As it was my birthday recently, I’ve treated myself to some new stuff I wanted/needed.

One thing I had been searching for was a solution to carry my M8 in a way so I 1) couldn’t loose it, 2) wouldn’t have to take it out of and put back into a bag each time I took a picture and 3) would have it ready for taking pictures all the time.
So far, I’ve been using the neck strap that came with the camera, but I never really got to like it very much. Carrying the camera over my right should would make it readily available, but it could also slip from my shoulder easily and potentially drop. Carrying it over my left shoulder with the camera hanging on my right side would prevent it from dropping, but getting it ready to shoot would always comprise fiddling with the strap. Also, it took away space in my camera bag.

That was until I found this:

The Leicagoodies Sling on my Leica M8

This is the Leicagoodies Sling. As the name suggests, it’s a sling that you attach to the right side of your Leica (where the shutter is) instead of — or coupled with — a neck strap. You carry the camera by sliding your right middle and ring fingers through the sling. Resting your fingertips on the camera body will make it easy to carry, have it ready for shooting instantly and secure it from accidentally dropping. To take a picture, simply raise your arm, move your index finger to the shutter, steady the camera with your thumb and snap.

I only just got it yesterday, so I will need some testing to see if this really works out for me. But my first impressions are very positive, and I think I’m going to like this better than the neck strap. An alternative would’ve been a wrist strap, but I think this is actually the more comfortable and more secure solution.

The other thing I got was not actually needed (not yet at least), but was something I wanted, and that makes me feel safer and sleep better

Western Digital Elements 2.5" 1 TB external USB drive

In this elegant, sleek black housing rests a 2.5″, 1 TB Western Digital hard drive (order from B&H here) that is fast, entirely silent and connects to your PC or laptop via a USB 2.0 interface. Design-wise, it matches my black Dell Latitude laptop perfectly.
Not that I’d really need one terabyte of memory — my laptop’s 500 GB hard drive is only filled one quarter — but I use it as a backup and for storing my music, videos and, chief of all, pictures for a longer term.

Now off to take some pictures, don’t let all that memory waste