Gadgets

Hand-drawn Map of London, Leica M Monochrom and Glowdoggie

Hand-drawn Map of London

Sure, Google Street View is amazing, the idea that not only can you find an address, but you can have a stalky-gawk at it too. However, there’s a shifting sense elsewhere, that the digital mapping of the age is a calculated step too far, that all exploration is going to be by mouse. Jenni Sparks has the ideal analogue antidote: a hand illustrated map of London, with lots of personality and titbits of local info doodled in.

To paraphrase Man Ray, if you prefer inspiration to information, then this is the sort of map that could make a visit to the Olympics (if we’re allowed to mention the word without having the brand police after us) a journey of discovery and less of a zoomable route. In fairness, perhaps it’s actually more of a piece for the wall than the pocket, but then sometimes, digital is just too easy.

Giclée print on ultra smooth acid free matt paper. Just so you know. Hand-drawn Map of London, from £75 from jennisparks.com

Leica M Monochrom

No, there isn’t an vowel missing at the end, the uncompromisingly German Leica isn’t about to start respelling its product range in a willy-nilly fashion. Plenty of easy to use, point and squirt cameras have been featured here. This ain’t one of them. It only shoots black and white as you may have gathered. That’s not a function – there’s simply no colour sensor array – it’s the Leica M Monochrom’s raison d’être.

So all it does – and does it exquisitely, mind you – is to record brightness and darkness, light and its absence. And delivers it in raw form for photophiles to lovingly manipulate and tweak to their eye’s content. It can fire out JPEGs as well, but if you’ve shelled out for this monochromatic beauty, I suspect you’ll want to squeeze out every last pixel you can.

Sculpted from a single chunk of magnesium alloy and coated in leather, with brass plates top and bottom, it’s a gorgeous piece of industrial design for serious photography fans with deepish pockets.

Leica M Monochrom, from £6,000 see leica-camera.comfor details

Glowdoggie

A fluffier class of a German innovation here: Glowdoggie is an LED embedded collar that’ll give your four-legged friend a hi-viz look. It’s 100 per cent waterproof, with Superflux LEDs that are said to last for up to 17 years, it uses a motion detector power switch and has its batteries built-in. Comes in a range of colours.

Glowdoggie $50 from glowdoggie.com