Leica Stories

In 1985 I bought an M3 with the 50/2 Summicron from Oak Park Camera, took it back to Arizona, used it for 6 months, then became enthralled by the new AF Minolta Maxxum7000. Sold the M3 to buy two Maxxum bodies and a couple of Minolta AF lenses.

I am still coming to terms with why I did that, although the answer is becoming increasingly clear: Sheer, unadulterated stupidity.

Ted
 
I can't help but wounder if anyone has ever been bludgeoned with an M? Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with the Leica? :eek:
 
I was in a pawn shop in Mobile Alabama in the late eighties. I saw this great old camera with a giant lens and some kind of strange contraption to hook the lens to the camera. The pawnshop owner was explaining how the setup worked and put his finger on the mirror. I knew I had to get this camera out of his greasy hands.

I wasn't sure what this thing was but it looked well made and had lots of goodies. The price seemed pretty good too, $150.

I walked out of the store with a M3 DS ST, 50mm Summarit, 400mm f5 Telyt in box, and Visoflex 1 with endcaps and dual shutter release cable.

The shutter speeds were off so I doubled my investment in the camera with a Leica Spring Cleaning. (remember those?)
 
OT: Chad, I looked at your flickr pics (very nice). That Vespa is gorgeous. I'm assuming there pics were taken with your M3?

Ted
 
tedwhite said:
OT: Chad, I looked at your flickr pics (very nice). That Vespa is gorgeous. I'm assuming there pics were taken with your M3?

Ted
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No pictures on there were taken with the M3. The Summarit was a real dog and had no contrast. I ended up selling the camera at a camera show to a Japanese buyer for (at the time) absolute top dollar.

I think that a few pictures were taken with my current M6.

Thanks for looking at my pictures.
 
My Leica Story.

I was about 14 then, using a cute little Ricoh fixed lens RF and a borrowed Olympus OM10. I was really ignorant then, thinking that the Ricoh's viewfinder was dirty as it had this diamond shaped yellow patch on it (the rangefinder patch!). Also, I remembered my friend telling me that the shutter speed selector was beside the wind lever when it was the film ISO indicator! It is with amazement that there was any pictures at all.

But anyway, I was walking around a large mall in town, Suntec City and I passed by this camera shop. There were a few models of a mechincal camera, in black and chrome. It looked ancient, yet modern, cool and stylish. The lenses had such wide glass that I imagined was looking at me.

It was later on that I found out it was a Leica, and a M6. The shop later closed down and I lost my interest in photography, to be later kindered again 4 years later. Now, due to economic factors, I'm using a Bessa R2a with russian lenses, but have made up my mind to get a black M6 early version, like the one I saw in that shop window 4 years back.

Samuel
 
My Dad had an early Nikon SP with 50 and 135 lenses and a custom fit motor drive for race photography. He let me handle it a few times and i snuck it to high school one day and pranced around with it. He never did find out! this was in the 60s. A couple of years ago i kept seeing this M7 with 'free' Leicavit for sale -new- at my camera shop here in Indiana. I remembered that SP. I took a deep breath and bought the M7. God!!! Now I have 2 M7s with motors, a Bessa R3a, Epson RD-1s, and 2 M8s and just a 'couple' of lenses!!! Love is a splended thing!
Oh, and they make gorgeous images!
Steve
PS: I'm taking them all to the Smokies tonight for the weekend.
 
I was in a cemera shop in Tempe, I think looking for matte board. There was a little Leica sitting in a display case all by itself.I asked a salesman if I could see it. He pulled it out of the case and handed it to me. That was the first time I ever touched a Leica camera (I had used a Leitz microscope previously, but it had Olympus and Polaroid camera attachments.)


I dry-fired the little Leica a bit in the shop. Every control (all, what, 3 of them?) was exactly where it was supposed to be. I checked the price, stiffled a gasp, gave the camera back and left the shop.

I brought the camera up on a photo bulliten board (not this one) and it turned out that a friend (who has really rad photography) used the exact same camera. He recommended it highly!

I was working on a project, and I told myself that, if I was able to successfuly complete the project, that I would buy myself the Leica as a reward (it was a really BIG project, with all kinds of opto/mechanical parts and over 200 images.) On the day the project was completed and due, I went back to the Tempe camera shop, and there was "my" little Leica still in the case. But the price had $100 knocked off (probably due to my not having bought it the week before.)

Once again I picked it up. This time I was armed with all kinds of information from my friend, and from looking around the internet (which is how I found this website.) I checked every aspect of the camera and the lens (a 35mm Voigtlander) - it was perfect. So I set about trying to get the price lower. A second hundred came off right away, and I managed to get some film thrown in. After a very short time, I walked out of the store the owner of a very clean, and fully loaded Leica M4-P!

So that's my only Leica story.
 
The first M3 I saw was at Rex Camera Shop in downtown Peoria, Illinois. It was a display piece. Twenty years later I'm still ogling every M3 I see, brassy or clean, chrome, black or whatever. I think it might be the frames around the view/rangefinder windows...or I'm just crazy.
 
well its not an M (and some may say not a leica) but I bought my minilux after using leica's on and off for about the last year and having my personal camera (a canon powershot) stolen I decided to finally buy a minilux! Loving it so far!
 
Sometime in the early/mid 1960s my Dad bought a Leica M3 DS used in Montreal with a 50 f2 collapsable Summicron and 90 F4 Elmar and later buying a 50 f1.4 Canon LTM lens to use with his IIIG as well. Dad lost interest in photography in the 1980s got into woodworking as a hobby and the Leicas along with a Topcon, Nikon F with eyelevel prism and a Nikkormat Ftn did not see much use.

Cue to turn of the millenium, yours truly was given a Canon Rebel G and my brother got a Minolta Maaxum 5, we both get hit with the photography bug bad and interest in old school film cameras followed soon afterwords. Jump forward to early March 2005, dad gets some very sad news, a stage four cancer diagnosis lung cancer that went to his liver. The following weekend my brother and I were sitting at the Kitchen table, dad divides up his gear: Alex gets the IIIg, Nikkormat and Topcon and I wind up with the Nikon F and Leica M3. Dad exits three weeks later.

Today the Leicas and other cameras get used on a regular basis...

The end.
 
Uncle Bill - Sorry to hear about the loss of your dad. The Nikon and Leica can serve as a reminder/memorial every time you use them.
 
My M3 story. I don't have one. I doubt I ever will. More money than I care to spend for a tool That's all folks.
 
Uncle Bill said:
Sometime in the early/mid 1960s my Dad bought a Leica M3 DS used in Montreal with a 50 f2 collapsable Summicron and 90 F4 Elmar and later buying a 50 f1.4 Canon LTM lens to use with his IIIG as well. Dad lost interest in photography in the 1980s got into woodworking as a hobby and the Leicas along with a Topcon, Nikon F with eyelevel prism and a Nikkormat Ftn did not see much use.

Cue to turn of the millenium, yours truly was given a Canon Rebel G and my brother got a Minolta Maaxum 5, we both get hit with the photography bug bad and interest in old school film cameras followed soon afterwords. Jump forward to early March 2005, dad gets some very sad news, a stage four cancer diagnosis lung cancer that went to his liver. The following weekend my brother and I were sitting at the Kitchen table, dad divides up his gear: Alex gets the IIIg, Nikkormat and Topcon and I wind up with the Nikon F and Leica M3. Dad exits three weeks later.

Today the Leicas and other cameras get used on a regular basis...

The end.
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That is emotional.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, I remember a year before dad got really sick Alex (my brother) wanted to get both Leica's CLA'd, they had been sitting around in an armoir for 20+ years. We had to almost pry them from our Dad's hands and explain the overhaul would be good for the cameras.

I use both the M-3 and the F on a semi regular basis, they are a classic pairing. Dad (where ever he is at the moment) is happy they are getting used. Thing is Alex wanted the same set up as I had getting an early Nikon F with eyelevel prism (he has a couple other F's due a GAS attack) and getting an M2. At some point I might get a IIIg to even things out.
 
M. Valdemar said:
A guy bought a Leica. He took some photos with it. Later on, he died.
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But the Leica outlasted him and now I have it.

I was a stock photographer, shooting Nikon F4's. I had a G2 kit that I used for my personal work, and when both my stockhouses went digital only I had a choice- sit on my ass in front of this computer a whole lot more or teach more and shoot just for myself. I went up to Montreal and the first look throught the viewfinder I was hooked. It was exactly like the way I look at everything, a picture witin my field of view. Traded most of my Nikon glass for an M7 and a 50 Summicron. I've been adding to the kit ever since.
 
Carlin said:
The first M3 I saw was at Rex Camera Shop in downtown Peoria, Illinois. It was a display piece. Twenty years later I'm still ogling every M3 I see, brassy or clean, chrome, black or whatever. I think it might be the frames around the view/rangefinder windows...or I'm just crazy.
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Ah, Rex... I bought a Minolta IIIF there. On the same day I took this w/ an M3 & SA 21/3.4... Illinois River, ca. 1985

922786843_491f8a4432.jpg
 
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