Film Cameras For Lovers - Leica M3 (Photo Gear 14)

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It seems to be fashionable these days to make things look retro.

Now you better not get fooled by the looks, the Leica M3 doesn’t look retro...

The Leica M3 is "The Real Thing"!

Leica M3+Versenkbar Summicron 5cm+Leicameter MC

(Camera and lens from the same vintage: 1955)

Introduced in April, 1954 – yes, that is 58 long years ago!!! - the Leica M3 was the first Leica to have a bayonet mount - the Leica M mount – permitting that lenses are changed faster and easier.

Previous Leicas were screw mount (The Leica Thread Mount - or M39 - was used on all previous Leica models with interchangeable lenses. The Leica IIIg released in 1957 - three years after the introduction of the M3 - was actually the last screw-mount Leica).

Comparing to former Leicas, the finder on the M3 – the first Leica finder to combine rangefinder and viewfinder into one window - is much improved, being of larger diameter and exceptionally bright.

The base length of the M3 rangefinder has been increased to 68,5mm for greater accuracy and the M3 finder has a high magnification factor of 0,92x. That together with framelines for 50, 90 and 135mm, make the M3 the rangefinder camera of choice for the normal and longer lenses.

The 50mm framelines are permanently visible in the finder, while the 90 and 135mm are shown when such a lens is inserted in the camera, or when you activate the finder frame preselector located on the front of the body  (the first M3s didn’t have the preselector lever!).

The parallax error is compensated in the Leica M3 by moving the framelines diagonally  through the field during focusing.

For wide-angle shooting use a separate viewfinder slid into the accessory shoe, or use a 35mm lens having the “goggles” that correct the frame of view attached.



Leica M3 + Visoflex III + Telyt 4/200mm

Leica M3 + Visoflex III + Telyt 4.8/280mm

Some other important features of the then new Leica M3 can be resumed as follow:

- Easier film loading with the opening backdoor (previous Leicas had only bottom loading);

- The transport lever used to tension the focal plane shutter and advance the film by one frame (former screw-mount Leicas had a winding knob);

The first M3s had the so called double-stroke, as in the case shown in this post: you have to wind with two short strokes. Later on, Leitz changed the film winding of the Leica M3 - and all subsequent models - to single-stroke film advancement.

- A single non-rotating shutter speed dial to control the exposure times (LTM Leicas had a second dial for slow shutter speeds). Shutter speeds set before or after winding.

- The film counter automatically returns to its starting  position when the take-up spool is withdrawn.

- Built-in self-timer.



Some thoughts about the year of 1955?

Elvis Presley made is 1^st TV appearance, Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” is considered obscene, Winston Churchill resigns as British PM, Gaullists lose elections in France, West Germany joins NATO, Warsaw Pact is signed, Bill Halley hits nr.1 with “Rock Around the Clock”, Carl Perkins records “Blue Suede Shoes”, and so on, and so on…

It was still a long time coming for the world to know and hear about The Beatles, men landing on the moon was still a dream waiting some 14 years to become true, Portugal still had longer to wait to be a country free of dictatorship…

And all this time the Leica M3 was shooting and shooting and shooting…



Fátima, 13th of May 2011

(Leica M3 + Elmarit-M 28mm)

1955 was also the year of my birth...

...and the Leica M3 keeps on shooting... keeps on shooting... keeps on shooting...

Long live the Leica M3!

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Cibachrome - A II "vintage" prints

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Leica M3+Visoflex III+280mm Telyt - Escalhão, Portugal, 1983

This is my first ever atempt at Cibachrome - A II!

The first, and I might as well say, almost the only one! Back in 1985, I decided to give it a try. So I choosed a couple of 35mm slides, got the developing tank and the necessary chemistry (process P-30) , and made a couple of prints. As I didn't have yet a Jobo processor, or any other processor, I rolled the tank on the bath-room floor back and forth, what quickly proved to be rather tedious. Worse still, it was very hard to keep temperature constant. As a consequence, results were rather erroneous and inaccurate. I quickly decided to give up, and never tried it again. Somehow the process later on changed to Ilfochrome, but I don't really know what that change means...

Please take a look at these images as a kind of curiosity, more a kind of memory. I found them, and I thought it might be funny to post them. The years gone by, kind of excuse my inaptitude...

Leica M4-2+Visoflex III+280mm Telyt. Azoren, Pico, 1982

Leica M4+Visoflex III+280mm. Azoren, Angra do Heroísmo, 1982

Leica M4-2+Visoflex III+280mm. Azoren: sunrise behind S. Jorge, seen from Pico, 1982

Minolta XM+80-200mm Rokkor. Lagos, Portugal, 1979

Minolta XM+135mm Rokkor. Mira, Portugal, 1977

Minolta XM+135mm Rokkor. Monsanto, Portugal, 1977

These photographs are getting kind of "historic", and they remind me that the years keep on going by. I no longer own any Minolta cameras or lenses (only keep my Minolta Spotmeter), but I must say that I to these days regret that I sold the XM. A rather nice camera, that tried to compete with the F models from Nikon.
I can't talk bad about Minolta. I started with a 303b and soon added a 101b. Fine cameras with fine lenses. I was satisfied! That is, until one day I picked up a Leica in a shop, and from that moment on I knew a change had to take place! In that moment I did understand that Leica was not only a mythus, but rather another league. I soon substituted all my Minolta equipment for Leicas! So I am using Leicas for thirty years now, and I have never looked back.

My oldest model, a double-stroke M3 (took the first picture above!) is fifty-three years old, looking beatiful and going strong. Wish I could also keep forever young... I bought my "youngest" M Leica, (I first had a CL for a short time), in 1979!!! Keeps on working like in the first day! Every now and then (maybe every ten years or so) they get a CLA and keep on moving... Really great stuff!!!


It is a pity and a shame that Leica is becoming more and more a kind of status symbol, a kind of fashion accessory, mostly treasured and inflaccionated by collectors than actually used by photographers. Worse still, it seems Leica (the company) likes to play the game, what I can in a way understand because of the big bucks involved. Sad... sad...


The Visoflex mentioned above was a device, long gone from Leica's catalogue, that turned the M model (a so called rangefinder camera), into a single lens reflex. It is too late and I am too tired now, for to dive deep in the subject, but basically it allowed the use of long lenses and macro equipment with the M cameras. I imagine that some of you (I mean, IF there is somebody out there reading this!) don't know much about those kind of odditys, as they belong to a already gone age... Yes, there once was a time, when photographers didn't have auto-everything, super-fast and super-easy photography-producing machines, backed up by everything-correcting computers.

Once upon a time photographers did have to know their trade...

Good night, sleep tight.

(P.S.: Please excuse me, if some of you are Leica experts. Maybe you know a lot more about Leicas, and equipment in general, than I do, but I must assume that not everyone who might read these posts is a leicaphile...)

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