How did you come to use Leicas?

[rogerzilla]

My story:

I started off with Minolta MD SLR kit, which was well-made and easy to use. However, it soon became apparent that (a) an SLR camera and lens is massive to carry around and people in the UK assume you're some kind of sex pervert if you use one in a public place and (b) some of the lenses weren't actually that good; the zooms had appalling distortion and even the 50mm wasn't pin-sharp. The 135mm f/2.8 was nice, I'll admit.

At some point I picked up a Minoltina-S rangefinder for next to nothing, having never used a rangefinder before. It was amazingly easy and the fixed 40mm f/1.8 Rokkor-QF lens (with leaf shutter) would give a 'cron a run for its money. There was absolutely no shutter vibration - less than with a Leica - and I could do silly handheld stuff like this at 1/15.

The rangefinder was dim and I fixed it by scrubbing off the silvering and using a piece of semi-silvered security film intended for van windows 😱

After a year the leaf shutter packed up on a trip to Austria and I bought a Leica IIIa and Summar lens, having sold the Minolta kit (no-one wanted manual focus or film at that point) at about a 95% loss. The first film through the IIIa, even before it had been cleaned and serviced and with a huge lump of fluff inside the lens barrel, was amazingly sharp for a (then) 65 year old camera and lens. I soon acquired a 35mm Summaron and 50mm Elmar red scale (the Summar is sublime, but you can only have so much flare in your life) to go with it, and then a IIf body. A couple of weeks ago I got a collapsible 'cron which is totally clean.

And today I ordered an M3; I'm quite happy with the performance of the screw lenses so I'll just use an adapter with them. M3 prices have never been lower, it seems, and at the moment you can still get any faults with them, including blacked-out rangefinders, fixed; might not be the case in another 10 years' time.

 

[tbarker13]

I was happily using Nikon F3s back in college. I went to do an internship at a daily newspaper and one of the first things I noticed was this odd camera hanging from the neck of one of the staff photographers.
He let me shoot a little with it (I think his was an M4-P). I was hooked.
That was 20 years ago.

 

[kehng]

My RF experience started when I bought a RF645 for a project. Loved it but sold it for the far more compact R3A and a couple of Voigt lenses when I won a prize that meant that I had to go to Beijing to produce some art. While in Asia, I stumbled into a camera shop in Seoul and part exchanged my R3A and the 40mm nokton for a beat up M6 and 50mm cron. Not looked back since!

 

[Roger Hicks]

From Leicaphilia, http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/leicaphilia.html

In 1969 my girlfriend wanted a reliable, compact, good quality, not-too-expensive camera. For £20 she bought a Leica II, complete with 50mm f/3.5 Elmar. After a few weeks she kept asking for it back so I had to buy my own Leica, a IIIa, with the same sort of lens. That was £30. . . . In those days, it was still possible (if you were lucky) to find all sort of bargains, and between 1969 and the mid-1970s I had most of the early models. After I bought my first M-series, though, my interest in screw-mount models waned, and I gave up collecting Leicas in favour of buying cameras and lenses to use.

Cheers,

R.

 

[brachal]

My first camera was a Fed-5; I just worked up from there.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

When I was in college the local camera store owner had some Leica R gear on display; a friend had a Leica R4 and a 50mm lens and made really amazing portraits in the college's darkroom. That was my first experience with the brand. My college-years camera was a Pentax K1000. Years later when I was living in Oakland in the 1990's and using a Nikon F4, a local camera store had two M3's (one single, one double-stroke), a 50 Summarit and a 35 goggled Summaron. I started out with one camera and the 50 and was hooked. Bought the second set too, never looked back. Several years later, I traded one of the M3's for an M4-P and some cash at Keeble & Shucat in Palo Alto in an impulse purchase.

Ben

 

[pachuco]

One day, many years ago, I was reading a book called "Blood and Champagne" about the life of Robert Capa and it kept bringing up a strange word, Leica. I asked and found out it was a rangefinder. On a random trip to Goodwill I found a Canonet 28 and purchased it just for fun. Several month later I ordered a BGN M3 from KEH and never looked back!

 

[dogberryjr]

I knew the name and 'reputation' of Leica, but I'd never even seen one, so they seemed a combination of myth and rich people's toys. A few years ago I read an essay on Leicas and Leica users that was included in The Best American Essays anthology and was quite intrigued. Shortly thereafter, I bought a Yashica GSN (then another, then another) and a Minolta 7S II, and really liked the rangefinder experience. I watched the listings on KEH and slowly began to justify the cost, and then bought an M7 and 50 Summicron. I couldn't have been happier with what arrived.

 

[ruby.monkey]

In a way, it's all Nikon's fault. I had once been the happy owner of an F80, so when I decided to go digital I chose the D200 as my object of lust. And then I waited for it to become available.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And one day, while I was trawling retailer websites on the off chance that they'd finally got some in stock, I came across one offering a second-hand FM3A. On an impulse I bought it (with a 50mm f/1.8 AIS Nikkor), and soon found myself hooked on manual-focus cameras with simple controls and not too much automation. That kept me happy for a year or so, and then this weird Japanese camera with the funny German name and the fast 40mm lens caught my eye; and that's how I caught the rangefinder bug. I loved my R3A. I carried it everywhere and did my damnedest to wear it out - but it's a gateway camera, and two years later it led me to my M3 and 50mm rigid Summicron, and that, as they say, was that.

Cameras have come and gone in the last few years, and I've switched more to medium format - the Voigtlander went towards a nice Pentax 645N, and the FM3A helped to pay for my Mamiya RZ67 Pro II - but the M3 is staying.

 

[johannielscom]

I came to RF photography with a Zorki-4, then a Minolta CLE and bought Hexanon lenses to use on that. Then I bought an M3 for a second body, but that did not last long, pretty soon it was my first body.

 

[HuubL]

I got my first M4 for free! That was the trigger...

 

[tbarker13]

I got my first M4 for free! That was the trigger...

Ooh. Here's one for the Leica marketing machine. Make everyone's first Leica free. Get em hooked. Sort of like the way the drug dealers do it....🙂

 

[Bike Tourist]

I came to Germany in 1959, courtesy of the US Army. When I stepped off the boat they asked this combat engineer if he would like to be in PIO. I said yes. Later, I asked what PIO was and was informed that it was the Public Information Office. Arriving in Augsburg, I was told I would write and photograph for the division newspaper, The Taro Leaf.

After learning to be a photographer by reading Modern Photo and Pop Photo, I went to work with the equipment they gave me — a 4x5 Busch Pressman and a 3.5 Rolleiflex of some kind. I had, by then, heard of 35mm and thought that that would be the way to go. I asked my editors about switching to 35mm as the basis for the 8x10 black and white prints I submitted to them.

The newspaper staff said, yes, 35mm would be handy but the quality just wasn't there. If I submitted 35mm work to them they would have to reject it all. Well, thanks, said I. That's good to know.

I then went to Foto Bachschmid, bought a Leica M3 and 50mm DR Summicron, persuading them that this PFC would make timely payments to them. For two years I submitted Leica pictures to the paper, enlarged on a Focomat. Many, many were published and the editors never suspected anything.

Since then, I've had quite a few Leicas. I have none now and probably never will again. But I remember them fondly.

 

[ChipMcD]

I used a Yashica TLR as a kid and Nikon SLRs when I could afford to after I started working. I'd always thought of Leicas, Hasselblads and Rolleiflexes as the pinnacle of their respective camera types. After digital sort of took over, those cameras became more affordable, and I could swing them. So now I am using the cameras that I wanted when I was 16, but with an adult eye, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

 

[SciAggie]

I have a co-worker who is the executor of his uncle's estate. He mentioned that he had a bunch of camera gear - some were "some old German cameras". That got my attention; it led to an almost embarrassing windfall of cameras and lenses. I had only known Leica by reputation; so far they have lived up to it.

 

[John Lawrence]

Many years ago the old Pros used to advise us young upstarts that when short of cash to put what money you had into a Leica camera. Their reasoning was that you could always sell them on later (when more flush) and in the meantime they did more than yeoman service.

So I started with a Leica IIIa and Elmar.

John

 

[NathanJD]

D40 > D200 > Minolta Dynax 5 (Maxxum 5) > FED2 > Zorki 4k > Bessa R2A > Leica M2

around the time I bought the FED2 i found a PDF about 'street photography' and subsequently RFF

 

[David Hughes]

Well, when it was announced, they advertised the CL and magazines raved about it. I thought with only 2 lenses that fit I'd be safe. I couldn't afford one anyway but a couple of years later I got a bit of back pay and there were still one or two CL's new in the shops and one second-hand. So I bought it and the 40 and 90mm lens. It was all downhill from there.

Regards, David

 

[summar]

Way back when my dad's Leica IIIf was the first serious 35mm camera I learned to use. Later, when he bought an M model, he gave the IIIf to me. It's still working perfectly, decades later.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I paid for it and I got to take it home with me 🙂