IIIF lenses?

[pippy]

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On 12/10/2023 at 11:08 PM, wlaidlaw said:

...I lent my father my M4 in exchange for his IIf (bought in Brooklyn in 1953), as he just could not get on with the side by side RF/VF of the IIf, having been a IIIa user, with split RF/VF for the previous 27 years. The IIIa was stolen when my parents car was broken into in Madrid. He was devastated to lose that IIIa, as it had been presented to him by the Polish diaspora in 1940, for his help in resettling them in the north of Scotland, with housing and jobs and was engraved to that effect. I did not use the IIf much as I soon bought a second hand SS 1966 M3, which I still have.  In memory of my father, I have bought a IIIa with a MOOLY just like he used, which was a one owner camera, bought new from Wallace Heaton in 1937 and I acquired it from the late owner's daughter. I sometimes use this with one of my Summar lenses but really I would like to find a coated Summar like the one my father used. 

Sadly just a few months after borrowing my M4, my father had a severe stroke and could no longer manage a manual focus camera as he had lost the use of his left arm. The M4 then disappeared for the next 40 years, until my uncle and I met when were both on holiday in South Africa in 2007. He saw me using my M8 and said: "Do you know I have one of your father's cameras and if you come over to see me when we are back in the UK, I will show it to you." I went and visited him in Farnham and when I saw the camera exclaimed: "OMG it's my missing M4" and verified by checking the serial number, which shows it is one of very earliest production M4's, 1175047, the 47th production M4, bought on the day of UK release of the M4 in July 1967 as my 21st birthday present. Much embarrassment from my uncle who said he had been given it by my mother, some time after my father's stroke, as she had no interest at all in photography and my father could not use it. He had hardly used it and just left it in his attic. It still had the 1937 Summar lens on it, which my father bought to use on the M4 (with an LTM to M ring), as that was his favourite lens and what he had always used on his IIIa.  I assumed my mother had taken it to a jumble sale like she did with my father's as new, Bulls-eye Contarex.

What a truly wonderful post, Wilson, and thank you very much for sharing this story with us.

Philip.

Edited December 13, 2023 by pippy

[matfer]

On 12/10/2023 at 1:53 AM, nitroplait said:

...Who’s using Barnack Leica’s for rational reasons these days, anyway? 😉

Ig with its Leicavit and for decades a Snap Shot Skopar 25mm (which I got as they came out with the very first Cosina-Voigtlaende, (towards the end of the last century), replaced as soon as it became available last year by a silver chrome (on brass) Voigtlaender 2.8/28mm.

A second Ig body without Leicavit also with HP5plus, for the rare instances at the end of the roll in the main camera (and also as a back up. Though within the relaxed tolerances of my setup, no new CLA was needed since this set's acquisition on my 50th birthday, when I gave in to the birthyear camera craze.)

The tiny 25/28 Voigtlaender viewfinder on it for many years now. Only trusted HP5plus (guestimated at 200) inside, making my Voigtlaender meter superfluous after more than 100 rolls now. Btw, yes I do admit a tiny flash fires for each image since 2017:

as I abhore mobile phone mug shots, there's a mark on the lens  at 1.5m as the absolute minimal distance (imo Weegee not really freakish, versus Mr. Bruce, though it's mostly friends / family at parties and in Biergaerten / pubs ;).

Why not (two) If bodies instead? Not the birthyear (hence the irrational higher price for my 2 Ig bodies). And the sync cable to the front would have been in the way (as my "rational" bit in the birthyear camera extravagance).

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