It’s 3AM and I’m wide awake. In an hour I have a ride to catch to the airport where the long travel day to Zurich begins (more on that later). This is simply an exploratory trip, hopefully with some good photo opportunities. I’m bringing along my Bronica 6×6 and was planning on toting one of the Nikon F2s but… something about the Swiss Alps begs for a bit more photographic finesse. Perhaps something German? It also wouldn’t be terrible to have a camera that’s about half the size and weight of the F2.

Not coincidentally, a Leica M4 showed up on my doorstep yesterday. With under 24 hours before my flight, I figured I should burn a quick roll of film through it just to make sure it’s working as expected. Wouldn’t it be terrible to spend a week (and $100 worth of film) in Europe only to later find out the camera’s got some catastrophic light leak or shutter drag or something.

A 24-exposure roll of Kentere 200 goes in and a relatively clean set of shots came out. I goofed when loading the camera (first time loading a Leica) and exposed the first few shots and the development timing was a bit of a scientific wild-ass guess (first time developing Kentmere 200) but all in all, the M4 is good to go.