Re: [Leica] Leica IIIc - First RF?

[Martin Howard <mvhoward@mac.com>]

Marc James Small attempted to corrupt a poor, unsuspecting Leica newbie:

> The IIIc/IIIf is a wonderful
> camera to use and the only advantage of this Bessa item is an inbuilt
> light-meter.  I generally use "Sunny 16" when I am outside, at any 
> event,
> so I don't really see this as an overwhelming advantage for the Bessa.

Two words: Film loading.

In the time it takes you to get out your pocket knife to trim the 
leader for the IIIc, our Bessa owner has loaded his camera and taken 
three shots.

By the time that you have opened your pocket knife, sliced off the tip 
of your left hand's index finger, cut the leader, refolded and replaced 
your pocket knife, managed to wiggle the take-up spool out of the 
bottom of the camera, dropped the take-up spool, hunted around on your 
hands-and-knees on aunt Martha's shag carpet for the take-up spool, 
pried the take-up spool from aunt Martha's possessive Yorkshire 
terrier's growling fangs, got the film leader into the take-up spool, 
tried cramming the film and take-up spool back into the camera only to 
realize that you've fed the film leader into the take-up spool the 
wrong way, correctly aligned film leader into take-up spool, tried 
getting the now buckled film into the camera body, had to remove the 
lens and put the shutter on B and stuck your fingers (which are now 
trying to simultaneously maintain pressure on the shutter release, 
juggle a Russian 35mm Biogon copy, the take-up spool, a film reel, the 
IIIc, and a baseplate, all without scratching the huge, bulging rear 
element of the lens, or dropping anything within reach of the Yorkshire 
terrier) through the lens mount to guide the film into place over the 
sproket wheels which are carefully hidden from view, remounted the 
lens, remounted the baseplate, and wound on the film gingerly hoping 
that it isn't going to pull off the take-up spool so that you have to 
do the whole thing once again, our Bessa owner has shot six rolls of 
film, had them developed, printed ten images, won a photographic 
competition with one of his shots, and bought an M6TTL .58x with the 
prize money.

Yes, the LTMs are very nice cameras (I owned and shot with a Leica II) 
- -- but just *perhaps* the Bessa has other advantages than a built-in 
light meter.

M.

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