[Leica] Save up your pennies... Quickly

[Mark Rabiner]

When the M came along in 1954 they needed a camera with a bayonet mount
instead of a screw mount to compete against the Contax and they needed a
thumb advance lever instead of a knob to compete against anything before
that we had the screw mount cameras which get called by us LTM Leica thread
mounts some of which the earlier versions get lovingly referred to as
"Barnack's" as they were a bit closer to his vision. These cameras with a
collapsible lens on them can fit in any pants or shirt jacket pocket you'd
wear. Not a pocket-watch pocket of course but any other. Your top hanky
pocket of your sport jacket would be a nice place to pull out your IIIF or
IIIc and grab a quick snap and them put it right back in again before anyone
knew the difference... If you preset the focus and the metering.
But the M was way bigger and heavier than the thread mount cameras.
This was 1954.
Barnack died in 1936.
Did his vision live on?
I'd say no the M's were about as heavy and bulky as many SLR's.
I don't think mirrorless Is the answer.
The LTM' s were made another three years after the debut of the M3.
The M's have been miraculously saved from oblivion with the digital M's and
the vision of Dr. Andreas Kaufmann.
The same has to happen with the LTM' s. I'm betting he knows that and has
acted upon it.


On 9/23/15 7:56 PM, "Doug Herr" <wildlightphoto at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Adam Bridge wrote:
> 
>>>> 
>  it would be difficult to envision a camera smaller than the M that fits the
> descriptions floating around the internets. There?s only so much room for
> things like batteries, viewfinder, cards, all the stuff that has to be
> jammed into the camera to make it useable.
> 
> Mirrorless cameras are complex critters.
> 
> I?m probably wrong but I?m thinking the form-factor might look more like a
> smaller R10 but skinnier.
> <<<
> 
> A photo on Andreas Kaufmann's Facebook page with a camera in the background
> provides a few hints:
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206413558871899&set=a.1788779113368.
> 101241.1056276522&type=1&theater
> 
> SLR form, looks smaller than S, and he declined to discuss it :)
> 
> Doug Herr
> Birdman of Sacramento
> http://www.wildlightphoto.com
> http://doug-herr.fineartamerica.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information




-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/