[rollei_list] Re: Leicas....
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 19:53:15 -0500
At 05:12 PM 11/16/2013, Jan Decher wrote:
Hi Thor,
I have used both an early M3 and the M6 (first
model), You can't beat the viewfinder of the
M3, especially if you intend to use the Hektor
or Elmar 135mm lenses, because you get more
viewfinder magnification in the M3.
However, for an easy to use Leica with 28, 35,
50, 75, 90 and 135mm frames and built-in
accurate light meter the M6 is hard to
beat. You really get used to those two red
diodes in the finder telling you when exposure
is on. I have never used the Leicameter with
the M3. Only the M6 TTL with its bigger shutter
speed ring and separate off position would be an
improvement. I should say that my M6 definitely
has an inferior chrome finish than the M3.
Unfortunately, I sold my M3 but will probably
get another one with a 50mm Summicron should an
opportunity arise. I use an excellent old 135mm
Elmar and new 4.5/21 and 2.8/35mm C-Biogons on
my M6 because I like the Zeiss sharpness, color rendition (and their price!).
Earlier this year I bought a IIIg, which I had
CLA'd, but for which I need a decent collapsible
Elmar or Summicron screwmount lens. Hard to
find one that's not scratched up these
days. Love the compact feel of the IIIg.
Jan
I have probably owned as my Leicas as I have
Rolliflices over the years. Several comments in
response to your fascinating note.
First, I now own a IIIc, a IIIf RDST, a IIIg, an
M3 DS, and an M6 Wetzlar. The IIIc was my first,
and that is the one they will be peeling from my
dead hands once I have crossed the river.
Second, Leica was always a system camera. It was
the first system camera, though Franke &
Heideicke and Ihagee were not far behind. Zeiss
Ikon was slow to work up the Contax RF as a
system camera. (Were I to post that on the Zeiss
Ikon Collectors' Group, they'd be hanging me in
Effigy, a small town outside of Iowa City,
Iowa. <that's a joke made from a former custom
at US high schools and colleges>.) Leitz
developed an almost endless list of doohickies
and gee-gaws for its cameras. I have a complete
set, for instance, of the reflex housing line,
runing from the Prewar PLOOT through the rather
obscure Visoflex IIa LTM and M models and finally
to the one I use on my M6, though I do not have
ALL the lenses, as some were only made in runs of a couple of dozen or so.
Third, Leitz was, until the 1980's, primarily a
microscope company and among their proudest
products were macro lenses, microscope objectives
which generally, but not always, in RMS mount --
the Royal Microscope Society threadmount known in
the trade as, 'the Royal Screw', though denizens
of the British Isles often fail to see why US
citizens murst into laughter at the term. I do
not believe that they are still producing these
but all of them are fine lenses, the
Micro-Summars and the Milars and the later
Photars. (As late as a quarter-century back,
Leitz still used hand engraving on the lens
rings. I have a '26'mm Photar. That possibly
resulted from the free beer many German factories
serve at lunch. <he grins> There never was a
26mm Photar: it is a 25mm Photar mismarked and
what would that be worth to Dr John Austin Field,
the foremost scholar of Zeiss technical gear, and
perhaps I ought to offer it for sale. The
optical companies that handled medical,
industrial, and technical lab gear catalogued
these separately from their photographic wares,
so that you can find, say, Leitz Photars and Carl
Zeiss Luminars listed in their technical price
lists and not in those for the cameras. (Carl
Zeiss made its largest Luminar in a size for
which only one adapter set -- two adapters -- was
offered for the Contarex SLR system, and this was
not in their photographic price list so only the
few ever bought them. I own the lens and
probably ought to find someone to cobble me up an
adapter to fit this to my Ha$$elblad Bellows
rig. The point I am making is that there were
two parallel systems with Leitz and Ihagee and
Zeiss Ikon/Carl Zeiss, and never the twain shall
meet. (There is a toast used in years past among
the Glawegian poor of Scotland; this was later
carried over to become a standard in the United
Kingdom's kilted regiments back when they still
had such -- 'Here's to us. Who's like us? None
but the few, and their all dead." Well, none but
the few own the mystic Contarex adapter for this
100mm Luminar and, well, the folks I knew who
owned these two adapters are pretty much all dead now.)
Fourth, the overall VF image in an M3 is 35mm,
give or take a few gigawatts -- my son often ends
his Fracebook postings with, '1.21 Gigawatts',
and many of you will miss the allusion -- BACK TO
THE FUTURE and all of that. That is, plop a
regular (no extraordinary accessory eyes) and
then focus in the patch and frame the ENTIRE
frame, and you have a pretty fair approximation
of the 35mm frame lines. I do have some wicked
fast lenses, including a 4.5/21 Zeiss Contarex
lens which has been converted to Leica M. No, it
is not RF-coupled, but, then, who cares? Depth
of field is along the lines of '3 feet to
infinity' or the like. Back when I had a
darkroom, I didn't worry about the fringes, as I
have two grand enlargers and, if I fired them up
after a decade, they would probably fry my
electrical system but, damn!, I miss my forty years in the dark room.
Fifth, the Leica M4 is grossly over-rated. Nevil
Shute once had a character of his, a sheep
farmer, who suddenly found himself rich in the
wool boom in the late 1940's. He and his wife
had been living in abject poverty for twenty
years -- she was English and he had met her when
he was in the First Australian Expeditionary
Force, in 1916 and her parents limited contact
once she married him and this sweet English lass
spends years of serving sides of mutton to the
farm hands, whatever they call them in
Oz. Finally, they get some money and become
wealthy and it was too late, as her parents were
dead, so they never knew that her success was
assurrd, thought the joint work of this sheep
farm er and his loving wife.. But he takes her
to the nearest city -- Melbourne? I've not read
the book for a few years. They walk down the
street, the man feeling more uneasy as he does
not understand urban living. She finally akes
her husaand into an art gallery and she buys a
small watercolor. The author, Nevil Shute,
merely notes that the pictures on dispaly wee
modern art lauded by critics who ought to have
known better. That really is the tale of the M4,
a cammera built so that everything was adjustable
which mean that nothing was in adjustment.
I can rattle on at great length about the Leica
System as I love it though, to be honest, the
pictures of whiich I am proudest are those taken
with a Rolleiflex TLR. I do admire Franke & Heidecke aant the successors.
Leica is a grand system camera. The Contax RF
could have been a grand syst4em camera but that
never developed. Stay happy with your
Leica/Leitz gear, folks. It is wonderful
stuff. Avoid the over-rated M4. <he grins>
Rolleiflex rules,, in he end ...
Marc
msmall@aya.y
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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