TomB_tx

Worked briefly earlier today on Safari (iPad), now most images won't show (bad gateway), also tried Win 10 & 11 PCs Chrome & Edge - same problem.

Oops - now it looks like recent images don't show, but ones I've viewed before often do. Perhaps something due to cache../

Looks like pictures and normal operation are back now for me.

Many pictures still don't show, and now forum thread displays are like this (if my upload works)

Overall speed and response is much improved, but most pictures fail to load for me.

I believe the main factor in selecting lens heads for the Dual Range model was that they all needed to have the same nominal focal length so they only needed one mount spec and optics for the DR version. I don't believe performance was the deciding factor.

At my age More Stuff = more to go wrong and confuse me. Give me the basics.

Jon, Thanks for adding your experience with Portra at 200. I've done that recently with my M7, but that was with Portra out-dated by 10 years so colors were a bit off. I like Ektar for its colors, contrast, and fine grain, but it seems to me to have less exposure latitude, so I'm not sure how it would react. I'll give it a try, as this is my season for testing out various films again. Right now I have 4 M bodies with different films (including the new Harman Phoenix) to compare colors and IQ on the same scene. Takes a bit of juggling to carry and repeat shots!. I'll load Extar at 50 in my R7 and add it to the bunch.

There are certainly characteristics of "Art" and "Engineering in both disciplines, so it isn't an either-or division. I consider the Leica M cameras to be "functional art" in themselves: pleasing proportions and design of all parts, and tactile sensations in use, so I can understand people buying them just to have and admire, not to use for creating images. However, I have also heard "artists" say they are just tools to create their images. My granddaughter is an artist: she can create very realistic portraits and scenic images that capture reality. But she can also create beautiful images that exist only in her imagination, perhaps with people or objects are realistic, but were never in that scene. My engineering sense wants color photos to look just like the scene I witnessed, with accurate colors and saturation. More artistic types seem to adjust colors and intensity to make the scene "better" as opposed to realistic. I don't care for distorted perspective that isn't what my eyes see, so my use of wide angle is more to add context to an image, yet I can appreciate the impact artists can create with ultra-wide lenses. At the same time I don't mind lenses like the VC Nokton 35 1.4 that have noticeable barrel distortion - since I rarely notice it as I look at the main subject, not how straight lines are around the edges. I hear others are really bugged by that mild distortion - I guess a difference in artistic sense. The APO Summicron 50 appeals to me for its intent to capture very accurate and realistic images. (Too bad I can't afford one.) Others have called it boring. So I agree that both disciplines have some blending of artistic sense and realism - but we balance them differently.

Pan F in Rodinal is one of my favorites - nice contrast yet with good tonal range.

Good point! I have a Leicavit also, but have only used it with FILCA, so never noticed. Since there were a lot of IIIc in use when the Leicavit was introduced, it made sense to keep it compatible with them.

Well, I have done a ton of darkroom work over the decades - even had my own setup in my apartment in college in spite of having a campus darkroom available, and I've had darkrooms in every house since then. I most appreciate how printing makes you re-compose about how to make a better or more interesting shot, to improve your capture technique more, and have had to rescue mistakes, etc. I used to do a lot of 16x20 prints for family and friends. (Not sure if they appreciated them - but I enjoyed making them.) These days my darkroom work is mainly developing film - mainly B&W, and scan to computer files. Since I've worked in computer programming for about 40 years, I don't care for much post processing now - too much like work. I'll probably shut down my consulting business this year, so all may change after that.

At that time there was quite a branch of photography that was not "Art" related, but documentary and reportage. Also, a lot of those using 35mm shot slide film never printed, but was used for "slide shows" - which could be very boring if they included a lot of "could have been good" images. In fact, at the time of the class Leica had an exhibition of Leitz equipment on campus that included slide shows showing the quality that could be achieved with Leica equipment (cameras, lenses, and projectors) - as well as microscopes and such. This wasn't long after Leitz had a major effort to do "Leica Shows" with staff like Walther Benser traveling around the world and presenting slides in theaters and such. (see his book "My Life with Leica") So the emphasis on quality capture included not only proficiency with camera mechanics, but composition and other factors to make the image capture as good as possible - either as an end result or to minimize the processing required. We commonly did reportage work of events where you were on continuous shooting assignments and just turned in your film where it was processed and published while you were on the next assignment. Editors appreciated a contact sheet where they could just select shots without having to modify them. This was an Engineering school, so not many with an artistic bent. I still think in terms of capturing reality, not creating art.

I'd echo the Summarit 2.5s, or the Elmar-M 50 2.8 collapsible. Wonderful images on all.

Two points: The wobble in the take-up spindle is intentional by design, to allow it to center on the spool. If it were guided tightly on the top plate is could bind with slight misalignment of the spool. Most IIIf & IIIg should work fine with standard film cassettes instead of requiring a FILCA, because Leica added an alignment probe to the baseplate that fits into a milled channel in the body and holds the bottom edge of the film from sliding down past the rails. However, I have one IIIf that can't use that baseplate as it doesn't have the milled channel for it to fit. That camera is actually an upgraded older model, but it shows there can be some IIIf cameras in the wild that can't use the baseplate with the probe. Also, the IIIc baseplate will fit the IIIf - but don't have the probe, so baseplates may have been switched in prior lives.