LTM users, its time to stand up and be counted!

[lars_bergquist]

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I have used quite a few screw thread cameras – but the thread was M42, not M39.

 

The historical importance of LTM cameras, and early Leicas in general, is incontestable, but they were just barely useable. Barnack in 1935 produced a test bed for concepts for a radically improved camera, but then he went and died. The Leitz' camera department curled up in fetal position under their workbenches in terror. The IIIc, when it arrived, was just a more rationally manufactured IIIb. It took a world war to get them out of the rut.

 

Let's face it, the first seriously useable Leica camera was the M2.

 

The old man from the Age B.B. (Before Batteries)

[wlaidlaw]

Lars,

 

I agree with a lot of what you say. It was always a surprise to me that Leica did not look at the combined VF/RF used by Contax and other manufacturers from the mid 1930's onwards and say to themselves: "Oh that's a good idea. Let's copy it." I feel there has always been an element of NIH (Not Invented Here) about Leica and this continues today. The separate VF/RF on all LTM Leicas other than the II and IIIG, is a pain and unless you are going to use zone focus, slows down photography.

 

Wilson

[giordano]

Zeiss came up with a similar template. As their Contax 1 came out in 1932, was theirs a copy of the ABLON?

 

Not a copy, but very similar. There's a pic at Zeiss Film Trimming Template in slip case, marked m : Lot 52.

 

It provides a long leader like the ABLON even though Contaxes with their removable backs don't need it. I can't think why, unless it was to make it suitable for trimming film for Leicas as well as Contaxes.

 

Note also the long thin tongue at the "trailing" end of the template. Contaxes allowed you to load the film with an empty Contax cassette in place of the normal take-up spool, so the film ran from one cassette to the other, no rewinding necessary. That made it easy to remove a partially exposed film, cut off the exposed part and send that cassette to the darkroom. If you were planning to load cassette-to-cassette, you'd cut both ends of the film using the trailing end of the template.

[wlaidlaw]

John,

 

The take up spool on my Contax IIA has only got a half width slot, with a single side hook behind it, so if you were loading the Contax cassette from bulk film, you would need to trim the leader.

 

Wilson

[giordano]

The take up spool on my Contax IIA has only got a half width slot, with a single side hook behind it, so if you were loading the Contax cassette from bulk film, you would need to trim the leader.

 

Yes, but it doesn't need the same length trimmed as a screw-mount Leica. Or am I missing something? My Contax II had the the same or similar spool, with half-width slot and a hook, but that was when ready-loaded films still had long leaders.

[philipus]

Let's face it, the first seriously useable Leica camera was the M2.

 

I guess it depends on the definition one gives to "seriously usable" but it seems to me the M3 would be the first such Leica. That said, and while I agree the Barnacks are slower to use, I still find them perfectly usable.

 

Yes, but it doesn't need the same length trimmed as a screw-mount Leica. Or am I missing something? My Contax II had the the same or similar spool, with half-width slot and a hook, but that was when ready-loaded films still had long leaders.

 

I don't trim my films at all and they load perfectly in my II, usually even without assistance of a library or other thin card.

[wlaidlaw]

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Yes, but it doesn't need the same length trimmed as a screw-mount Leica. Or am I missing something? My Contax II had the the same or similar spool, with half-width slot and a hook, but that was when ready-loaded films still had long leaders.

 

John,

 

As you say, 2cm leader would be enough for a Contax. I wish I still had the lovely Contax daylight cassette loader my father had. From memory, you pre-filled it in the darkroom with a 50 foot bulk reel and then you could just feed the loose end into the reel, snap in the cassette, close the light sealing top and wind the handle until the indicator showed 12, 20 or 36 shot length loaded and press the film cut lever. I seem to recall it had a leader template attached to it, with some sort of cutting device. Now I am fairly sure that my father had to use the card method to insert Leica cassettes into his IIIA or IIF, which had been loaded on the Contax daylight loader. I guess therefore, that the Contax loader's template made a shorter leader than the ABLON, more like a modern pre-cut film.

 

Wilson

[huubl]

Leica IIIb + Summitar | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[lars_bergquist]

I guess it depends on the definition one gives to "seriously usable" but it seems to me the M3 would be the first such Leica. That said, and while I agree the Barnacks are slower to use, I still find them perfectly usable.

 

To be sure, I sometimes like to sing in the wrong key when the adulation choir gets to be too uncritical.

 

As I wrote before, Barnack was aware that the method of patchwork improvement should not be allowed to continue. The 'Leica IV' prototype (but I think 'test bed' is more accurate) had a combined viewfinder and by interchanging the rear part of it, you could have different projected framelines, by the Albada design. What is more, the camera had a single, obviously non-rotating speed dial – with a slot in it for coupling to an outboard meter, like the later Leicameters! And that was in 1935.

 

Now the reason why I did not cite the M3 is that silly two-stroke mechanism – as if earlier SNCOO and Leicavit rapid winders (not to speak of the MOOLY and the motorised 250s) had not already introduced rapid film transport, under the Leica label! Also the fact that in the early 1950's, the Gnomes of Wetzlar had not yet understood that 'system camera' meant not 'compulsory 50mm for everybody but grudging accommodation of other lenses for those far-out people' but 'all focal lengths on an equal footing'. The finder of the M3 tells you quite clearly that this is a camera with a 5cm lens. In short, I regard the M3 as a development project – development that should have started two decades earlier – and not as a mature design.

 

But of course they were all useable – so-so. I have used box cameras.

 

The old man from the Age of the IIIa

[philipus]

As I wrote before, Barnack was aware that the method of patchwork improvement should not be allowed to continue.

 

This is interesting, Lars. I've been wondering about the many iterations of the Barnacks and about the fact that it was possible to upgrade older models to newer. It seems an interesting approach for a manufacturer to take.

 

Was it used by other camera manufacturers, too? Could it be that this approach stifled invention of new designs?

 

Now the reason why I did not cite the M3 is that silly two-stroke mechanism [...] Also the fact that in the early 1950's, the Gnomes of Wetzlar had not yet understood that 'system camera' meant not 'compulsory 50mm for everybody but grudging accommodation of other lenses for those far-out people' but 'all focal lengths on an equal footing'.

 

I agree the framelines indicate a certain vision (no pun intended) of Leica's designers in terms of what lenses photographers should use. And the double-stroke is also interesting because it strikes me (again no pun intended) that there would be little risk of damaging either the film or the mechanics if one were to use a single-stroke (if that were reasons for the DS). That said, the SS was introduced after four years ('58 I believe) which in Leica-terms could be considered pretty short.

 

From a pure user-friendliness point-of-view it seems to me that the M3 is easier to use having an auto-resetting frame counter. And goggled lenses was an option.

 

Just some thoughts (off LTM-topic though).

 

cheers

philip

[earleygallery]

I'm just guessing here, but the little matter of a world war might have had something to do with the seemingly slow development of new designs prior to the early 50's!

[wlaidlaw]

I'm just guessing here, but the little matter of a world war might have had something to do with the seemingly slow development of new designs prior to the early 50's!

 

James,

 

I am not sure that stands up. Leica got going very early after the war. If you think how much Mercedes developed their product in the late 40's and early 50's, I think the pace of development of the LTM line in this period was slow. I would guess that they felt the LTM was yesterday's camera and put all their R&D into the M3. One has to say that the IIIG was an odd camera for them to have brought out in 56/57, when the LTM line was pretty much dead.

 

However, I always regret we bought my father a Bulls-eye Contarex with 55/1,4 Sonnar for his 60th birthday in 1962 instead of a IIIG. He found the Contarex very heavy in comparison to his IIIA and IIF, so rarely used it. The same shop in Montreux, where I bought the Contarex, had a new unsold IIIG, Leicameter and Summicron for about half the price of the Contarex. I would have done far better buying that. He would have liked and used it much more and we would have saved a fair bit of money.

 

Wilson

[djcphoto]

My iiif BD and Summitar with Heavystar adapter and hood (excuse the crappy cellphone photo).

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[lars_bergquist]

James,

 

I am not sure that stands up. Leica got going very early after the war. If you think how much Mercedes developed their product in the late 40's and early 50's, I think the pace of development of the LTM line in this period was slow. I would guess that they felt the LTM was yesterday's camera and put all their R&D into the M3. One has to say that the IIIG was an odd camera for them to have brought out in 56/57, when the LTM line was pretty much dead. used it much more and we would have saved a fair bit of money.

 

Wilson

 

Wilson, I have always felt that there was a difference of opinion or development policy at Leitz after Barnack's untimely death. There was a faction of fundamentalists – industrial Salafists, if you will – that regarded the basic design as sacrosanct. A new and better way to manufacture the IIIa was just what they needed to keep their grip on development, but they were of course supported by the Great Unthinking customer base, that regarded things like a screw mount and a wind-on knob as integral to 'the Leica Way'. The Imam of this sect seems to have been Barnack's assistant Friedrich Albert, who took over as head of Leica development after the Master's death, and who clearly was insisting on continuing the development of the screw-mount Leica even after 1954 and the M3. Their product was the IIIg. It is interesting that IIIg and screw lens development ceased when Albert retired in 1960. But the company was sufficiently rattled by the war to give the Modernists some elbow room.

 

Whereupon these became the new fundamentalists who resisted the development of the Leicaflex.

 

But when the M3 was introduced, Walter Benser admitted in his Photokina review in the LFI that he was shocked by the wind-on lever ... which the Kine-Exakta had pioneered in 1935.

 

The old man from the Anno Dazumal

[UliWer]

...

 

However, I always regret we bought my father a Bulls-eye Contarex with 55/1,4 Sonnar for his 60th birthday in 1962 instead of a IIIG. He found the Contarex very heavy in comparison to his IIIA and IIF, so rarely used it. The same shop in Montreux, where I bought the Contarex, had a new unsold IIIG, Leicameter and Summicron for about half the price of the Contarex. I would have done far better buying that. He would have liked and used it much more and we would have saved a fair bit of money.

...

 

I think this little story tells more about the reasons for the slow development of a new Leica system after the war than any popular terms like "fundamentalists" and "modernists".

 

One may call the old models with screw mount unusable, but the customers just thought different as they bought and used them in big numbers still in 1954. So the "fundamentalist's" approach was less ideological than practical: "Never change a winnning team." They saw that Zeiss introduced one novelty after the other - with less and decreasing success. So why follow them?

 

Perhaps Ernst Leitz II who seems to have objected to the M3 in the beginning may have had his own reasons not to run a risk again at the end of his life. The IV was nothing else than a prototype, but it didn't work as it could not be produced under the conditions of the Leitz factory. The negative example of Zeiss worked again: the Contax was difficult to built and therefore much more expensive, less reliable and much less profitable. The M3 with rangefinder had to be reinvented from scratch after the war.

 

Though there were also simple marketing considerations: Would customers follow, if the body became bigger, after the smallness was most important for advertizing Barnack's Leica? And most important of all: there was a vast number of screw mount lenses around and it was not sure if customers would accept the adapter for M mount. So the IIIg was launched as an alternative offer for those who wanted to stick to the system they knew. Leitz learned that it was not necessary, as customers quickly accepted the new system.

 

Prophets are always right if they appear after the event. If the event is still to come, some people prefer to be more reluctant.

[lars_bergquist]

Even the coach of a winning team must be ready to make changes when new challenges appear. Else, he will cease to be the coach of a winning team.

 

Oscar Barnack knew that, because he was a very practical man, a man from the shop floor. He was the very antithesis of the white-coated gentlemen who artfully designed Zeiss cameras while solemnly addressing each other as Herr Doktor or Herr Ingenieur. But Albert and others were adepts of the Leica Cult. For them, Truth had been revealed once and for all.

 

The fact is that the development of the M3 started already in the late 1940's, as soon as some order had been restored after the war. The fact that it proceeded so slowly shows that this was a sideshow, kept on the back burner. After the introduction of the M3, the success was immense – and again, Leica became the prisoner of its own success. Let us hope that they will not fall victim to the success of the M9.

 

The sceptical old man

[wlaidlaw]

Uliwer,

 

Looking at numbers made, the G series LTM was not a big seller. I wonder even, if enough were sold, to pay back its development costs. The fact that in the very wealthy town of Montreux, with lots of elderly conservative Swiss buyers, one was still on sale some five years after it was made, says a lot.

 

On the Contax front, certainly on the RF, there was not a lot of development other than changes to ease manufacturing and reliability. My 1955 IIA Colour Dial, is in essence, pretty much the same camera as came out in the 1930's. Most of the Contax books I have read, blame its demise on the lack of development. Zeiss showed a number of prototypes at photo shows in the 1950's but in their typical rather timid fashion, never put them into production. The 1960 Contax, when production ceased, was, other than flash sync, exactly the same camera as had gone back into production in 1949/50.

 

Its worst faults are the small, dingy viewfinder and the slow, finger ripping focusing wheel. Like many of Zeiss' efforts, it is a wonderful range of lenses, in search of a better camera. I still use the 50/1.5 Opton Sonnar on my M9 with an Amadeo Muscelli adapter.

 

Wilson

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[wlaidlaw]

Lars,

 

I think Oscar's practical approach is epitomised by the origin of the 36 exposure cassette. That length of film was his arm span and therefore, easily repeatable, without measuring. As you say, with Zeiss' white coated Herr Doktor Professor types, it would have to have been an exact proportion of the circumference of the earth at the latitude of Jena. Having had some dealings with them during the period of the implosion of the relationship with Kyocera, when I was a Contax beta tester, they were some of the most insular people on earth, living in their own little world in Oberkochen.

 

Wilson

[philipus]

I think Oscar's practical approach is epitomised by the origin of the 36 exposure cassette. That length of film was his arm span and therefore, easily repeatable, without measuring.

 

Is this true?

 

As you say, with Zeiss' white coated Herr Doktor Professor types, it would have to have been an exact proportion of the circumference of the earth at the latitude of Jena.

 

Very funny

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Hallo,

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[wlaidlaw]

The OB arms length = 36 exposures may be a Leica "Legend" but I have been told the story at least twice at Solms, so it may have a grain of truth in it.

 

Wilson