Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/02/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]There have been some unflattering comparisons of the LTM cameras to the M bodies. Allow me a gentle dissent. First, it is an axiom of life that a warrior learns to use the weapons available and at hand. So, learn to use an LTM camera and the difficulties just drop away. Two different eyepieces, one for the RF and the other for the VF? Sure? So what: the 1.5X magnification on the later LTM cameras makes that RF more accurate than those on even the M3. Clipping film to load the camera? Yup. So what? I carry a Swiss Army Knife for such chores, and it takes all of, gee, 10 seconds? Separate slow-speed dial? Yeah. So what? A warrior learns to use the weapons at hand. Yes, the Contax II was a more user-friendly camera. It had a removable back. It had a combined RF/VF, arguably the best in any mass-produced RF camera, bright and huge. The Leitz film cassette is from nowhere when compared to the magnificent Zeiss Ikon cassette, later thefted by Nikon and produced by them into the 1980's, while the Ukrainian rip-off is pretty good, as well. And in the Contax system, you can put a cassette both as the film supply and as the take-up, a really handy function if you are too weak after seven days of photography (har-har: seven days of photography makes one weak -- Sorry for that one, Walt!) to rewind the film. By 1940, most of the hard-country photojournalists had switched from Leica to Contax but the many virtues of the system are forgotten today. There is a second side to this. When I got my IIIc, after decades of lust, I picked up a lot of literature and learned how to flush the system out with doo-dads and gee-gaws and forced myself to learn to shoot as they did in the era of the Korean War. A IIIc with an APDOO self-timer and a Geiss Kontakt IIIc flash synchronizer is a delight. Avoid the Leitz Imarect, as it can only be called "lame" by charity, but there are other auxiliar VF's including those from Astro, Carl Zeiss, and TEWE which fill the bill admirably. The delight of taking the IIIc on a shoot is that the working is that of 1950. Want a telephoto? Great! Pick up a Visoflex I, a sports shutter release, and a 4.5/20cm Telyt, and, my gosh, you might be back shooting the 1936 Winter Olympics. In realistic terms, unless you score a 4.5/21 CZ Biogon in LTM -- one of mine, alas, was converted to M BM, but it is my regular wide-angle for my M cameras -- the widest you can reasonably go is a 2.8/3.5cm CZJ Biogon T or a Jupiter-12, either of which works admirably. So, when I have somewhere to go which I wish to document but where the results are of no fiscal or societal value, I'm always split between the IIIc and a Conax II. But then, there is always that Werra 3, with its 1/750" Prestor. So little time! So many choices! Best to take the Hasselblad SWC or the Rolleiflex 2.8GX .... hmm. But do not sell LTM gear short. Wonderful cameras, wonderful system, wonderful access to some grand lenses. Want telephoto? I can do 28/2600 on my Questar or 13/1000 on my Swift 831 or 4/300 on my Pan-Tele-Kilar, not to mention 5/40cm with my Telyt. The IIIc and Contax RF cameras were fully evolved systems. Do not sell them short. And it is a worthy thing to learn how the great pictures of the past were made. Again, a warrior uses the weapons at hand. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!