The Leicas in my life, the Leicas I've missed

[neal3k]

My story is a bit different. I have never owned a M or a digital Leica but I got started on Barnacks a few years and began an unintentional collection. Now I have a Leica I(A), I(C) II, III, IIIf (2), Standard, If, and for good measure, the replica/reissue Leica 0. I've never felt the need to modernize, even for the Ig. I'm so backward I almost never use the rangefinder and don't use an exposure meter with 95% of my shooting. I shoot quite often with the Barnacks and used each camera at least once last year. If I could only have 2(!) cameras, they would be my Leica I(C) and a Holga.

 

[raid]

Just yesterday I recalled our visit to the Leica "headquarters" in Wetzlar! It was a show of admiration of Leica and its many products. We were maybe 10 RFF members, and we were greeted by Leica CEO Oliver Kaltner. Those were the good times.

 

[Godfrey]

My father had a Leica IIIf kit and used it in his dentistry as well as for family photos. Of course I wanted a Leica, too. I couldn't touch his ... it was, to him, a sacred object. To me, it was a camera...

My first Leica(s) was a pair of ancient "junkers", as the sales guy at Olden Camera called them in 1970. "Why do you want this old junk?" He sold me both a IIc and a IIf along with an Elmar 3.5cm f/3.5 and 5.0cm f/3.5, in beat condition, for $99. I only had $105, and he said, "I'm leaving you $6 to get a hot dog and pay for the train to get home." Nice guy. 😀 The following year I bought my Nikon F Photomic FTn and 50/1.4 after I'd saved up for the entire year.

Over the years, although I managed to buy and use a bunch of different cameras, everything always seemed to return me to a Nikon SLR and Leica RF camera. I had FMs, FM2s, FE2s, F2 and F3 Nikons, M3, M2, M4-P, M4, M6TTL, M6, M4-2 M9, M-P 240, M-D 262, M10-R, M10-M ... some of them more than once. I stopped buying Nikons after the autofocus models came out, although I had a Nikon D750 briefly and sold when I bought the Leica SL 601. Just didn't like the way Nikon had gone with their body designs, and I still don't use autofocus much, it just seems more trouble than it's worth in convenience.

I've had tons of other cameras ... Olympus (both film and digital), Panasonic, Pentax, Canon, Hasselblad, Rollei, Minox, etc etc.

But the baseline has always circled back to the Leicas. The M10-R, M10-M, M4-2, and M6TTL 0.85x are my base kit. I use them a lot; I've accreted a bunch of lenses for them. They work. Yeah they were expensive; doesn't matter. To me, they're just good cameras that work, and since my priority in living circles around my photography, that's where I choose to spend my expendable money.

G

Button Vendor - Pride morning, San Francisco 2022
Leica M10 Monochrom + Summarit-M 75mm f/2.4
ISO 500 @ f/5.6 @ 1/125, Orange filter​

enjoy!

 

[Richard G]

My father bought me an M2, a decision engineered by mother, when I was 17. At 25 I wanted the quick loading and 135mm frame lines of the M4. A year later that camera and my 50 Summilux was stolen from my car at Philip Island. It was a set up. I have the two serial numbers etched in my memory.

But two months later I was in Florence, thinking I didn’t want the worry of taking my precious M2, and especially considering it had no lens. I lasted two days in Florence before I had to have a Leica in my hands and a few steps from the Arno I bought an M4-2 and 50 Summicron. It was so light compared to the chrome Ms and chrome Summilux. I was more relaxed about that camera, never dropped it or scratched it but just slung it over my shoulder. The plastic hood absorbed the odd bump here and there without ever showing a scar. That month in Italy my photography improved one great leap on the first or second day.

I still have that lens but I traded the camera for an M6. I miss the M4-2, but it was the right decision. Chasing my small children I needed the M6 meter, or at least thought so at the time. Putting that Summicron on my Monochrom in 2013 brought back the feeling I had carrying my all black film Leica combo and I have bonded with that Monochrom in the same way, almost forty years on.

Like you I paid an eye watering price to have my pristine IIIf serviced in Melbourne. After a major operation it was all I could carry.

The painful loss of my M4 and Summilux 50 I am finally over and it was the beginning of the joy of carrying lighter, slightly slower lenses and cameras I could relax with as tools, but perhaps engage with better also.

Photography for me has been the gift that keeps giving and my remarkable and slightly recklessly generous parents have been a wonderful catalyst of that.

 

[Photar]

Good stories, keep them coming.

Here is mine. I used Nikon SLRs during my teenage and early uni years. At that time, I was already dreaming of Leica M. I collected countless Leica brochures, which I still have today. I traded my Nikon equipment for a Pentax 67II when I moved to a small university town, surrounded by stunning landscape. All the holiday jobs finally paid off.

I bought my first Leica, a second hand silver chrome MP, from my first salary as a postdoc in London. The big Pentax was of limited use for everyday commuting in the big city. As I probably already wrote elsewhere, I stayed at home on 7 July 2005 to await the delivery of my camera. Fate had a different plan. This was the day of the London bombing and all deliveries were halted in the city. Instead of playing with my new camera, I was glued to the TV to watch the horrible news unfolding. Well, I got my camera on the next day and never looked back. A hammertone MP and a couple of silver chrome lenses were added later. I eventually succumbed to digital technology in 2018 when I bought a CL with M-adapter L. I thought this little camera would prevent me from buying a more expensive digital M. I was wrong, of course.

The Leicas I have missed? Around 2005, special editions did not sell that well. Hard to believe these days, when they are often sold out before their official announcement. I bought my hammertone MP and a 50 Jahre Summicron heavily discounted. I should have bought a black paint MP3 set at that time, which also was widely available. These sets have skyrocketed in value, of course. But then, I would not have realized these gains anyway because I never sell Leicas.