Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/08/08

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Subject: [Leica] Leica NY Times article
From: lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 16:25:37 -0400 (EDT)

 Sonny writes:
"Howard, I think the inference was that the M was a rangefinder camera
system. Before there were thread mounts which, while interchangeable are
not easily."
- - - -
Sonny, ask Jim Schulman about the provenance of bayonet mounts. I had a 1932 
Contax 1 35mm camera with a bayonet mount when I was in college. It was made 
and widely distributed 22 years before the Leica M series debuted. Basically 
the Leica M simply copied the best features of the 1936 era Contax II 
including combined rangefinder/viewfinder, one dial shutter speeds, and fast 
bayonet mounted lenses. Leica never got around to adding an opening back on 
the M series film cameras. Prior to WW2 Contax was regarded as the most 
advanced 35 mm camera and the Zeiss lenses were considered sharper than the 
Leica lenses. Even Leica used some Zeiss lens designs. That's not to say 
that the Contax was a better camera after WW2 or even that it took better 
pictures. But I can tell you this, in the era in which I worked on the old 
Boston Globe (1948 to 1952) staff photographers far preferred Contaxes to 
Leicas. Of course we all used 4x5 Speed Graphics for serious work.
Larry Z



Replies: Reply from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Leica NY Times article)