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Leica CL


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Here's the story as it was told to me (I don't vouch for its accuracy): Due to the popularity of tiny/light full-frame 35s, especially the Rollei 35, Leica and Minolta collaborated to create the Leica CL, which was built by Minolta in Japan. Because it was designed to use M lenses, it was too big/heavy to compete in the intended niche, but it was still a unique, small, high-quality, good-handling, well-built excellent camera. Less expensive, smaller and lighter, but not as nicely built as the M.

 

Minolta wanted to upgrade it with AE electronics, but Leica was against it because they didn't want it to be more advanced than the current M. Within a couple of years it became apparent that it was competing with the M anyway. Leica (who had considered dumping the M) decided to dump the CL, and commit to the M. Minolta, having committed a lot of effort to this project, was reluctant to pull the plug. Instead, they put the shutter speed dial on top, added AE electronics, and changed the name to Minolta CLE.

 

If the narrative is off (which is likely) I'm sure others will correct it, but the bottom line is that if you want this great little camera and you don't care if it says Leica on it, you can get the newest, most advanced (some say best) version of it for a better price badged as the Minolta CLE.

 

If, on the other hand, you want a real, full-on German (OK, or Canadian) Leica rangefinder, this isn't it. You should get an M.

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For those who may be interested Leica still have the rubber hoods and lens caps in stock. Got both from Leica Mayfair a couple of weeks ago after they ordered them from Germany for me.

 

 

...quick FYI, Andy - further to the deterioriation of the original rubber hood, here's my solution for the Summicron-C 40mm hood issue. Essentially, it is a DIY job, featuring a 11251 filter adapter ring fused to a 12550 hood. Does the job perfectly with no vignetting and proper protection.

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  • 4 months later...

A true film shooter is the CL indeed..

 

took mine for a ride today with an Elmar 50...a great combination..as Ben says a great meter on it too.

 

best

 

andy

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And here a shot from the last film with this beauty....

 

Pan F for a change..

 

best

 

andy

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Hi, had a CL for many years, it produced wonderful pictures and was a joy to use -- however, its like a BMW ; you want the big engine but settle for the smaller one, ok to start with but eventually the hunger for the bigger engine takes hold.

I compromised on the car ( drive a 135i) but couldn't on the camera ( Hammertone MP)

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  • 4 weeks later...

:-))))

 

sometimes I need to go on a diet to appreciate the good food;)

 

here one from today....

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  • 1 month later...

i have a love-hate relationship with my CL. I have altogether bought and sold about 4 - 6 CLs in past 3 years. I like the fact that they small and compact. I dislike the dead meter even though I don't complain as much when I use a non-metered M body, i dislike the dual framelines in an already small viewfinder. I find that the film advance is the least smooth of all the M-Lens bodies,the lever has also the most variation. Most of my previous CLs had a stiff film advance with a mid-point klunky feeling, my current CL's film advance is quite smooth but I have come across another CL which felt "silky smooth" as if there were ball-bearings smoothing the gears.

 

I once dropped my CL and the rangefinder glass broke, unable to find a fix, I used a simple non-frosted glass as replacement and then attached a CV 15/f4.5 lens on it, focused at 2m, anything from 1m to infinity was in focused, in other words, the broken CL became a point and shoot camera.

 

My current CL now has primary lens, a Nikkor 50/f2 and a secondary lens, a Jupiter-8 adjusted to prevent backfocus found in FSU lens on Leica bodies.

 

The Nikkor 50/f2 is quite small, and to further refine the size, I fashioned a hood using two 40.5 filter but with the glass removed.

 

Oh, I bought the CL from the forums cheap, around 200 usd. Prices then to fluctuate, for example, on keh.com the CLs were going under 250 usd (non-working meter) for quite a while this year, now the prices has gone up recently. LTM lenses has come down quite a bit, especially Canon LTM lenses, but this fluctuates.

 

Sorry for the long post.

 

raytoei

(way past bed time...)

 

Here's is an image from last week:

 

Nikkor 50/f2 on the CL, Tri-X 400 developed in Rodinal.

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Edited by raytoei
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I'll be fascinated to see how well you can focus an f1.2 wide open on a CL...

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

Bill hi - I use my CLs with a pre-A 35 lux, a 50 [ 1959] lux and a Canon 50 f/1.2 and focusing is perfectly ok on all 3, just as long as you don't use the 50s close up and wide open.

At more than 2m I've never had problems wide open.

Same applies to a 'fat' 90 TeleElmarit.

Regards

 

Bruno

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  • 3 weeks later...

a bit more CL from earlier today.....

 

tri x and hc 110

 

best

andy

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no.2

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