Other/Uncategorized Want to buy ltm body with 35mm and fast 50mm

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lrochfort

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Hello all,

I want to buy an ltm camera with 35mm and fast 50mm lens.

I want to do this as cheaply as possible, biassing the money towards the lenses.

I don't need a meter in the body, but I do need to be able to see the 35mm frame lines with glasses.

How much (little) do people reckon I can get that outfit for? I'm in the UK if that matters.

Would people suggest lenses and a body? I really like the Jupiter 3 so would consider that, but am clueless as to 35mm lenses.

Cheers all!
 
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For a body, if you want good 35mm framelines I'd definitely recommend the original Bessa R. Not as quiet as a Leica, but a great VF, meter, and multiple framelines for all the lenses you want built in.

For 50mm, either the Jupiter 3 or 8 are great as long as you get a good copy. For a bit more money the Canon/Serenar 50mm F1.8 or even 1.4 LTM is a fantastic lens, more reliable and better built.

35mm is trickier, since you can't use the super cheap Jupiter-12 with the Bessa. In that case I'd recommend either the Canon/Serenar 35mm F3.5 or the Voigtlander 35mm F2.5, which is a bit more expensive, but is a better lens and more likely to be found in good condition.

I'd budget at least £450-550 for the whole thing, but you'll end up with an excellent and extremely useable RF kit.
 
Another great and cheap option would be Canon 7 with Jupiter 3 for 50 and Jupiter 12 for the 35mm. If you can stretch you budget a bit more, I'd recommend Nokton 50mm 1.5 and Ultron 35mm 1.7. If you are okay with f/2.0 for the 50, there are many options including collapsible summicron, summitar, summar near the price of the nokton (for more classic rendering - nokton has a very modern look).
 
I just bought a nice IIIf with 50mm for £400, so £500 with two lenses should be easy enough. Whether the finder is good with glasses, I don't know, but it's pretty pokey even without them.

My brother had a Bessa T for while, I though it was pretty cool, and can be had pretty cheap I think.

If you want to go a bit eclectic, there is the Yasuhara range finder.

If you value build quality, solid feel etc. The Leica IIIf very nice, the Bessa T is made of plastic, but it's a more usable camera in many ways.
 
As usual many quick useful responses, thank you.

The reason I'm looking for an ltm is that I've got a Bessa R3A at the moment but I find I don't like 40mm and it's much too difficult to see the viewfinder edges with glasses.

The Bessa and Rokkor 40mm are in the classifieds right now! Grab a bargain! Hehe

The Leica IIIs and FSUs are intriguing. Are the Leica IIIs really user cameras?

How usable do people find accessory viewfinders in conjunction with focusing with the in-camera viewfinder?
 
lrochfort said:
As usual many quick useful responses, thank you.

The reason I'm looking for an ltm is that I've got a Bessa R3A at the moment but I find I don't like 40mm and it's much too difficult to see the viewfinder edges with glasses.

The Bessa and Rokkor 40mm are in the classifieds right now! Grab a bargain! Hehe

The Leica IIIs and FSUs are intriguing. Are the Leica IIIs really user cameras?

How usable do people find accessory viewfinders in conjunction with focusing with the in-camera viewfinder?
Click to expand...

I only just got my IIIf, but apart from being a pain to load, it seems usable enough to me. As usable as an M? No, but it makes up for it by being very compact and very pretty to behold.

If you are concerned about usability, then a IIIf may not be the right choice, check out the Bessa T. The blue one my brother had was very handsome with the Nickel Heliar.
 
It sounds to me like the viewfinder and your glasses are going to be the big factor here. Maybe some folks with glasses who shoot wearing them will chime in with their own experiences to help you refine your search.

Otherwise, I'd pretty much suggest the same things suggested here, a Bessa R series or possibly an M3 (plus adapter) and one of the Voitlander lenses or the old Russian lenses if you want to get budget friendly.
 
lrochfort said:
... The Leica IIIs and FSUs are intriguing. Are the Leica IIIs really user cameras?
Click to expand...

Sure, why not? I shot with a pair of Leica IIs for years, from '69 to about '85 or so.

lrochfort said:
How usable do people find accessory viewfinders in conjunction with focusing with the in-camera viewfinder?
Click to expand...

I *always* used an external viewfinder with Leica II and III cameras. I use them today with my GXR-M, X2 and with the Leica CL, M4-2 and M9 for wide lenses (shorter than 35mm). It just takes a couple of moments to learn to focus and then shift your eye to the viewfinder for framing, becomes quite natural very quickly.

Yes, I wear glasses. ;-)

G
 
I am shooting a Leica II, a Nikkor 50 35/3.5 and an Elmar 50/3.5. The Elmar is not what people think of as a fast fifty but it works pretty well with the right film. That kit, along with a very inexpensive Wide/Tele Viewfinder cost me just about $450 and some change. That does not include hoods and filters for the lenses but you can probably get away without those for awhile.

I do have a nice Canon 50/1.4 but that lens cost me $300 on its own. The faster your 50 the higher your cost I think.

As for useability? I shoot the Leica II more than my Leica IIIc. They are both very nice cameras but for some reason I have bonded more with the II, must be that "hair-shirted minimalism" in me. The rangefinder works well, and with the viewfinder in the accessory shoe I don't use the camera's viewfinder very often.

I wear glasses and can just see the "Wide" frameline in the accessory viewfinder. Using this camera is definitely different than working with other cameras but, like anything else, the more you do it the less you think about it. The camera is small, smooth to operate, and very, very quiet, and that is what I like about it.
 
I must say the Bessa T is intriguing, but seems quite hard to come by.

I've been researching Leica IIIs. Would people say there's a sweet spot for performance vs cost?

Also, can somebody please tell me what the red cut aways in the IIIf film advance knob are?
 
I've shot some with a Leica III and 35 and 50mms. I find the built-in viewfinder too pokey for comfort, so I ended up buying a Voigtländer 50mm viewfinder. This works very well; focus in the camera's inbuilt rangefinder window and then switch to the Voigt viewfinder for framing. (And a 35mm obviously needs a separate viewfinder in the first place!) With a III you need to switch between the camera's focusing and framing viewfinders anyway, so using one on the cold-shoe instead of the built-in one isn't much of a drawback in ergonomic terms. And, as others have said, a III is a nice, fun, compact little shooter. Loading is a bit fiddly but you get used to it. With good glass it is no problem to get very nice photos out of one.

The IIIf knob cutaway serves the same purpose as the dial at the back of early Leica M's; it lets you set the film and ISO you are have loaded. It is just an aide to your memory, nothing more; it is not actually connected to anything inside the camera.
 
Those "cut aways" are reminders for your loaded film speed. You can also set them to black if you don't like the red look 😉 (red was meant for color film and black for b/w)
My IIIf BD has got settings for ASA ratings of 6, 10, 12, 16, 25, 32, 50, 80 and 125 😛 quite obsolete 🙄

Besides that, Barnacks are gorgeous cameras. Amazing build quality, very smooth, nice to handle. Compared to Ms & probably Bessas (never had one in my hands) they are a little more demanding in handling (shutter speeds can be only set after cocking the shutter, seperate windows for framing and focusing, quite squinty finders... but the RF is awesome if your beam split mirror delivers good contrast... x1.5 magnification, only a M3 has got a bigger effective baselength).

I'm using a 1958 Jupiter-3 which I optimized to Leica specs. It's an amazing lens... but you have to be lucky to find a good one and optimize it if you want it to be accurate wide open (Jupiters are built to Contax specs, not Leica specs... and at f1.5 this will result in back focusing at close distances; it isn't much obvious with other russian lenses because their DOF covers much errors at smaller apertures). A good J3 is optically as good as a genuine (old) Zeiss 1.5 Sonnar or the Japanese 1.4/1.5 Nikon/Canon Sonnar copies. It's better then a Summarit 50 1.5.
 
I'm assuming that you want to have the 35mm frameline actually in the finder, rather than having to use an accessory finder.

I will agree that the Bessa R is probably the best bet, as it has an excellent finder, but cannot use the Jupiter 12, which is probably the world's most cost effective 35mm lens. The other 35's mentioned above will work well, but will cost much more.

I do not believe there were any FSU cameras that provided a 35mm frameline.

The screwmount Leicas are little jewels, but have squinty little finders, and only have eyepiece correction for the separate rangefinder not the viewfinder. using one of these camera with glasses on will damage plastic lenses.

The only good alternatives to the Bessa that I can think of are the Canon 7 and Canon P cameras; these have excellent finders for 35mm. They do not have diopter correction, but the viewfinders seem to have an inbuilt -2 diopter focus. I do not use my glasses with these cameras. Note that they may give trouble with older Jupiter 12 lenses which may interfere with light baffles. My newer J12 (1981) fits just fine.

Cheers,
Dez
 
Canon P. The 35mm framelines aren't the best (you get all the framelines in the VF at the same time), but they are usable, even w/glasses (in my experience, anyway), so long as you don't need a lot of space around them.
 
I'd go for the Bessa-R or (better still) Bessa-R2. I've had Canons and although they're 'sweeter', I'd back the Bessa for overall usability and reliability in 2013.

Cheers,

R.
 
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