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Author Archives: Leicaphila
A Fascinating Look At the Leica M System, 1973
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It’s Good to be King
Auction house Bonhams is hosting the Fine Leica Centenary Sale in Hong Kong this Saturday, November 29. The auction spans most of the brand’s history, including cameras from the early 1930s through 2014. There are 84 lots total. Two of these are Leica ephemera (an advertisement and a display sign), seven are lenses, and the remaining 75 are camera bodies, bodies with lenses, or self-contained cameras.
Included in the auction is one of a collection of 16 Leica M6 TTLs, (shown above), made for Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Bin Ali Al-Thani, the one-time owner of the world’s most expensive watch. Sixteen Leica M6 Al-Thani cameras were made to be used as prizes for the winners of the annual Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Bin Ali Al-Thani Photography Competition held in Qatar. This camera was won by Robert Fulton of Scotland for his image “Winter Trees,” which was the overall winner of the Al-Thani Grand Prix 2013. This camera is believed to be only the second example to have been offered at auction.
It is expected to fetch $40,000 to $57,000.
In addition, Bonhams is also auctioning a Luxus Leica, with gilt top and base plates and fittings, red faux snakeskin body covering and matching Elmar f/3.5 50mm lens, the camera that started the over-the-top Leica luxury edition craze some 90 years ago, proving that arguably tasteless collector editions have been part of Leica’s DNA since the beginning. It’s expected to fetch between $480,000 and $640,000, exclusive of Bonham’s 25% commission.
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Missing the Train (or… Avoiding The Digital Rat Race)
Nassim Taleb, NYU Professor of the Science of Uncertainty and contrarian thinker par excellence, once remarked that the best advice he had ever been given had come from his friend the novelist Jean-Olivier Tedesco, who, being advised by Taleb that their train was leaving soon and they should run to catch it, stated that if he had learned one lesson in his distinguished career, it was that one should never run for a train.
Its great advice, and I encourage you as a photographer to follow it. Missing the train is only a problem if you run after it. There is an elegance in refusing to run after trains, in not setting your standards in line with others, a sense of being in control of whats important in your life and in your creative decisions. In photographic terms, this means resist running with the digital herd, with its lemming like pursuit of greater sharpness, more resolution, and the delusive idea that constant equipment upgrading will somehow get you where you’re going creatively. You stand above the herd, not outside of it, when you do so by choice. You have far more control over your success photographically if you set the criteria for success yourself.
Part of my educational expertise is exploring creativity and studying the personalities and habits of creative people. If there is one invariable rule I’ve gleaned from them, its that truly successful artists (not the fashionable and soon to be forgotten) don’t run after trains; they are surprisingly unconcerned with the technology of their profession; they are concerned, rather, with the evocative images or the evocative words they create. Now, I’m not going to get into the tired debate about whether you as a photographer are an “artist”, only that the refusal to run after trains is effective advice in any number of creative arenas and is almost invariably a precondition to real creativity as opposed to the slavish ape-ing of others. Think of someone like Vivian Maier, for example. Ignored in life, now celebrated in death, because she had something to say. Do you really think that she cared what equipment she used, or that it made any difference to the power of her images? Would her photos have been better, more evocative, if she had bumped up from a Leica III and ancient Summitar to an M240 with an Aspherical Summilux, or from an ancient TLR loaded with Pan X to Sony a7s with image stability and 25,600 ISO capability? Would she have been better, more productive, if she posted regularly on Rangefinder Forum debating what Filson bag went best with her newest Leica MP240? Think about it, and while you’re at it, stop obsessing about your equipment and start obsessing about why your photos look like everybody else’s. Ironic words, no doubt, from a guy who writes a gear head blog, but good advice none the less. The point is this: don’t confuse the means with the end.
Photography is a simple process. A light tight box, some optics to concentrate light, and a light sensitive medium is all you need. Its a process that’s provided enjoyment and incredible creative possibilities for over a hundred years. Leica film cameras, with their transparency as a creative tool, are a large part of that story. They still can be, and they are for a few people who value them for what they do and not what they are. Now the digital revolution has swept aside all of it. Your 7 year old kid with his jphone can do things photographically that you only dreamed about doing with your Leica in the film age. Has it made photographers ” better?” I’d submit its made them worse, less creative, more slavish and herd like.
I recently saw a Walker Evans exhibition at the Getty in Los Angeles. It consisted of beautiful 5×7 B&W contact prints taken in Cuba in the 1930’s. I had just come back from Paris, where I had seen the latest fashionable photography in various galleries and art spaces. Saw a lot of people in those spaces with the latest digital Leica’s proudly hung around their necks as some sort of creative talisman. The difference between the two aesthetics was striking: one, small, simple, deep, jewel like, each photo a visual feast for the eye; the other, large, sharp, resolute, garish, dominated by the surface and completely unremarkable. When I got home, I rededicated myself to the simple joys of film photography and have never looked back.
So, if your Leica MM sensor has de-laminated after 6 months, or the Fuji you bought last month is now obsolete, or the Aspherical Summilux you paid a month’s salary for suffers from back focus, use your angst as a means of re-evaluating what’s really important in your creative journey. When the grapes you have been eating are sweet, consider the Aesop’s fable of the grapes you do not reach for. They’re just as likely to be sour as sweet.
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The Genesis of the Black Paint Rangefinder
The camera that started the trend of black finish was not the Leica MP, but the Nikon S2. The black paint Nikon S2 was introduced in October 1955. The black S2 is plated with black nickel and then painted.
The Nikon rangefinders possessed a fit and finish the equal of the Leica, although some folks mistake the inherent play in the fit of the detachable back for a lack of bodily solidity. It is not. In terms of finish, the Nikons sometimes bested the Leica. Unlike Leitz, the white markings are engraved – on the M3, M2 and M4 only the serial number is engraved – on the Nikon S2, all the white numerals, lettering and indications are engraved by hand.
The first of black M Leicas was a run of 5 black paint M3’s followed shortly by the famous black MP’s. Leitz made 150 of the black MPs. The paint on these cameras is very dull and thin.
In 1958 Leitz introduced the M2 that was also made in black, the same finish and paint type that was used on the MP: dull and thin. Leitz produced 500 of the M2’s in this run of black paint production.
Towards the early seventies Leitz offered a service for those who were not happy with the flaking and bubbling paint on their early black M2’s. All the black parts were replaced by new ones and the original number was engraved, but slightly higher than the old ones from the fifties. The type of paint was the same of that of the black paint M4 and Leicaflex SL.
For some reason lost to time, Leitz did not have a restoration service for the M3 as they did for the M2. However, owners could have their chrome M3’s transformed to black paint. These transformed cameras are very rare, due to the high cost. They were often made to match the Noctilux 50mm f/1.2, a black finished lens.
The style of the engraved number will date the camera a bit. This one does not have any spaces in it’s number, so it can date from the M5 era when the numbers were engraved into the accessory-shoe without spaces. Note the position of the engraved serial number, just a bit lower than the M3 engraving.
*Thanks to Eric van Straten for the photos and expertise. This is essentially a verbatim reprint of a fascinating tutorial posted by Mr. van Straten elsewhere. Mr. van Straten is an amazing source of information for all things Leica film rangefinder related.
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Are Leicas Still Relevant? Two Gearheads Debate
I see the merit in both positions. Of course, any debate about the continued relevance of Leica M must start with the introduction of the Nikon F…...
A…Then came Nikons, and they took over quickly because they were the first camera system in a long time that was significantly better than or equal to Leicas in almost every way that counted to working photographers.
B. It’s a point. The Nikon F was indeed a better system solution than even the world’s best rangefinder, well matched to the requirements of most journalists of the time. However, for the more deliberate shooter who prefers a quiet, small, stable, unobtrusive photographic instrument with superb optics, excelling in low light, the M continued to have an important place to play. Many documentary, newspaper and magazine photographers used Leica M’s until recent times. I doubt that their subjects even knew what a Leica was. They used those cameras for good business reasons, IMO, not for status, and especially not so if status would have gotten in the way of their work.
A. All that was left for Leica was the legendary status, and, less so, the fact that, although outmatched in almost every way, they were still well-made cameras. When your product is not even close to being able to take on the competition (i.e. Nikon in this case), you can no longer rely on the product itself to keep you in business.
B. Well, they have had their troubles, haven’t they? Somehow they persist. An old photographer told me back in the sixties “Cameras come, and cameras go, but the Leica remains.” I laughed at him. I’m not laughing anymore. With all due respect, one limitation in your logic, IMO, is the notion that a camera wins by doing more things better, even if in the process it does a few important things worse.
A. The Leica mystique was always perpetuated to some degree by the company, and when the cameras gradually phased out in the wake of Nikons, I think Leitz came to rely on their legendary status to keep themselves in business.
B. They were phased out? The M is the only 35mm camera I know of that has persisted from 1953 to the present day with a single common mount and unbroken product continuity. If I am not mistaken, its latest iteration is one of the smallest full-frame digitals in the market space, and is selling well. I wonder if any of the photographers who once used the film M’s will be using digital Ms for their work. I would bet that there will be some who do. SLRs cannot do everything best. It’s a fact. My 1950’s M3 and Summicron can still be serviced by numerous skilled technicians. My Nikon F has poorer support. Thankfully, it does not need much of it. The Nikon just keeps on going, like that Energizer Bunny. But the Leica M3 is definitely superior in fit, finish, and operation.
A. The sentimentality of those who had grown up with and made their livings on the legendary Leicas of yore was stoked by the company and passed down from generation to generation.
B. Probably so. One sells however he can. As we all know, many of the most memorable images in history were recorded by great photographers using Leica rangefinders. And those images did not cease in 1959, with the appearance of the F.
A. Now we have exorbitantly priced Leica cameras that are no better than what the company made when Nikon first blew them out of the water. Think about it.
B. Yes, the early M’s really were that good. May they always be as well made. Rock solid, heavy and stable, smooth as butter, quiet as a mouse, unobtrusive, wonderful in available darkness, terrific for candid imaging. A tool that in some few ways cannot be matched by an SLR or a dSLR.
A. How the heck else is a company supposed to stay in business with a product that was handily outmatched fifty years ago?
B. It wasn’t categorically outmatched, and it hasn’t been. It became a less suitable match than an SLR for a majority of users. It remained popular for some others for a few very good reasons. How do you compare a wrench to pliers? These are completely different tools. As to how Leica survives, they will have to figure that out for themselves. The M9 and S2 seem to have some promise. I wish them luck, as that is all I have to offer them.
A. When your product is no longer competitive, you don’t sell the product. You sell something more than the product. The product simply becomes a vehicle for the purchase of status.
B. As I said, one must pitch it however it will sell, always putting it in its best light. Thankfully, the fact that some people buy it for status is wholly unknown to the Leica. It just does what it does. And that’s what matters for those who actually use Leica M’s regularly. Anytime I don’t need the special capabilities of an SLR, I shoot with the Leica. I just like it. And as for the status, most folks seeing an old guy like me with an obviously ancient metal camera are more likely to have pity than envy. They don’t even know what it is, nor do they take it seriously. That’s a good thing in candid imaging, actually. Quite easy to mix in with folks.
A. Make no mistake. Leicas are primarily luxury/leisure items, and have been for decades.
B. Matters not to me. Mine has no red dot. I paid $600 for the camera in the 90s and another $250 to clean, lubricate and adjust. I have no doubt that if I sold it today, I could recover about that. Now think about this: The cost of ownership would be nearly ZERO. What other camera matches that? The cost of ownership is so attractively low that its hard to say no. And if you don’t like the Leica, someone else will. Hardly any other camera has so little risk to the owner as an M. Maybe Hasselblad 500c or a classic Rollei.
A. The way I see it, the trick to getting around this overpriced idiocy, and to simply get your hands on an excellent rangefinder camera, is to realize that the company has made no significant upgrades for 90% of truly serious shooters since the M2. If you want a quality rangefinder that simply gets the job done in an old-fashioned manner, don’t buy anything past the M2, and do not fall for any of the collector garbage.
B. On this we agree mostly. If somebody is dumb enough to buy a gold plated Leica with ostrich skin for a million dollars, then good for them and Leica. It’s nothing to me. If it helps Leica survive, then maybe parts for the M’s will continue in manufacture longer.
A. Realize that no matter how good everyone proclaims Leica optics and mechanics of the cameras to be, they are over all an outdated and inferior tool to SLRs.
C. Apples vs Bananas I say. Each tool to its own user and purpose. “Outdated” is an irrelevant term if a tool is judged by the photographer to be best for any particular application.
A. Ultimately, if there’s a justification for still shooting a Leica M, it’s the same reason you drive a ’61 Cadillac: because they’re cool, and fun, not because they are the best in the world in a technical sense (though they may have been at the time they were made).
B. The public knows what a ’61 Cadillac is. They don’t know a Leica M from Adam’s house cat. For the few areas where a rangefinder (Leica or otherwise) has an advantage, no SLR is its equal. Did anyone ever replace a well appointed tool box with an all-knives.org Knife? The purpose made tools are always better for some specific applications. So it is with the rangefinder.
A. Everyone is so convinced that having a Leica makes them a serious photographer. Everyone is convinced that they are vastly superior in quality to any other camera. Balls to that.
B. Not me, and not everyone. Some say my people pictures are better when I use the M3 instead of my F or F2. Maybe so. However, I agree with you that the machine does not make the image. That’s the photographer’s job! Anyone who thinks a camera makes them a photographer probably believes that cookware would make them a chef, or that a Ferrari would make them a world class driver at Le Mans.
A. The proof in pictures says otherwise. People shoot the same crap with Leicas that they do with any camera, and often it is even crappier because rangefinders are such a pain in the ass to use compared to SLRs.
B. You are right in that technology does not make one a photographer. I goof just as often with an F, an F2, an M3, or with any of my other cameras. Anyone who feels that an M is a pain to use should just get something else. It is no pain for me. Most folks don’t like rangefinders. Okay by me, as long as I can enjoy mine.
A. Leicas are cool because they are fun and old fashioned. Embrace that, and don’t take them so damned seriously. You’ll get out cheap, and have a million times more fun and get a million times better pictures than all the bozos paying big bucks for them so that they can think of themselves as serious photographers. Get an old thread mount camera or an early M and you’ve got everything that was ever good about using a Leica in the first place. You usually escape for well under a thousand bucks too.
B.They are good for more reasons than that. As for the bozos, they can simmer in their own mental stew. I like the M because I like using the M and I like the images. That’s all that matters to me.
A. The Leica mystique is due to the fact that people do not know how to objectively judge something, take it for what it is, and just enjoy it for the hell of it. They’ve always got to attach some sort of twisted value to it beyond what it actually is: a cool old camera that used to rule the world.
B.You are off the mark in your assessment about objectivity of judgment. I hope for your sake you do not own a Leica M. Fortunately, most folks who dislike them don’t, and some who own them actually do love using them.
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Deconstructing the ‘Leica Mystique’
You’ve all seen him: the guy with the Leica M with the serious expression on his face, taking pictures of people drinking coffee downtown. The M9 with the Summilux Aspherical and the black gaffer tape…..suburban drone by day, on weekends a dogged photojournalist out on the prowl, looking for a scoop, or at least a “Decisive Moment” of some sort. You’ll find the same guy on camera forums, buying and selling and trading and debating Leicas with a seriousness usually reserved for theological debates. Central to his mythos is The Leica Glow, an undefined yet undeniable characteristic of Leica “glass.” This photographer, almost never a working pro (except for self-proclaimed Leica “expert” Thorsteen Overgaard), often as not a dentist in the throes of mid-life mania, is suffering a communal photographic delusion referred to as The Leica Mystique.
I suppose that some of the so-called Leica Mystique rests on Leica being the grand-daddy of 35mm photography (somebody had to be first), and a leader in the quality end of the market for several decades. And, while Leicas aren’t possessed of magical qualities, they are, at least to the extent we’re talking about Leica Film cameras, very finely made cameras. After using a Nikon F to cut my photographic teeth, I purchased a new M5 in the late 70’s, specifically because I wanted my photographic experience to be “better.” Alas, there were no heavenly choirs, and my photographs didn’t suddenly become any more compelling by virtue of the Leica Glow. What it did offer me was a rather nuanced experience- a bit quirky and different to modern equipment, but an excellent tactile experience due to the fit, finish, and superb build quality. It was the Nikon F without the rough edges and the “clunk.” It pleased me that something so simple could feel so good in the hand and could be so smooth and unobtrusive. It didn’t hurt that I felt like I was using something rare and valuable that had its place in photographic history. Over the next 30 years I kept the M5 and added an M2, M4, M6 and M7, my experience each time matching that of the M5.
So, it was in looking for that same experience that I bought a Nikon S3 Millennial a while back. Its a beautiful camera, reputed to have cost Nikon much more to produce than the $6000 price tag. Nikon as a corporation is to be commended for taking the time and effort to resurrect such a beautiful piece of 35mm history. But its no Leica. The S3 finder is cluttered, the rangefinder patch is dull and fuzzy, the restriction to a 50mm field of view is inconvenient, lens changes are slow. It does, however, come with a killer lens, the Nikkor 50 1.4 which is every bit as good as the $5000 Summilux 50 (ironic, huh?).
It’s hard not to compare the S3 Millennial to a garden variety Leica M2 of the same vintage (both being manufactured in the late 50s). The M2 sports a great finder with 35 FOV capability, and a rangefinder patch you don’t have to go searching for. Build quality every bit the match to the S3 Millennial, rebuilt just 14 years ago. Classic, supremely functional design, and much easier to use given the bright viewfinder/rangefinder, the rounded corners and perfectly placed shutter release. Aside from being easier to use, what I like about the M2 is it still feels relevant, new almost, in spite of the fact that its pushing 50 years old. Unlike the S3, the M2 doesn’t have that feel of using a piece of history. Of the dozen or so cameras that I own (film and digital), I use the M2 probably as much or more than any other. It lives with a Voigtlander 35 2.5 attached to it, which to me is the ultimate expression of a simplified 35mm film camera.
So, if there is any validity to The Leica Mystique, it’s a simple fact born of use, not some abstract concept derived from magical thinking and wish fulfillment . Between the S3 and the M2, it’s the Leica that puts a smile on my face – it’s the form factor and ease of use. The M2 is what I would call the more serious picture taking machine – very fast and intuitive, and more transparent as a tool. The S3 is a beautiful mechanical device, but in relation to the M2 it lacks the true ‘form follows function’ tradition embodied by the M2.
Most of the so-called Leica Mystique is a result of a certain admiration for the work of famous Leica users over the years and a not so subtle desire to justify the price tag. But some of it surely stems from its quality as an instrument – anyone who uses hand tools, of any sort, can appreciate tools that are very well made. There is also a certain pleasure in using tools that embody the simplest, most functional technology – and in knowing that there is no upgrade path. In the digital age, where manufacturers try to convince us to chase our tails in an elusive search for the newest and best, this is a wonderfully liberating feeling. In this sense, the Nikon (or the Canon or the Hexar or the Contax) is simply not in the same league as the M2. Of course, Leica’s photographic history certainly doesn’t hurt. Somebody had to be first, somebody had to be better than anyone else, and that just happened to be Leica.
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Goodbye Leica
By Adrian Boot. Originally published by Urbanimage.tv. All photos by Adrian Boot
It was 1974 when I first began using a Leica, a second hand M3 with a 35mm f1.4 lens. It was a dream come true, a classic stealth camera that was fast, almost silent, small and brilliant in low light. You could take pictures without a tripod at shutter speeds as low as 1/15 of a second, and as long as the subject didn’t move even 1/8 of a second. Unlike its bulky SLR relatives Canon, Pentax, Nikon etc. all of which are disadvantaged with mirror vibration, poor focus systems and bulkiness, the Leica was fast, precise and small. Try holding a large Nikon SLR in one hand while shooting at slow shutter speeds, the results will be often be a blur. These days this is not entirely true given that most modern digital SLR cameras have some sort of image stabilization.
The Leica was designed around a roll of 35mm film. Designed by photographers for photographers. With near perfect ergonomics it was a camera that rested in the hand like a glove, allowing the photographer to remain unobtrusive, a true fly on the wall. Leica became the gold standard of camera technology and although it had lots of imitators nothing else came close.
BY the early 1980’s I could afford to upgrade to the latest Leica M4 with an enviable selection of lenses including that king of lenses, the Summilux 35mm f1.4. This was quickly followed by a second / spare body the M4-P. The P meaning professional. These sleek matt black bodies became my much loved workhorse cameras, over time becoming battered, scratched and dented, carrying the scars of many a great photo opportunity. Although well worn they never failed. These mechanical masterpieces were built like tanks, tough as old boots, like Volkswagen cars, a symbol of German engineering with accuracy of a fine Swiss watch.
Of course nothing is that perfect, and the Leica M cameras had limitations. They we’re useless with telephoto lenses. Anything over a 90mm lens was impossible especially in low light conditions. For concert and action work, I , like most of my colleagues, used Nikon SLR cameras with 200 and 300mm telephoto lenses and later huge telephoto zoom lenses. The downside was the weight and size of these cameras. Hang a couple of Nikon motorized bodies together with big telephoto lenses around your neck and not only do you stick out like a photographic sore thumb, but you would often end the days shoot with serious neck ache.
Why two cameras? Well one was for colour film and one was for black and white film. Sometimes one camera would contain fast film ASA 400+ and the other a slower but finer ASA 100 film. Making matters worse, if I was on a trip that required live concert work along side candid back stage, fly on the wall photography, I had to carry 3 if not 4 camera bodies, all clanking around my aching neck. I would use the unobtrusive Leica M cameras for the backstage work. Hiding in corners or behind doors, popping off pics of Rock stars tuning guitars, arguing amongst them selves, chatting up groupies, or falling out with wives. It was all possible on a Leica, less possible on the bulky Nikons.
As we came through into the 90′s the technology gave us hard pressed photographers things like autofocus, image stabilization and more sophisticated through the lens light metering. Highly automatic cameras from Nikon and Canon became the choice of most professionals. Even thought the Leica had the best manual focus via its rangefinder focusing, it was unable to compete with these new technological breakthroughs. Autofocus was a relief for my ageing eyesight. But still the Leica remained a treasured part of my photographic life, although no longer as vital. My attachment to Leica was fast becoming more emotional than a practical solution.
Then as we came into the new millennium DIGITAL photography really began to overtake film. I resisted for a while, not entirely convinced that a digital image could be as good as a film image. So .. dipping my toe in the water with a Nikon D300 body I converted, and the results were astonishing. Combined with fast autofocus and multiple point through the lens metering and an array of other features, the images were pin sharp and perfectly exposed. The camera came into its own with low light, fast action live concert photography. Digital photography was at least as good as film photography, certainly here to stay. No more darkroom, no more poisonous chemicals, no more dust specks or scratch marks to retouch.
So when Leica announced the M8, a digital version of the classic Leica body compatible with my collection of battered M series lenses, I rushed out to buy one and although it cost thousands of pounds, It retained the solid metal build of previous Leica cameras, the same control layout and the same classic look and feel. My transition from film to digital was going to be smooth and painless, or so I thought. I had hardly removed the thing from its box when I started to notice problems. The battery and SD card both fitted under the removable base plate, a feature retained to preserve classic Leica functionality. This feature on the Leica M4 was a fast and efficient way of loading a roll of film, but on the M8 it made changing the SD card as slow as replacing a roll of film.
Trying to use my new M8 to shoot some colour pics, I discovered that the resulting images showed a serious magenta caste that required special correction filters to be added to each and every Leica lens I owned. To be fair Leica did supply 2 of these expensive items for free, but the rest I had to buy, what a hassle. Then I discovered that the viewfinder frame did not match the lens being used, making framing a guess rather than anything accurate. The glass covering the LCD screen was soft and susceptible to scratches so I was forced to use a plastic film of the type used to protect mobile phones. Adding insult to injury Leica announced a camera hardware upgrade fixing these problems, but at a cost of over £1000. I was rapidly becoming disenchanted with Leica cameras.
I also bought a Nikon D3X, a top of the line Nikon digital body and the experience was very different. By contrast this was a dream to use, and has produced some amazing images. Frankly it pissed all over the Leica. Even so the Nikon was still a beast of a camera, heavy and bulky, but it worked. No cures yet for neck ache though.
Now recently companies such as Sony, Epson and Ricoh have all started to make compact cameras that can take traditional Leica M lenses. A Sony NEX 5R or 7 costs under a grand and the innovative Ricoh GXR costs only a few hundred pounds and both have better sensors than the measly 10 megapixel sensor on the M8. Leica, bless them, have recently launched the M9 with a full frame sensor and price tag of around £5000, and I’m sure people will buy it. You don’t even need a good eye for photography, Just hang an M9 around your neck and you will impress people.
My days with a classic Leica camera are over, although the lenses will continue to be used and I am sure will produce impressive results. I have now bought a Ricoh GXR with a Leica mount. It fits in my pocket and with the low price tag I might buy two.
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Black Paint Leica MP 39* to be Auctioned in Stockholm
Up for auction December 6, 2014 at LPfoto Auctions in Stockholm, a rare duplicate numbered black paint MP with Leicavit:
Leitz Wetzlar, 1957, Black paint, Double stroke, a duplicate from an original series MP13-MP150, with matching black Leicavit MP. A extremely rare camera, in original condition except body housing with small strap lugs and self timer, with matching chassis number P-39* inside the camera. This is the only MP we have ever seen with a duplicate number, not two Leica cameras have the same serial number. If Leica ever almost duplicated a number, the second item had a star added after its otherwise identical serial number. In good working order, with dark brassy patina after hard professional use.
Starting auction price is 350,000 Swedish Krona (approx $47,500 US dollars). Clearly, this MP has seen more than its share of “hard professional use.” Frankly, it looks like something your heirs would find in a box in your attic and throw in the trash. I suggest whoever ends up with this thing should at least spend the extra $25 for a new vulcanite cover at http://aki-asahi.com/. Hell, while you’re at it, why not have Shintaro repaint it for you?
******
Probably the nicest M being auctioned is a black paint 1960, Single stroke M3 with L service seal, from original black paint series 993501-993750. It’s been beautiful restored to new condition by the Leitz factory in the 1980’s with new and vintage parts and then never used. Starting auction price is $6750 US Dollars. Now THIS is a beautiful M3.
In addition to the MP and M3 noted above, LPfoto is auctioning a number of other interesting collectible Leicas, including:
Leitz Wetzlar, 1960, Black paint, from an original series 987901-988025, with Leitz Summaron 2.8/35mm No.1678210 (BC) and front cap, rear top plate and lens with “Triple crown” engraving. A great rarity, only 125 ex in black paint made for the Swedish army 1960, and this beautiful camera is in a very clean 100% original condition and never restored, and even rarer with Summaron 35mm lens (approx. 30 lenses made). Provenance: Bought by the owner at FFV Allmaterial (=Military surplus), Ursvik 1977.
Starting auction price 390,000 Swedish Krona (approx $52,750 US Dollars)
Leitz Wetzlar, 1960, Black paint, from an original series 987901-988025, with Leitz Elmar 2.8/50mm No.1636136 (B, Filter rim with one minor dent), rear top plate and lens with “Triple crown” engraving. A great rarity, only 125 ex in black paint made for the Swedish army 1960, and this camera is in 100% original condition with dark brassy patina and never restored. Provenance: Bought by the owner at FFV Allmaterial (=Military surplus), Ursvik 1977. Slow shutter speeds irregular.
Starting auction price is 350,000 Swedish Krona (approx $47,500 US dollars).
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Evolution of a Photographer
Thanks to theonlinedarkroom.com for the graphic ( A great website for the film photographer BTW).
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“Tri-X Can Kiss My Ass”
Unlike that of my brethren, my early forays into photography were mostly in color. I worked at a one-hour photo lab in high school, so I was able to get color neg processed at a hefty discount. I also read wildlife photographer John Shaw’s “field techniques” book, and took his advice that if I was really going to learn, I was going to have to get better through the discipline of shooting chrome, so there was a good bit of Kodachrome running through my camera then as well (when I could afford it). My goal was to get tack sharp, perfectly exposed pictures, and Kodachrome, Velvia, and (in print film), Fuji Reala, were my films of choice.
Yes, I shot Tri-X in high school during yearbook class, and we shot it for my first year or so on my college newspaper staff, and I did my share of night football with weird esoteric mixtures of developer (Acufine, sodium sulfite) when I really needed to crank the ISO.
This is where I’m going to say something blasphemous and all you Tri-X nostalgists are going to look at my like I’m crazy. As soon as T-Max came out (around my second year of college), I abandoned Tri-X and it’s contrasty, chunky-ugly grain. T-Max 100 looked better than Pan-X (which was ISO 32), and I found T-Max 400 to be superior to Tri-X at 400, 800, and 1600.
When we really needed to crank it, we went to the T-Max 3200. Some people complained about T-Max 400 not looking as good as the venerable Tri-X they were used to, but I chalk that up to people not processing it correctly. If you read the directions, and mixed the T-Max developer correctly, it kicked Tri-X’s ass. The grain was so sharp and fine on it, that I often had trouble using the grain focusing device in the darkroom. During my second semester on the student publications staff, I was put in charge of purchasing supplies… I started buying it for the staff, and I’ve never looked back since.
There, I said it. You guys are a bunch of romantics. Tri-X can kiss my ass.
Robert Seale is a freelance editorial and corporate photographer based in Houston, Texas. You can see his work at http://www.robertseale.com
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“I Was Addicted to Tri-X”
Hello … my name is Dan and I was an addict. Yes, I was addicted to Kodak Tri-X film. My habit started out innocently enough when I was 15 years old. I had a Humanities teacher my freshman year at Athens (OH) High School, Ms. Penix. She told me that she liked my writing style and that I might make a good journalist. I wasn’t even sure what that was. She said that I should try out for a spot on the high school student newspaper, The Matrix. I checked it out and as a 15-year-old male, I quickly discovered that I didn’t want to write any more than was required of me.
As it turned out, Ms. Penix was also the faculty advisor of the paper. She encouraged me to shoot some photos and turn them in as my audition for the opening as the paper’s lone staff photographer. I borrowed my mother’s Pentax camera and then made my way to the local photo studio and camera store in our town, Lamborn’s, it was there where I purchased my first two rolls of Kodak Tri-X, 36-exposure film.
I had the film, I had the camera and I had the desire to try to take pictures. Fueled by that desire, it only took a couple of days between classes, and before and after my cross country team practices to use up every single one of those 72 available clicks. I was not quite sure what the next steps in the process were. So I gathered up my courage to ask Brad Samuels, a senior and the yearbook photographer how I could get the film developed.
Brad’s words still ring in my ears like the school bell “Ok so here is the deal, you pay me 50 cents a roll and I will develop it for you, or you give me a buck a roll and I will teach you how it’s done son!”
I went for the buck a roll, after a couple more trips to Lamborn’s and 5 bucks worth of processing lessons; I was developing a mild habit.I snagged that staffer spot on The Matrix and in no time I was working alongside with other aspiring journalists who were all juniors and seniors. Yep I was hanging out with the “cool kids”.
My habit was becoming a bit expensive and I quickly learned that if I purchased the Tri-X film in a bulk 100-foot roll and hand loaded the film cassettes myself, it drove the film cost way down, doing the math I calculated it was around a penny per frame, wow 36 cents for 36 clicks, who would not love that?
I shot photos daily and always exclusively with Kodak Tri-X. I soon learned that I could “push” the Tri-X, by increasing the developing time and using a stronger developing solution at higher temperatures, by doing this, the 400 ASA Tri-X became 1600 ASA Tri-X. This new found trick was great for covering my Athens High School Bulldogs as they played Friday night football and basketball games on the poorly lit fields and in the dimly lit gyms of schools in the neighboring villages and small towns with such names as; Logan, Nelsonville, Wellston, Pomeroy and Ironton.
As far as I knew there was no film other than Tri-X even available for purchase.
I started stringing for our local daily newspaper, The Athens Messenger. The 12,000-circulation daily had a storied history of employing students from the local college, Ohio University and molding them into veteran photojournalists. Shooters like Jon Webb, Bob Rogers, Chuck Beckley and Ken Steinhoff shot for “The Mess” during college and a year or so beyond. Then armed with an Appalachian based portfolio of images in their hands and more than a few awards in their pockets, went off to work for major photo driven newspapers in Louisville, North Carolina and Florida where they continued to make their mark and advance in the business.
With my own Nikon around my neck and my gadget bag full of hand-loaded cassettes of Tri-X, I shot thousands of images on a variety of assignments for the Messenger. In spite of my young age, I was given a staff photographer position in my senior year of high school. I started making real pictures, some of those pictures were winning awards and more over, they were pictures that people noticed and talked about. 
One of those people was Chuck Scott, who at the time was a fairly new professor at Ohio University. He was the Photo-J God. The photographers that he had produced and who had worked under him at the Milwaukee Journal and Chicago Daily News had won more Pulitzer Prizes and NPPA Pictures of the Year titles than most of the newspaper staffs in the country combined. Scott came to our home, sat down with my father and me and looked at my portfolio. Every one of the 20 -16×20 mounted prints in that case were all shot on Tri-X. Scott liked what he saw and he recruited me like a coach going after a star athlete. Scott damned sure was not going to let a hometown kid head off to his arch rival, the University of Missouri, long the nation’s PJ powerhouse and my top college choice.
Using the delivery of a country preacher he convinced us that I should go to school in my hometown, be part of his program and study under him. As he said “It’s not only the right thing to do but it’s the ticket and Danny’s first steps to become a world class photojournalist and eventually perhaps even to working for National Geographic or at least land one of the three coveted Internships at the Society”.
My father, who was avid amateur photographer, made a great comment: “To work at Geographic, would require him to shoot something other than Tri-X and none of us can see that happening.” That remark made us all chuckle. That Tri-X addiction of shooting those hand loaded cassettes lasted all four years at Ohio U., with the exception of when I served as an Intern twice for National Geographic.
At the end of my senior year, I turned down 29 firm job offers to take a three-month position at the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times, where I was the “pregnancy replacement” for Pam Spaulding. There were a few folks including my father who asked: “WHY?” The answer was easy. Simply put, I wanted to be part of and learn from what many considered to be the finest newspaper photo staff in the country.
My first day on the job I was issued “bricks” of Tri-X! I could not figure out what made me more excited, was it working with the best of the very best, or was it no longer needing to hand roll my own Tri-X?
Those three months turned into a five-year stint as a CJ staffer. I could not have been happier. I loved the area. I loved the staff and truly I loved the journalism and photojournalism that we produced at an independent family owned newspaper.
The awards stacked up, I even won the NPPA Newspaper Photographer of the Year. Looking back on it, 99 percent of that portfolio was shot of Kodak Tri-X. Indeed I was addicted to that grainy film and it had helped me accomplish a goal that I had since high school. Not a month seemed go by when I would not get multiple job offers from major large market newspapers. I turned them all down with little or no interest of leaving the CJ.
But then on a hot late June day, it happened: I received the call that many photographers wait their entire careers for. It was from Bob Gilka, the sometimes gruff, long time Director of Photography at National Geographic. He asked me, if I wanted to come work at “The Society.” I didn’t think about it twice. I didn’t ask what it paid. I didn’t ask where he was sending me. I didn’t ask when the job started. I just said “YES.” When he asked if I wanted a day or two to think about it, I just said “NO… Mr. Gilka, I’m all in!”
An hour later with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, I walked into the office of then Courier-Journal Director of Photography, C. Thomas Hardin and said I was leaving the paper. Bob Gilka had called, at the age of 28 I was getting my shot at Nat. Geo. Tom paused for a moment and said, “Do me a favor go back into the file room and look at your negs and see all that you have done here.” He looked over the top of his glasses and said “Oh hell Dry you must go, you have to do it, that’s a dream for us all.”
Two weeks and one day later as I stood in a West Texas pasture photographing cowboys rounding up cattle, it struck me: My addiction with Tri-X had ended and another addiction had entered my life… its name was Kodachrome 64!
Dan Dry is currently the Chief Visual Officer and Senior Vice President at Power Creative. He has won over 400 national and international photography, advertising and design awards during his career. He was a member of the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Pulitzer Prize winning photography staff from 1976 until 1982. You can see his work at: http://www.dandry.com/
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Magnum Photographer Rene Burri Dead at 81
In an email sent to members of the press Magnum Photo noted today’s death of René Berri: “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Magnum photographer René Burri who passed away today”.
The Swiss photographer, who began working with Magnum as an associate in 1955 and became a full member in 1959, was well known for his work in Cuba, including his iconic portraits of Che Guevara.
In addition to his work in Latin America, Burri, who lived and worked between Zurich and Paris, travelled throughout Europe and the Middle East during his lengthy career, and contributed to publications including Life, Stern, Paris-Match, and The New York Times, among others. He also worked as a documentary filmmaker, participating in the creation of Magnum Films in 1965.
A retrospective of Burri’s lesser known color work, Impossible Reminiscences, was published by Phaidon in 2013.
René Burri’s M3s
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Millennial Nikkor-S 50mm 1.4 FOR SALE
FOR SALE: New, Unused Millennial Nikkor-S 50mm 1.4. $995/$20 insured shipping.
This Nikon NIKKOR-S 50mm f/1.4 is a limited-edition commemorative item built by Nikon in 2000 to sell along with the year 2000 Nikon S3. Nikon built about 10,000 of these in 2000 and 2002, sold only as a set with the Nikon S3 2000. It is a cosmetic match of Nikon’s 1964 version of the original 5cm 1.4 lens. Collectors dubbed the 1964 version the Olympic.
The Millennial’s optics are modern, and probably the best 50mm f/1.4 ever made by Nikon. It has a 9-bladed diaphragm and is multi-coated. It is super-sharp even at f/1.4, has less distortion than any other Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens ever made by Nikon. In terms of micro-contrast and edge to edge sharpness it is a match for Leica’s $5000 Summilux ASPH.
The Millennial Nikkor can easily be adapted for use with Leica Ms via an Amedeo Adaptor.
Contact at [email protected]
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The ‘Added Value’ of Black Paint
On November 22, 2014, Westlicht Auction will put up for sale, among other things, two Leica MPs, MP-375 and MP-24, both with matching Leicavit. Both mechanically sound. The only difference between the two cameras is that one is chrome ((MP-375) and one is black paint (MP-24). The chrome MP-375 could easily be described on Ebay as “MINTY!” The MP-24, not so much.
Westlicht expects MP-375 to sell for a maximum of €60,000 and MP-24 a maximum of €180,000. In effect, the guy who buys MP-24 will be paying a €120,000 premium for the black paint, most of which, given a quick look at its photo, has already worn away.
‘Black Paint’ is one of those serendipitous features that has assumed incredible importance for ‘collectors.’ Years ago, some professional users wanted cameras that were less apparent in the field (usually PJs in Korea and Viet Nam getting shot at), so manufacturers like Leica and Nikon started producing black cameras along with traditional chrome using black paint (as that’s all that was available at that time). The black paint wore much quicker than the traditional chrome finish and a well worn black paint Leica or Nikon usually signified a professional user. Most amateurs avoided the black cameras because they looked old and beat up much too fast for their tastes. As a result of customer complaints about the lack of permanence of black finished models, Leica offered new black chrome models, black anodized chrome over brass meant to be much more durable, starting with the M5 and the Leicaflex SL.
Leica resumed offering black paint models again with the M6 TTL, mostly due to nostalgic demand from fondlers. Today, the black paint fetish has assumed the irrationality of the Tulip Mania of 1636-1637, usually doubling or tripling the value of any pedestrian vintage Leica or Nikon. Like all matters of style, speculative investments based on such ephemera are tentative at best. My advice: buy the chrome MP and use the extra €120,000 you’ve saved to buy an original Thomas Kinkade painting.
Original MP in beautiful and perfect working order, clean finder and shutter, with Leicavit MP, matching chassis number inside the camera. Expected selling price: EUR 50.000 – 60.000
Original and very rare black paint MP with patina of professional use, in perfect working order, matching chassis number inside the camera, with black Leicavit MP. Expected selling price: EUR 150.000 – 180.000
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Yevgeni Khaldei’s “Reichstag Leica” To Be Auctioned
The camera used to take an iconic image that came to symbolize the Russian victory over Nazi Germany is to go on sale at auction this November in Hong Kong. Photographer Yevgeni Khaldei, who worked for the Soviet news agency TASS, shot the image of Russian soldiers waving the Hammer and Sickle flag from the top of the Reichstag using a Leica III, sometime after the building had been captured.
The camera, bearing the serial number 257492 is accompanied by an Elmar f/3.5 50mm lens with the serial number 471366 and is set to be auctioned on 30th November. Auctioneers Bonhams has set a guide price of $HK 3,000,000-4.500,000 (equivalent to £230,000-340,000 or $390,000-580,000).
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Why a Mechanical Film Camera in a Digital Age?
Which of these cameras is ‘obsolete?’
All things being equal, simplicity is the best solution to any problem. This is the premise of Ockham’s Razor, a philosophical principle devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347). This simple concept has a venerable history, still taught today in many introductory philosophy courses. Leonardo da Vinci called simplicity “the ultimate sophistication.”
We are not talking here about the categorical renunciation of all technological advances. Voluntary simplicity does not mean reflexively renouncing the legitimate advantages of technology; rather, it recognizes that humans have a bond with their tools that transcends the idea of the tool as merely a means. Given this, it is rooted in a skeptical attitude toward the claim that increased technology is always the best means to an end. It involves a thoughtful stance in relation to technology, rejecting what is superfluous to the achievement of a given aim while acknowledging the emotional weight of our relationship with our tools. This is far from being primitive or regressive. It is progressive at its core.
The Notion of Obsolescence
Mechanical film cameras today might seem an anachronism, sort of a technological dodo bird. But the reality, I would submit, stands this assumption on its head. In a very profound sense, it is the opposite. The best mechanical film cameras can be considered the ultimate refinement of a simplified technology, never to be obsolete.
Today the main reason for obsolescence is that supporting technologies may no longer be available to produce or repair a product. Digital technology is extremely susceptible to obsolescence of this type. Integrated circuits, including camera sensors, memory and even relatively simple chips may no longer be produced because the technology has been superseded, their original developer gone out of business ( see Kodak) or a competitor has bought them out and effectively killed off their products to remove competition.
The Leica M8, Leica’s first digital M, rolled out to great fanfare only 8 years ago, is already obsolete. Leica can no longer source its sensor or its LCD screen. If you own an M8 and these stop functioning, you now own a very expensive paperweight. Fixing it, even if you could, would probably cost substantially more than simply buying the latest Leica M. It is rarely worth redeveloping a product to get around these issues since its overall functionality and price/performance ratio has usually been superseded by that time.
Camera manufacturers now deliberately introduce technological obsolescence as a product strategy, with the objective of generating long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases. Ever tried using that Nikon D100 sitting in the back of your closet? If it still works, it will give you the same results it did when it was new; the problem is that digital camera technology has moved on to such a degree that it simply is not feasible to use it anymore when much better technology exists. All digitized products are inherently susceptible to obsolescence in this manner; digital cameras routinely become obsolete in favor of newer, faster, better units. Let’s not even begin to speak of rapid obsolescence of data formats along with supporting hardware and software that plagues modern photographers.
Digital cameras also become functionally obsolete when they do not function in the manner they did when they were created. This may be due to natural wear, or when the technology is only designed with a limited lifespan in mind; today’s cameras, ‘professional models’ sometimes excluded, I suspect are intentionally designed to use faster wearing components, what is called planned obsolescence. The intention is not always cynical; rather, it’s a practical recognition of the regular exponential advance that can be expected of computerized products (See Moore’s Law). Why build a unit to last 20 years when it will be functionally obsolete in 3? Such products, which naturally wear out or break down, become obsolete because replacement parts are no longer available, or the cost of repairs or replacement parts is higher than the cost of a new, more technologically advanced item (see Leica M8).
Mechanical cameras – the best, overbuilt like Leica Ms – are not subject to either technological or functional obsolescence. The technology of analog photography is simple: a light tight box capable of housing film; optics that concentrate light; a shutter that opens and closes at repeatable, regulated intervals; and an optical aperture that controls the amount of light passing through the lens. Any ‘improvement’ on these necessary parameters can only be nominal at best. Likewise, almost every fully mechanical Leica M ever built, absent those subjected to destructive forces (e.g. dropped into water, penetrated by a bullet etc) either still functions or can be made to function again with a Clean, Lubricate and Adjust or simple replacement of parts. If the part is no longer available it can be fabricated.
If mechanical devices can be considered obsolete, it is usually an obsolescence of style and not of function. When a product is no longer desirable because it has gone out of the popular fashion, its style is obsolete. It may still be perfectly functional, but it is no longer desirable because style trends have moved on. But this sort of obsolescence is subject to human whims and can be undone. Based on a fashion cycle, stylistically obsolete products may eventually regain popularity and cease to be obsolete. What we are really talking about when we speak of the obsolescence of mechanical film cameras is, at base, that they are not in fashion.
Tactile Pleasure and the Act of Photographing
We’ve all seen the guy or girl, be it in Brooklyn, Portland, Raleigh or Austin. It’s become a cliché, the hipster with an old film camera, eschewing ‘modern’ mass technology for something more ‘real,’ more authentic. Whatever the motive, it points to something profound about the relationship between humans and their tools. At a very fundamental level, humans are defined and shaped by their use of tools. Tool use is the basis of human culture, and the tactile experience provided by using a tool is profoundly significant for human flourishing. Ironically, now that people spend so much time in a two-dimensional universe there’s a renewed acknowledgment of the pleasure to be found in the aesthetics and use of beautiful three-dimensional objects.The mechanical camera underlines the quirky, humanistic qualities of instruments created by hand. A mechanical camera is only partly a photographic device. It is also a complex and nuanced tactile object. Being without electronic or computerized circuits, there is a simplicity to them that computerized tools lack, a mechanical solidity that makes sense from a human perspective. The link between cause and effect is more transparent. You do something with a mechanical tool, it results in something tangible and coherent. You understand the why.
Having been schooled squarely in the analogue age, I admit my ingrained biases may not make me the most objective of observer of the issue. But there is something, ‘unreal,’ simulated about the tactile experience of digital use. It’s the difference between a computer game that simulates racing a motorcycle on a track and actually riding a motorcycle on a track. The computer recreation is designed to give you the same sensation as being out there actually racing the track, but its a simulation of the reality, not the reality itself. What is missing is a certain solidity of experience. Not to say there isn’t enjoyment in the simulation, maybe, given the absence of danger, even a type of enjoyment that isn’t available to the analogue user, the guy actually out there in the vehicle running the track, but its not the same enjoyment; its, at best, a proscribed psychological enjoyment stripped of much of the tactile pleasure of the act itself. Photographically, there is something satisfying, from a bodily perspective, of winding on the film by hand; of turning a knob that controls the flow of light; of the sound of a mechanical shutter opening and closing. Digital cameras lack this bodily satisfaction, instead providing an experience akin to a conjuring trick, the link between cause and effect subsumed by the computerized nature of the transaction.
The Importance of the Process
Photography is about looking and seeing. It involves deliberation and judgment. It is about having the concentration, focus, required to look closely. Most of us who grew up on film are still ‘contemplative’ and ‘conscientious’ when also using digital because its been bred into our relationship with photography. For us, digital hasn’t made a difference in that respect. But it certainly has for those coming of age photographically in the digital era. All the talk about ‘slowing down’ and ‘understanding light’ or ‘better composition’ that accompanies use of film cameras comes primarily from those who grew up on digital devices and are just now using film. They’re discovering all those things that film users learned as formative consequences of the use of mechanical film cameras.
It’s great that people are discovering film and the processes behind it and are now more thoughtful about what they are doing as a consequence. If it takes using film to be more conscious about our actions, then that might also help make contemporary digital photography a better place, too. The point is this: digital isn’t going away, obviously. But there will always be a place for film photography. Photography shouldn’t be seen as a zero sum equation, where the advent of a newer technology completely displaces mature technologies. Digital photography hasn’t, and never will, replace film photography. Digital has given photographers another option, but film use will always remain an option for those who prefer its methods and results, just as the advent of fine art acrylic paints didn’t kill the use of oil based pigments but simply gave painters another medium with which to work.
The Image Is Everything
If a certain amount of younger photographers are discovering the aesthetics of film and the differences between film capture and electronic capture that’s a huge positive, and a necessary corrective to a disturbing trend propagated by the technical potentials of digital capture. Digital photography has produced an obsession with sharpness and resolution which is causing us to overlook our connection to the image. It is so prevalent today as to be a universal photographic fetish. The perfection of digital is a false standard. Imperfection is beautiful, and a misplaced emphasis on sharpness can make an image lifeless and boring. I love the emotion of motion blur, and grain in film, it gives us something organic that connects us to the images we see. We’re humans, not robots, and much of contemporary photographic imagery could easily have come from the brain of an awesomely-cool-looking-yet-emotionally-barren android photographer.
Leica M5, Neopan 1600
I think this is an issue we need to consider with current digital image making. The fetishism for high resolution is creating an odd desire for something beyond the real, a kind of visual hyper-reality. With film we chose a format for a specific subject matter. Large sheet film was used to get ‘sharpness’ and detail for very large prints. Grand landscapes were best depicted by using fine grained sheet film. Medium format gave us portability while allowing us to print big when needed. 35mm film was used for ‘decisive moments’. The grain and the characteristics of small film were part of the image itself, characteristics of the image that are part of the image’s interpretation. To be sure, photographers have always defined characteristics like high resolution; we used different emulsions and developers, and we sought out good lenses, etc. But sharpness was rarely an end in itself. But the interpretation that comes from the hyper-real digital look is more akin to some sort of cloning perfection. It is beyond the real.
Today there seems to be this odd desire for the hyper-real as if an author’s interpretation of the real no longer exists via the choice of materials; high resolution and sharpness being applied indiscriminately to all subject matter as a standard photographic trope. I find myself missing the unique and interpretive look of traditional film photography. It seems so much richer and so much more capable of being infused with the idiosyncratic which is the base foundation of all creative enterprise. What increasingly dominates is a fetishism of the surface of the image while the content and context of the image too often takes a back seat. And that’s also why some people who grew up on digital are now looking to escape such bewitchment by turning to the simplicity, directness and creative possibilities of film. Call it a return to the interpretive. Others have tired of the never ending introductions of so-called ‘new’ cameras (more like minor tweaks of already existing technology) and the emphasis on the technology, and have found that using a mechanical film camera is not a retrenchment but a reanimation of the photographic impulse.
*****
Why use mechanical film cameras in a digital age? For most people, a mechanical film camera seems an anachronism. But in a very profound sense, it is the opposite: mechanical film cameras are the ultimate refinement of simplified technology with an established history. As such, ironically, they are not “obsolete” and never will be, except maybe from a standpoint of style. Technologically and functionally, mechanical film cameras resist obsolescence in a way newer digital cameras cannot, because they are, at base, simple.
Perhaps someday we will acknowledge that a blind faith in technology can itself be regressive. There is tactile pleasure in the use of a mechanical instrument that is missing in something computerized. At the risk of devolving into the metaphysical, maybe it’s a fuller experience of the real rooted in sense of physical solidity and cause and effect. There is also an elegance to simple things that complicated things lack. It’s the pleasure of riding a bicycle on a Spring day instead of taking the car.
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Leica Selfie #53
Graham Nash w/ Leicaflex SL, 50mm Summicron, 1968
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Ode to a Legend – The Leica M4
By Tom Grill. This originally appeared on his blog About Photography
For me, the M4 is the camera that reached the pinnacle of analog design. It was the natural sequel to the M2 and M3 designs into one body with a few more bells and whistles added. The one time Leica attempted to diverge from this basic M design with the M5 model in 1971 led to such an uproar that the M4 was reinstated only a few years later and has continued to be the basis for flagship camera design of the company even up to the newest M 240 digital model.
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| My 1968 black painted M4. I sent it back to Leica for a factory replacement of the viewfinder so it now has six lens frame lines of the M6 instead of the original four. I did this because I use a 28mm lens a lot and usually have the Leica meter on top of the camera taking up the slot where I would normally put an auxiliary optical finder. And look at the beautiful engraving on top. Don’t see that much anymore. |
There were several iterations of the M4. The M4-2 was introduced in 1977, followed by the M4-P in 1981. Each new version added a couple of new features — a hot shoe, motor-drive capability, extra finder frames — but modernized the production line and replaced the black enamel with a more durable black chrome. I always had a penchant for cameras with black paint over brass. After a little use some of the paint wears through to the brass and the camera takes on an individual patina that identifies it as yours. Excessive brassing becomes a battle-worn badge of honor, something to be worn proudly, as if to say, “I served”.
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| The Leica M4 with MR-4 meter mounted on top. |
The M4 was introduced in 1967 and produced until 1975 with a little break while the M5 ran its short-lived, orphened course. The M4 had framelines for 35mm, 50mm, 90mm and 135mm lenses in a 0.72 magnification viewfinder. Mine was made in 1968, and had a later, standard factory addition of the M6 viewfinder adding 28mm and 75mm frame lines.
I always liked the look of the Leica meter. Not that it worked all that well — I still carried around a hand held auxiliary meter for more accurate readings — but it slipped conveniently into the accessory shoe, had a high/low range, and synchronized with the shutter speed dial, all pretty advanced stuff for 1968.
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| The handle-crank rewind knob was one of the late-to-the-party innovations Leitz added to the M. The one on the M4 was angled so it could be operated quickly without constantly scraping your fingers on the side of the camera — something of an anachronism in today’s digital world, but much appreciated at the time by photographers needing to get the spent roll out of the camera quickly and reload it for the next breaking shot. |
Adding the angled rapid rewind crank was considered a big deal at the time. I can still recall discussions with veteran photographers who were convinced that Leitz maintained the slow turning rewind knob on the M2 and M3 to avoid rewinding the film too fast and causing static light discharge that might damage a film frame.
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| The M4 did away with the removable film take up spool, and introduced a faster film loading system that gripped the end of the film automatically to load it onto the spool. |
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| The self-timer lever was an M4 luxury — some say frivolous addition — eliminated from later versions of the M series. After all, pros don’t need self-timers. |
The M4 was the last of a breed. It reminds me of souped-up, propeller-driven fighter aircraft at the end of WWII. Each had reached the apex of analog, hand-crafted design on the cusp of fading into oblivion in the face of a newer technology. The planes were replaced by jets, the rangefinder by the SLR. Fortunately, the M-series camera hit a very responsive chord in the human psyche that has made it last even into the digital era. For many, Leica M is the icon of professional camera, and retro styling based on the Leica M design is undergoing a renaissance in cameras like the popular Fuji X-Pro1. And let’s not forget that in keeping with the M analog tradition Leica continues to make the M7 and MP film cameras today.
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Buying a Black Paint M3 on Ebay. Caveat Emptor.
Black paint Leica M3’s are rare, as in really rare. And, like all Leica rarities, they’re expensive. One recently sold at auction in Hong Kong for $472,00.00. So, imagine my surprise when a “Leica M3 100% Original Black Paint Finish – With Original Documents,” above, showed up on Ebay with a No Reserve starting price of $.99, complete with ample paperwork from Leitz, NY proving its provenance. The seller (he of two feedback) apparently bought the camera from an estate sale:
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Is the camera a “real” black paint M3? Who knows. Suffice it to say that there are numerous red flags that suggest its a fake: according to Leica’s records, before the original black paint MP’s, from no. 13 to no. 150 (1957), just after batch M3 882001-886700, no black M’s were made; the vulcanite looks suspiciously new; and the wear looks just a bit contrived. The amount of supporting paperwork also seems contrived, too comprehensive for a camera that was used as much as this one purports to have been (in my mind, somebody who would hold onto all that original paperwork and sales brochures, i.e. with an eye to posterity, probably would have treated the camera a little better).
But….Leica’s records, unfortunately, are incomplete, because the verified black paint M3 sold at Hong Kong auction this past May is serial number 746572. And this guy seems to think his, serial number 779019, is legit too. It is known that Leica would produce black paint M’s on order – even before the first “official” black paint M3s were produced in 1957/58. Keep in mind: in 1955 black Leica’s were not “collectible”; maybe the original owner, a Busby Cattenach from Wisconsin, simply wanted a black camera, ponied up his $324 and had Leitz, NY send him one special, and 45 years later some guy with a new Ebay account and two feedbacks grabbed it for a few hundred bucks at an estate sale in New Jersey. It could happen.
Whatever’s up with this camera, it’s no longer for sale on Ebay, having been pulled down after a day or so on site, which is a shame, since I’d already configured my Bidnip account to bid it up to $2100 at the last moment. So much for scoring an under-the-radar deal on Ebay.
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