[Leica] Favorite Adaptors from Leica

[bill at grimwood.net (Bill Grimwood)]

An old Leica dealer told me one time that the Leica company was in business
to make adapters and to go along with the adapters they made a few cameras
and lenses.

Bill Grimwood


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Shulman" <jshul@comcast.net>
To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 11:57 AM
Subject: [Leica] Favorite Adaptors from Leica


> Leica has a rich history of adaptors.  In fact, I think the LHSA would be
a
> fraction of its current size if there weren't so many fascinating little
> ways to adapt Leicas for special uses.
>
> Leica, over the years, became a breeding ground for adaptors: by refusing
to
> incorporate essential improvements in their basic cameras, such as
> self-timers, light meters, rapid advance mechanisms, etc. they created
their
> own mini-industry of adaptation.  Some of their adaptors were
> well-considered; others less so.  However, most adaptors achieve two
things:
> they get lost in the bottom of a camera bag (or worse), or they rob you of
> valuable time as you attach them to the camera.
>
> My rogue's galley of Leica adaptors would have to include:
>
> ANY Visoflex.  Why use an Exakta when you can adapt a perfectly simple LTM
> or M Leica body with an ungainly housing?  I forgot--there's always the
> incomparable quality of pre-1970s long focal length lenses from Leitz.
>
> Close-Up attachments.  Ideally we should use cameras that have NO inherent
> parallax problems.  RF cameras all have to use Rube Goldberg-esque ways
> around parallax.  My Leica favorite is the thingie with the sticks that
set
> the optimum distance between lens and subject.  There's a photo in a late
> 30s Leica brochure showing some fellow taking a picture of a cat with this
> adaptor--the poor cat looks horrified (with more than a little
> justification.)
>
> New York Motor Drive for M4.  Take the quiet and convenience of an M
camera,
> add a motor drive the size of a ranch house.  Remove the whole shooting
> match when it's time to change film--say, thirty seconds after loading the
> roll.  This last example may be a bit unfair, since most 1960s motor drive
> systems were hardly examples of simplicity.  However, I'm reminded of Sal
> DiMarco's famous line, "the quality of 35mm matched with the ease and
> simplicity of 4x5"
>
> Jim Shulman
> Bryn Mawr, PA
>
> PS.  Three of my all-time favorite goofy adaptors come from the wonderful
> world of 8mm movie cameras.  There's the Wittnauer Cine-Twin of 1957,
> combining camera and projector in one cumbersome unit.  Guess that'll
teach
> you not to finish the whole roll of film!  They should have stuck to
> watches.  Then there's the Elmo Tri-Filmatic of 1965, which took different
> magazines for regular 8mm, super 8, and single 8 film (love to find one of
> those someday, just for my perverse collecting delight).
>
> The grand prize, though, goes to the Bolex Synchomat of 1959, which takes
> some 'splainin. In the late 1950s, movie equipment manufacturers saw a
> market for sound amateur film.  However, 8mm movie film didn't leave much
> room for an analog sound track--an available area near the film
perforations
> about the size of a gnat's foreskin.  There were attempts to put a
magnetic
> sound stripe (really, a piece of magnetic tape glued to the film) on the
> edge of the film; however, with late 1950s technology the 8mm stripe
> couldn't reproduce sound with anything approaching decent fidelity.
>
> Bolex tried a strip adaptor, the Sonorizer (which was rather hilarious--it
> was really a base for the projector, with an extra mechanism containing
the
> sound reader), but they also wanted to offer something delivering higher
> quality sound.  After all, they were Bolex--the class act of 8/16mm movie
> cameras.
>
> Bolex introduced the Synchomat for their M8 projector.  The Synchomat
> controlled the film's projection speed in synchronization with an
open-reel
> tape recorder.  Here's how it worked: the 1/4 magnetic tape would be
> threaded through the tape recorder, with an additional lap past a capstan
in
> the Synchomat (which was conveniently mounted next to the tape recorder,
in
> the same plane as the tape's feed mechanism.  If this sounds complicated,
it
> was.)  The Synchomat used a flexible cable that attached to the M8
> projector; the revolutions of the flex cable controlled the projector
speed.
> Voila--synchronization, with the high quality of 1/4" open reel tape.
>
> Some of these devices were reported to have been used a SECOND time.
>
>
>
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