The rare Leotax G camera

[xayraa33]

I'm very jealous indeed! I've seen a couple of these Leo Gs on Yahoo Japan over the past year. I'm curious to hear your impressions of the build quality and feel. I think Leotax was among the top 2 Japanese Leica screw mount camera makers. Neck in neck with the mid 50s Canons (IVSB2, IID2 and L1).

I am currently awaiting delivery on a Minolta 35 IIB w/ Super Rokkor 50/1.8 lens (Minoltas final* foray into LTM cameras). Have never handled/ or even seen one in person but I am absolutely smitten by the simultaneously modern yet baroque styling:



On the theme of Japanese LTM "Swansong" cameras, has anyone ever owned or used a Tanack V3? A contemporary to the Leotax G (and looks quite similar but without the projected brightline window). The V3 has its own proprietary M-like bayonet mount (and accompanying LTM adapter since they went out of business before they could produce any lenses natively in that mount). Those do also come up periodically for sale in Japan.

*Actually Minolta had plans to produce their own modernized RF camera after the IIb but apparently it never made it beyond the prototype stage. Perhaps not un-coincidentally it looked very similar to the Leotax G and shared many of the same features with it. It was called the Minolta SKY (initials stand for "prototype" in Japanese). There may only be one actual copy in existence.

That prototype Minolta SKY was a very handsome camera, too bad SLR fever took over and FP shuttered RF 35mm cameras were sidelined.

 

[David Murphy]

Yes congrats Gary, that's a real beauty. If you film test it please be sure to let us know how that works out.

 

[David Murphy]

Gary I think the Tanack IV may be the smallest full LTM camera body with a swing open back, and yes it is very convenient in use. They are fairly common as far as vintage rangefinder cameras go, at least in Japan. The camera repair tech I use told me once the Tanack IV was very well made internally.

 

[Coldkennels]

Interestingly, compare any of the later Leotax models to a Leica IIIc-IIIf-IIIg and you'll notice shutter vibration levels much closer to an M3 than a Barnack, ie, non-existent. There's none of that 'kickback'. It's probably not meaningful to photographic outcome but it shows Leotax were aware of the many ways they could improve on Leica.

I've used the T2L and a IIIf side-by-side and can confirm that the shutter in the Leotax is somewhat less "bouncy", for want of a better word. The only catch is that the T2L has a noticeably longer throw on the shutter release than any Leica I've used, Barnack or otherwise, making hand-holding slow speeds difficult in a different way. I wish there was a way to fit a soft-release to the Barnack-style shutter release with the external thread, because that would make life that little bit nicer with this thing.