is M8 history somewhat like M3 history?

[ho_co]

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Just thinking.

 

M3 was the first of the new series of bayonet-mount cameras with multiple finder frames. M8 was the first digital Leica rangefinder.

 

Both had a few bugs. Several minor improvements turned the M8 into an M8.2. As for the M3, the later version had single-stroke advance and metal instead of glass pressure plate. I think that in both cases, at least a partial upgrade was available for purchasers of the earlier model.

 

Shortly after introduction of the M8.2, it was replaced with a more sophisticated M9. The M2 was offered as a lower-priced version with different features alongside the M3.

 

 

Am I off on anything there? Did the M3 outlive the M2, or did the M2 gradually replace its bigger brother in the marketplace? Was the M2 introduced at the same time as the single-stroke M3, or separately?

 

There's further parallel in the switch from button to lever rewind release in the M3, similar to the mid-term electronic upgrade (replacing T2, for instance) of the M8.

 

New models in both cases, discoveries of needed changes once the cameras came to market, and another model (M2, M9) to correct further demands that couldn't be met in the original body.

[lars_bergquist]

Well, first of all, the M8 did not have a twelve year production run ...

 

The M3 was produced 1954--66, the M2 1958--67, so they were parallel, not successor models. The M2 was intended as a 'entry level' M, but the new finder with the 35mm frames made it a favourite among press photographers and photojournalists.

 

There were several versions of the M3:

 

1954-55 No frame selector lever (introduced from # 785891)

Metal pressure plate from 1957 (844001)

Modern shutter speeds from 1957 (854001)

Double-stroke wind-on replaced with single-stroke in 1958, from # 914251

D.o.f. estimation notches in rangefinder, like with m2, from 1958

Change of 'dog-ear' to rivetless modern strap lugs somewhere around 1960

 

There was as far as I know never any formal upgrade program. But a number of double-stroke cameras were factory-rebuilt to single-stroke, sometimes because the double-stroke mechanism malfunctioned.

 

Those were different times. Incremental improvements were introduced over a long time, without fanfare. Largely manual moderate-volume manufacture of a mechanichal instrument made this possible.

 

The old man from the Age of the M3

[luigi bertolotti]

Howard, your thinking about parallelism betwenn the Historical M story and the Digital M story we live now is fascinating, but things are really too different, as Lars points: maybe the only comparision, indeed, is the M8---M8.2 to M3DS---M3SS (and there was also a sort of M3"u"---M8"u" with difference in shutter times... ) ; but M9 makes a technological leap (sensor) while M2 had differences towards M3, but no technological advances (which arrived with M4 - finder and M5 - TTL meter); indeed M2 had a slightly lower cost than M3... history could have been a little more similar if, as someone speculated before 9/9, Leica would have announced something into the M line but at a lower cost (X1 isn't such a camera - not a RF).

I think is difficult to make such comparision mainly for a simple fact : digital photo is "all around the SENSOR" which is a component that, in this decades, is a quickly evolving tech, and is an intrinsic/embedded component of the camera : this is a deep difference from film times : film, an industry in itself, did enjoy technological leaps (sometimes, at a rather quick time rate) , but cameras were simply engineered aruound it because its basic form remained unchanged.

It was only Kodak that at certain times, in the consumer market, tried to "couple" cameras and films with its various "collateral" formats (110, 126 Instamatic, 127, 620...).

[ho_co]

Thanks for the insights, guys! I knew the analogy was limited but didn't realize just how limited.

 

When I went to work for ELR (Ernst Leitz Rockleigh) in the 1970s, the head of the repair department explained that all DS M3s that came in for work had to be converted to SS because the parts for the double-stroke mechanism were no longer available. Thanks for filling me in on the pieces in between!

 

 

...It was only Kodak that at certain times, in the consumer market, tried to "couple" cameras and films with its various "collateral" formats (110, 126 Instamatic, 127, 620...).

 

And don't forget those gorgeous folding Bantam 828s!

[lars_bergquist]

And don't forget those gorgeous folding Bantam 828s!

 

Kodak could do that because they were BOTH camera AND film producers. No one else was (though some camera manufacturers also peddled film made under their own brand name, but by an outside supplier, and always in standard formats. (There is no rule in photographic history without at least one exception, so I am waiting for one to pop up.)

 

BUT the only Eastman Kodak proprietary format that ever managed to 'stick' was 120 roll film. That was in 1901, with the No. 2 Brownie camera, and it is still with us. It may be on its last legs, but all other Kodak introductions have fallen by the wayside.

 

The old man from the Age of Anscochrome

[ho_co]

In the '70s, I owned a Bantam Special for a short time. I shot a roll of slide film (I think Kodachrome?) and turned it in to my dealer for his genuine Kodak overnight processing.

 

But it wasn't back the next day or the day after that.

 

After a week I called the Kodak lab to ask whether they had lost the roll. The response was that "it's an odd format and we had to send it to Rochester."

 

I feigned indignation at that. How dare Kodak call one of their formats shot in one of their loveliest cameras 'odd'?

 

The man quickly rephrased the comment: "I didn't actually mean it was odd. It's just that we don't see much 828 these days." (And I could almost hear the unspoken continuation of the comment: "It's you who are odd to be sending us this stuff.")

 

Funny how quickly yesterday's money-maker turns into today's turkey. And I guess you have to give Kodak credit for getting away with it for years.

[luigi bertolotti]

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Kodak could do that because they were BOTH camera AND film producers. No one else was (though some camera manufacturers also peddled film made under their own brand name, but by an outside supplier, and always in standard formats. (There is no rule in photographic history without at least one exception, so I am waiting for one to pop up.)

 

BUT the only Eastman Kodak proprietary format that ever managed to 'stick' was 120 roll film. That was in 1901, with the No. 2 Brownie camera, and it is still with us. It may be on its last legs, but all other Kodak introductions have fallen by the wayside.

 

The old man from the Age of Anscochrome

 

Well, Lars, about film+camera manufacturers there is another (european) exception : Agfa ! I vaguely remember that in 70's or so they tried a sort of "proprietary" 35 mm ... maybe something which avoided rewinding the film at the end... do not remember precisely...

There were also Ilford cameras (not european... )

[lars_bergquist]

Luigi, how could I forget Agfa? My own very first camera was an Agfa Isolette ... And yes, there were the Agfa Karat cameras that used a 35mm-ish film in special cassettes that did not have to be rewound. The first Karat cameras arrived already before the war. But the format died.

 

Ilford were film manufacturers who had others make cameras carrying their brand, just as Zeiss and Voigtländer had other firms make films with their own camera brands. Do Fuji manufacture cameras in their own factories? Japanese photo industrial structure is pretty inscrutable to an outsider 'longnose'.

 

Lars -- the old man who forgets

[bill]

Ilford were film manufacturers who had others make cameras carrying their brand, just as Zeiss and Voigtländer had other firms make films with their own camera brands.

 

Tsk, Lars... Ilford made their own... Ilford History and Chronology

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[luigi bertolotti]

Luigi, how could I forget Agfa? My own very first camera was an Agfa Isolette ... And yes, there were the Agfa Karat cameras that used a 35mm-ish film in special cassettes that did not have to be rewound. The first Karat cameras arrived already before the war. But the format died.

 

Ilford were film manufacturers who had others make cameras carrying their brand, just as Zeiss and Voigtländer had other firms make films with their own camera brands. Do Fuji manufacture cameras in their own factories? Japanese photo industrial structure is pretty inscrutable to an outsider 'longnose'.

 

Lars -- the old man who forgets

 

Karat... but it was an old camera... what I vaguely remember is a model of much more modern style... at that times (I was 13-14 - 1969-70) my father bought me an Agfa Sensomatic ... it used std. 35 mm film, and the dealer said that he had also a similar model with a slightly different, "easier to use" cassette system (could it be "Rapido" ? I forgot...) but it would have been more difficult to find film, in that case.

[gvaliquette]

It was only Kodak that at certain times, in the consumer market, tried to "couple" cameras and films with its various "collateral" formats (110, 126 Instamatic, 127, 620...).

 

Luigi:

 

I seem to remember that Zeiss Ikon Voightlander did make a 127 format camera. If I recall correctly, ZIV was one of very few, if not the only, independent camera manufacturers to adopt that odd film format.

 

Guy

[luigi bertolotti]

Luigi:

 

I seem to remember that Zeiss Ikon Voightlander did make a 127 format camera. If I recall correctly, ZIV was one of very few, if not the only, independent camera manufacturers to adopt that odd film format.

 

Guy

 

Well, there has been even a Rolleiflex TLR for 127 film... the "Baby Rolleiflex": it's so nice that would had been 127 film available, some years ago I even thought to buy one...

[NB23]

Firstly, who cares.

 

Secondly, to answer your childish question: No. The M8 is not a revolution by itself but merely a camera with a sensor in it.

[ModernMan]

The M8's utility and relevance, compared to alternatives (presently M9) hinges on its electronics, the relative performance of which will be diluted over time at a stupifying rate. In fact, the M8 is just the second latest encarnation of the M3, embodying its enduring design principles.

[martinis]

Surely the M8 will come to be regarded as the emergency stop gap measure it is/was .

I'd forgotten about Agfa Rapid film ,when I started in a phtographic shop in 1982 we used to sell a couple of rolls a year ,still,disc was the big thing tha year , shame Leica never made one !

[lars_bergquist]

Well, there has been even a Rolleiflex TLR for 127 film... the "Baby Rolleiflex": it's so nice that would had been 127 film available, some years ago I even thought to buy one...

And the film was simply the old 'Vest Pocket' film that was first used in a horizontal 4x6.5 format in folders, and in the original Exakta SLR (the one that preceded the Kine-Exakta) and also in innumerable simple 3x4cm folders, the poor man's 35mm cameras. Yes Luigi, the Baby Rolleiflex was nearly insufferably cute.

 

As for Ilford, I stand corrected, with the fool's cap duly attached to my head. My only excuse, Bill, is, if you will pardon me, that British cameras never made much of an impact outside the Empire. I am aware that this admission marks me as a Frog-Eater, or possibly a Swede.

 

The chastised old man of a Certain Age

[bill]

As for Ilford, I stand corrected, with the fool's cap duly attached to my head. My only excuse, Bill, is, if you will pardon me, that British cameras never made much of an impact outside the Empire. I am aware that this admission marks me as a Frog-Eater, or possibly a Swede.

 

The chastised old man of a Certain Age

 

Never too old to learn, Lars

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[gyoung]

Karat... but it was an old camera... what I vaguely remember is a model of much more modern style... at that times (I was 13-14 - 1969-70) my father bought me an Agfa Sensomatic ... it used std. 35 mm film, and the dealer said that he had also a similar model with a slightly different, "easier to use" cassette system (could it be "Rapido" ? I forgot...) but it would have been more difficult to find film, in that case.

 

The re-incarnation of Karat was Rapid, a series of cameras built to rival the Instamatic and of similar standards:(. The cassette was basically the same with a rather clumsy metal tag riveted on to set the film speed on the camera.

I have an Agfa Karat bellows 35mm camera which is, I presume, pre ww2 as it has an uncoated lens and Prontor shutter, and some cassettes. Its a fairly well made camera, on a par with Retinas.

As far as I can remember the Karat will take the Rapid cassettes, but I haven't had a film through it for about 35 + years. Film has to be pushed in through the light trap (about a metre I think) and winds into another cassette so saving the rewind time

 

Gerry