Heads up: Leica Revolver!

Yeah seen that a few days ago..
Can't imagine how you balance the thing with 3 lenses mounted and shooting portrait alignment.

Still can't figure out to change lenses on the go?
It has to un-mount then lift the lens up to rotate to the next one.
 
Looks like something Glenda would have used if she was a Bad Witch. Something to bonk Toto on the head if he was too feisty.

Maybe you can hold the shutter open on B and spin the lenses really fast and take a photo using all of them at the same time?
 
I had one, and indeed, it's on the cover of my A History of the 35mm Still Camera, Focal Press, 1984.

There'a a little key on the front in the middle. Twist it and all three bayonets in the 'clover leaf' unlock. Twist it further and the front of the 'clover leaf' moves forward. Keep twisting (as far as I recall -- you may have to do this bit manually) and the front of the 'clover leaf' rotates. Now twist it the other way, and it pulls back in and then the bayonets all lock.

All three bayonets are adapters, of course (35-50-90) and you need corresponding screw-mount lenses.

It's a lovely piece of engineering, and a complete waste of space. I traded mine for a brand-new 90/2 Summicron. I paid £100 for it in about '81.

Cheers,

R.
 
DNG said:
Still can't figure out to change lenses on the go?
It has to un-mount then lift the lens up to rotate to the next one.
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It only works with screw mount lenses anyway - basically a set of interchangeable LTM-M adapters 😉 They don't have the recess for the locking pin, so changing lenses is comparatively fast. I'd assume that the three sockets would bring up the 35-50-90 framelines, but I've never checked 🙂

EDIT: Ah, Roger has me ninja'd 🙂
 
clearly allows for stealth street shooting. one does have to appreciate the engineering even if the revolver is totally silly. and, better than one of those baseplate lens carriers, this baby enables you to kill three lens at once in a fit of clumsiness rather than just two. pure genius. add the baseplate carrier and the death toll could easily hit four.
 
robklurfield said:
clearly allows for stealth street shooting. one does have to appreciate the engineering even if the revolver is totally silly.
Click to expand...

Yes, dispatching engineers to develop neat-but-obviously-impractical stuff like this, rather than things that buyers actually wanted (such as, um, SLRs) is what relegated Leica to boutique manufacturer status.
 
rxmd said:
Yes, dispatching engineers to develop neat-but-obviously-impractical stuff like this, rather than things that buyers actually wanted (such as, um, SLRs) is what relegated Leica to boutique manufacturer status.
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Um, Leicaflexes?

Really, until 1959 and the Nikon F, no-one took 35mm SLRs all that seriously except perhaps Exakta users, and taking Exaktas seriously requires a certain mind-set all of its own.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Really, until 1959 and the Nikon F, no-one took 35mm SLRs all that seriously except perhaps Exakta users, and taking Exaktas seriously requires a certain mind-set all of its own.
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Having recently been given an Edixa Flex - 5 speeds, no meter, matte focus screen without a split, cute but near-useless clip-in waist level viewfinder - dating to circa 1954, I can well believe that. The F must have seemed like something from Klaatu's space ship when it was launched.

Incidentally, Roger's book introduced me to NOOKY.😀

Adrian
 
Roger Hicks said:
Um, Leicaflexes? Really, until 1959 and the Nikon F, no-one took 35mm SLRs all that seriously except perhaps Exakta users, and taking Exaktas seriously requires a certain mind-set all of its own.
Click to expand...

I'm there with you on the Exaktas... but the same Nikon F also illustrates that willingness to take them seriously as a company was a good idea already in the mid-1950s. :angel:

It's not like Leica didn't realize it, but when they started to produce SLRs in the mid-1960s, they were already almost always a generation behind with everything they did with SLRs. Except lenses, maybe.

Of course hindsight is 20/20. It's been said a number of times that the M was simply too successful for its developers to think outside the M box for a while. So Leica made lots of gadgets and accessories so that the M could do what other cameras did. I really have no other explanation for all those development efforts that went things such as the Visoflex II and IIIs in the early 1960s, other than what must have been an unwavering prevailing faith at Leica that the M was the camera to end all cameras. One can only be amazed, really.
 
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