Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/06/30

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Found Diax IIa
From: photo.forrest at earthlink.net (Philip Forrest)
Date: Mon Jun 30 13:40:05 2008

Any Diax users/collectors here? 
Kyle's SO Jen gave me a Diax IIa last night and I exposed a roll of
FUji 400 H through it during the last 24 hours. I must say, this is an
exquisite camera! It has a 50mm f/3.5 Isconar and a 90mm f/3.5
Tele-Xenar. Both lenses appear to be great, the Isconar's images looking
a bit like a coated 50mm Elmar of post-war vintage. This lens is single
coated but "flaretastic" if you ask me. The 90mm is a completely
different story though. This looks to be at least as good as my Leica
Hektor 135mm and my Nikkor 105mm if not better than both. Wide open, it
has a nice veil of low contrast, great for portraits, but I also shot
stopped down a bunch today between f/8 and f/16 which showed great
contrast and detail. 
The fit and finish of the camera is amazing. Very heavy die cast body
with brass top, bottom and back plates. Very heavy satin chrome
covering the exposed metal and leather covering the main part of the
body. The rangefinder is quite accurate with both lenses wide open and
close up, as well as at infinity. It could use a cleaning as
there is a bit of dust inside reducing contrast, but it only
makes focusing a bit more slow. Shutter is still quite accurate, but
that is to be expected for a Synchro-Compur. 
I'm curious to find out more about the camera if any of you have
used one before. 
Thanks for the info in advance.
PhilFo

PS: I'll post photos soon.