[Leica] IIIc or IIIf?

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

At 11:15 AM 8/5/06 +1000, you wrote:
>Hi Marc.
>I heard a rumour you know something about these cameras!
>
>I would like a user camera.
>No flash or timer aspirations. I have read the information that Cameraquest
>have posted and had one or two helpful suggestions from Luis and Arche.
>
>By all means educate me with some specifics regarding build quality, ease of
>operation and what sort of glass would be appropriate. Need to be the proper
>period thing. This is entirely a camera indulgence not requirement
>situation.

Hoppy

I had to do a professional wedding shoot on one occasion with a IIIc when
my early M3 went south on me, and all worked well.

The only problem with the basic IIIc is the outside.  The chrome on some is
not properly fixed, and the rubber covering on others is flakey, both due
to the limits on what was available to the factory after the War ended.
So, the later the beter, as they say.  MIne suffers from neither problem
and is s/n 499508, if that gives you a hint.

Jeffery Smith could probably give you more guidance on the normal lenses
than can I, as he seems to have cornreed the world market on odd 50mm
lenses.  I happen to like the basic Summitar a lot, though the later
Summicorn is hard to beat.  The Soviet Jupter-3 1.5/50 will work rings
around the Leitz Summarit, thouigh a former List member took some grand
pictures with his Summarit back in the 1950's.  (I own a Smmitar, Summarit,
Summicron, all in thread-mount, and two Carl Zeiss Jena 2/5cm and a single
CZJ 1.5/5cm  Sonnar, along with a 2/2" Cooke Amotal and a Jupiter-3 and a
Jupiter-8.)  

My advice would be:  a basic IIIc with Summitar.  Add a Soviet Jupter-12
2.8/35 and Jupiter-11 2/85 and a Soviet multiframe auxiliary viewfinder and
all will be made well.  With that set, you can learn how Eisie made his
greatest pictures.  And pick up a copy of the 1949 or 1950 edition of the
LEICA MANUAL   

The NEXT lesson will be to wean you away from this weenie Wetzlar stuff and
to get you to use the real RF system, the Contax.  A Contax II is the most
magnificent RF ever made.  They are plentiful, they are cheap, they are
reliable, and they are so very, very cool.

I own a bunch of Leicas -- a IIIc, a IIIf RD/ST, a IIIg, an M3 SS, and a
Wetzlar M6.  I also own a bunch of Contaces -- a I, verion 7, two II's, a
III, a IIa, and a IIIa, and a slew of lenses for those as well as for the
Leicas.  Hell, I even have the Novoflex reflex housings for the Leicas and
for the Contax cameras.  And Visoflex and PLOOT gear.  And bellows.
Shucks, I also own a bunch of macro lenses -- I love to do MF slides iwth
my Hassleblad 200FCM and a bellows rig and a Photar macro lens.  It blows
the folks away when you show them the difference in engraving styles on
Leitz lenses from 1933 to 1978.  

These really are wonderful cameras, both Leica and Contax, as both are
system cameras.  I have hooked up my M6 to my Questar and taken photographs
of a lunar eclipse, while I had the IIIc hooked up to a 4/30cm CZJ Sonnar.
But, tommorrow, I might pick up my IIIc and load a roll of film, and go
shoot the local peach festival.  These are remarkably flexible cameras.

I am in the process of moving from Roanoke, Virginia, to Richmond,
Virginia, and am dragging my heels as much as I can, as I never lost a
thing in Richmond.  The BIG discussion my wife and I are having is where
the dark room will be in the new house.  She immediately ruled out my
suggestion that we convert the kitchen ...

Marc



msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!