the same vantage point, (the first was a few years ago using a Canon 3000 SLR with Kodak BW C41 film). From memory I used the short end of a 35-70 mm zoom, which I though at the time could have been wider. That camera was sold a little while ago and on this occasion I used a recently purchased Leica Digilux 2 with a 28-90 mm (35mm equivalent) zoom, which allowed me to draw back even further.
The Leica was a bit of an impulse buy as I was originally looking for a small SLR style point and shoot digital camera to use exclusively for street photography. The Digilux is a bit like an M7 rangefinder on steroids, although I've never owned a Leica before and I'm not sure whether genuine Leica aficionados would regard the Digilux as a "real Leica", I can appreciate the hype surrounding these cameras. Andy Piper, a reviewer of this camera on photo-net The Leica Digilux 2 - A Review described the minimalist styling as "..basic Bauhaus 'form-follows-function' box, with a lens on one side and a light-sensitive surface on the other. Even Louis Daguerre
would recognize it as a camera." An apt comment, the camera is very cleanly designed, solid without being overly bulky with analogue controls that provide almost full manual control of the picture taking process without having to continually choose from menu driven selections. I am enjoying getting to know my new toy very much as I use it to take more and more photographs with which to grace this and the MB blog.
