[Leica] M3 musings and the "Leica look"

["Howard Sanner" <flagstad@mindspring.com>]

   I don't know why this email client sometimes shoots blanks. 
I'll give this one a second try.

   My sweetie is the sexiest, most beautiful woman alive. (Don't 
take my word for it. Point your browser at 
http://www.mindspring.com/~flagstad/gif/sweetie01.gif and see for
yourself!) Most of the pictures I take are of her, and she asked 
me to find some that she could send to her cousin.

   So I spent some time this weekend looking through pictures of 
her, and picked two that I thought were OK. Both were taken with 
a Leica M3 and 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit lens.

   I have been known to say uncharitable things about the Leica M
series and generally to compare M cameras unfavorably to the 
screwmount cameras. Sometimes I have thought that I ought to sell
my M3 outfit, given that maybe four rolls go through it in a busy
year.

   Then I look at what the M3 and 135 Elmarit produce. THAT'S why
I still have my M3. The Elmarit gives Sarah's skin and everything
else I've photographed with it a glow that I've never seen in any
other lens, Leitz or otherwise. Though I did the portraits wide 
open (f/2.8), I've used the lens stopped down, and it still 
produces this glowing, three-dimensional quality that invariably 
blows me away.

   I wish it weren't so heavy and so easy to knock the "eyes" out
of alignment. I also wish more lenses had this "look."

   So, my M3 is not for sale, and I hope the next time selling it
crosses my pea brain that I see some pictures taken with it and 
the Elmarit.

   BTW, the picture of Sarah in the URL above was, in fact, taken
with the M3 and 135mm Elmarit, though I don't think the lens's 
special qualities come through in the scan.

						Howard Sanner
						flagstad@mindspring.com

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