New Camera and New Energy

It's been a long while since I posted here, but I am excited to be back!  Some life events have made it difficult to take photos, let alone post to the blog.  However, life is back on track and so are the posts!
This Winter I started down a new path on my photographic journey.  The Leica has been an awesome camera and I have used it a lot and really enjoy shooting with it.  However, the M8 does have some limitations for the photography I really wanted to explore.  Limitations include:

- Limited high ISO.  Really the M8 for me was only usable to 640 and maybe 1200 in certain circumstances.  I started to find more and more than I wanted higher ISO capability.
- No weather sealing.  Over the last several years I have spent a lot of time traveling to Amsterdam and other locations in Europe and Asia that get a lot of rain.  I found that more and more I stopped even bringing the Leica because I figured I most likely wouldn't drag it out in the rain.
- No tilt screen.  This was a strange one for me... I typically don't even use the rear LCD on the Leica because I like to use it like film and view the photos later on my iPad or Laptop.  However, I have started to do more street photography so I thought it would be great to have a TLR style waist point of view.  A tilt screen would make this possible
- No Auto Focus - Yep... I admit it... maybe it's my aging eyes but there are times that I find it hard to use the RF focus.  It is true that 99% of the time I like the control of manual focus and I LOVE the RF patch and zone focusing to nail the focus.  I love that system and RF shooting in general is awesome, but there are times fast AF would be great.  Note, I have two baby niece and nephews so AF is awesome for capturing great snaps of them.  Hi Lilly and Mead!

Of course I have known these limitations for a long time and in many ways they were part of the charm of the M8 and why I bought the camera in the first place... no AF helped me slow down... crummy LCD so I didnt chimp... I have learned a TON as a photographer and I think I have progressed a lot since the beginning.  I think the RF experience has definitely improved no only my images but also my overall joy of the art.  Most importantly I have had an absolute blast shooting with the Leica and I am not selling the kit.  However, recently the limitations really started to stick in my mind so I needed to make a change.  Enter the Fuji X-T1...