[Leica] Viso III and M5 prototype (long)

[Lucien <lucien@ubi.edu>]

Marc James Small wrote:

> Lucien wrote:

> >There was a M4 prototype with the M5 look and size 
> >before the release of the M4 with the M3 look.

> Nonetheless, that is still several years AFTER the Visoflex III's
> dimensions were selected.  It is more likely that the M5 was designed to
> fit the Visoflex III, than the other way around!
 
Marc,

I'm not so sure. 
It's true that the Visoflex III was announced in 1963
(Viso II 1960, Viso IIa 1962)
but the unnamed prototype of the M4/M5 I was thinking of, 
had a lot of the details of the M2/M3.
Like all the levers (including the advance lever), 
the open-auf and close-zu engraving on the base plate.
And the guard, around the lens lock release button, is of the first
Leica M3 model. That guard was changed - beveled cut - in 1960, 
and finally removed in 1966, last year of production.

(Leica - A History illustrating every Model and Accessory -
Revised and updated edition - 1993 - Paul-Henry Van Haesbroeck -
ISBN 0 85667 430 3 -
Pictures XXXIV and XXXV at the beginning of the book)

I know four different prototypes of the M4 with the M5 appearance.
1- the unnamed already mentioned.
2- in Lager Volume I - Cameras -1993 on page 244.
a prototype engraved M4 Leitz Wetzlar, with beveled cut guard and 
with strange levers, which are similar to one out of 
the several M4's lever prototypes that you can see 
in Günter Osterloh's Leica M book (1986) on page 15, figure 2.
(second row, third from the left)
3- in the previously mentioned van Haesbroeck book,
on page 178, figure 123d, a picture of the top of a similar prototype.
4- and finally in the same book,
 picture XXXVI and on page 178-179 figures 123 a-c and 124,
a prototype engraved M4 Leitz Wetzlar Germany, 
with the regular M4's levers and also the beveled cut guard.

What is funny is that the folding rewind crank of those prototypes was
on the side of the camera, (instead of the top corner (M4)
or bottom (M5)), at the place where the battery cover is on a M5.

In the same book there are also two experimental M3s (bestriebsk no.
1206 and 1208) 
with an exposure meter arm like on the M5.  (figure XXXII and XXXIII)
(Both with no guard around the lens lock release button)

P-H van Haesbroeck speculate that, from the introduction of the M2, 
the Leitz designers worked hard at developing a through-the-lens 
exposure meter of the flip-up variety.
Then, after the viewfinders of the M3 and M2 had been combined in 
the prototypes of what intended to be the M4 (...and also in the 1960
gray M2), 
it was decided to abandon the metering system until it was perfected,
and, 
meanwhile, to give a boost to sales by launching a new model: the M4. 
Had time permitted, the M4 would have been based on its intended
prototype. 

In his book 
- - A source of today’s 35-mm photography, part II, the Leica Years
1945-1980- 
Emil G.Keller wrote:
(trying to explain why the M5 became a serious financial loss to the
Leitz organization)
...Equally important, perhaps, was the fact that the camera’s
introduction 
was delayed by frequent absences of Mr.Broschke due to ill health....

Even with all the books published about the Leica, I think there still
is a lot of mystery about it.
That's the fun of it.

Lucien