One brand. One step closer.

One brand. One step closer.

Hasselblad gone. Canon going. One brand. Only one. It has been a deliberate journey – selling what no longer serves the vision, bringing what remains together into something better. Today was another real step. Thirty degrees on the bike, the MP loaded with Monopan 50, a deal in Zaventem, and a new Leica lens to test at Lommel. Some days just feel right.

It started with the heat.

Thirty degrees. One of those Belgian days too good to waste. I loaded the motorbike, tucked my trusted Leica MP into the case — Monopan 50 already inside — and set off. I loved every minute of that spin.

‘When it is 30 degrees and the Road Glide is beneath you and the MP is in the case – there is nowhere else in the world you need to be.’

I captured some stunning moments on that roll today. I already know it before I’ve even developed it. You can feel it when the frame is right.

The Monopan 50 images follow in a separate post once the roll is developed.

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One brand. Only one.

Sports photography is behind me. My body carried the weight of Canon gear for too many years – bodies and lenses around my neck, event after event. At some point it stops being dedication and starts being damage. Enough.

What drives me now is different. I want to capture life. People. The real moments – the ones with feeling in them. And rally, which for me is both a job and a passion. Not everyone gets that combination. I don’t take it for granted.

The SL3 Reporter didn’t come cheap – and not just in money. I sold my entire Hasselblad system for it. Every piece. Gone. No hesitation, no regret. Today was the next step – back to Zaventem, trading in the Canon RF 50mm f/1.2, the EF 180mm f/3.4 Macro and the EF-RF adapter. Walked out with the new Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 70-200mm f/2.8. The Canon R3 and EF 300mm f/2.8 are still on the shelf. For sale. Going soon.

There is something quietly beautiful about that. The investments of the past carry you forward. You don’t always have to empty your pockets to move towards something better. Sometimes the journey pays for itself.

I didn’t go home. Straight to Lommel. Because if you’re going to test a lens, you don’t do it gently.

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The Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 70-200mm f/2.8.

Serious glass. Built with Leica’s APO design — every wavelength of light to the same focal point. No colour fringing. No compromise. Mounted on the SL3 Reporter, it feels like one thing, not two. Robust in a way you feel immediately. This is a setup you take into the mud, the rain, the dust without thinking twice.

This lens was purchased to capture soul. Life in motion. People in their element. In heavy conditions, in harsh light, in the kind of moments that don’t wait. Rally is part of that world – pure fun, pure passion. But soul doesn’t only live on a stage. It lives everywhere. That is what this lens is for.

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The separation.

Wide open at f/2.8, the sharpness stops you. But it is the Leica bokeh that really does it. Subjects lifted clean off the background. Painterly. Three-dimensional. Cinematic. A zoom lens has no right to give you that feeling. This one does.

And with 60 megapixels on the Reporter, cropping is not a compromise – it is a tool. That is why the Canon 300mm f/2.8 can go. The 70-200mm and 60 megapixels covers everything.

The one honest adjustment: five years of only prime lenses changes how your hands think. The zoom ring sits at the front – opposite to every Canon habit I built. The hands reach for something that isn’t where they remember it. It will come. Give it Lommel.

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Dust, light and chaos.

Lommel doesn’t give you easy light. Sand, dust, sun going where it wants. The APO design handles it beautifully. At 200mm the compression is breathtaking. At 70mm you are in the chaos. You don’t move positions – you move focal lengths. Fast.

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Still learning the tracking.

I’ll be honest. The AF tracking is where I still have work to do. The Reporter has its own logic and I am learning it. Lommel was session one. There will be more before Ieper.

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Tom. Ieper. Only Leica.

A few weeks ago I watched Tom Boonen win the Sezoensrally from the side of the stage. I felt that. Deeply. It doesn’t leave you.

But it is more than just watching. I deliver images for Tom. It is a connection that doesn’t need many words. We share the same passion — at a different level, from a different place. He is in the car. I am next to it. That is enough. The Ypres Rally is just weeks away — and I’ll be there capturing Tom Boonen and the G&A Racing BMW 325i through the legendary ditches of West Flanders. I’ve shot many rallies before, always with Canon. This time is different. Only Leica. No Canon. No compromise.

‘Delivering images from Ypres — for the first time with only Leica in my hands. That is a moment I have been building towards without even knowing it.’

Photography is not something I do. It is something I feel. Every moment I capture comes from the heart. I am not looking for the perfect frame — I am looking for the soul in it. The life in it. And when those moments happen with good people around you, people who share the same fire for what they do, it makes me smile. Genuinely smile. That is why I do this. That is why the gear matters.

Stay tuned. Ypres is coming. And the Monopan 50 images — they will tell their own story very soon.

Thank you

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Canon R3 & Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 – still for sale. Get in touch: wivtphoto@icloud.com

– Willy Van Thillo – wivtphoto.be