Contax 137MA: Ten Years

I bought a Contax 137MA in 2016. It cost me £180 from a camera shop in Cape Town that doesn't exist anymore.

It's not the best camera. It's not the most reliable. But it is the one that made me obsessive about photography—about composition, about light, about sequence, about why you press the shutter.

The 137MA is a point-and-shoot, and a good one. Zeiss optics. A titanium shutter that is fast and accurate. A flash that I rarely use. A motor that advances film with a satisfying whirr. There is nothing fancy about it. That's the whole point.

With this camera and a 50mm Zeiss Planar, I learned to see. Not to chimp. Not to bracket obsessively. Just to look, to wait, to press once, and to move on. The 36 exposures on a roll meant that every frame mattered.

I still shoot it. It's traveled to 14 countries. It's been dropped, rained on, and sat in a hot car for hours. The shutter still fires. The film still advances.

I'll probably shoot it until it stops working, and then I'll have it serviced. This is the camera that taught me that photography is not about the equipment. It's about the light, the time, and the decision to press the button.