Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Jim, The black M’s was a recent photo and one of them has a winder on it (the M2), the rest was a collection of original black M3’s and M4’s that I picked up last year in a trade. They are worth too much to convert to winders and I promptly sold them off and instead had some of my M2’s and M3’s converted to black paint. I feel less worried about dropping a “fake” black M3 than the real McCoy. My cameras tend to look somewhat beaten up and the stuff on the shot represents the good stuff! A good friend of mine and I have our own definition of Mint. In our vocabulary it means that the bulletholes are covered with gaffer tape still. I do like the black paint finish, it somehow feels better than the chrome or black chrome. It is more tactile than the pure metal. But I am not going to pay 2 M6’s for an original M3 and then proceed to beat it up even more. Then I rather strip down a chrome one, have it painted and use that one. I have done several M3’s and M2’s in black paint for myself ( they are not sold, nor will I do them for anybody else, just in case!) because they feel nice to shoot with and they do look better than the chrome ones. Hey, remember that one of my Rapidwinder M2 is anodized deep purple and is sitting on a “reverse” Panda M2 ( the top-plate is black paint, the controls are all chrome). Trust me, nobody is going to take that one for an original black paint camera! There is a solution to having the baseplate or winder loose when you reload. I call it the Misha Erwitt Special ( he is the son of Elliot Erwitt and a N.Y, based shooter,sorry I mean;photographer). I have made a second tripod bushing in the usual off-centered Leica position and Misha screws in a wriststrap ( with the swiveling mount) and loops the wriststrap through the neckstrap, now if you let go of the winder it dangles quite nicely from the neckstrap and you dont have to retrieve it from the mud,water,snow or whatever effluvia your editor likes seeing you knee-deep in. I have made several of these “extra” holes in users winders, but it is a pain as I have to redo the brasspost for the plastic “film roller” to install it. It should be possible to hinge the base somehow, but there is very little space at the bottom of the camera and any protrusions would seriously harm the looks of the M body. I haven’t dropped a winder or a baseplate for a long time, however, my teeth have funny marks on them from holding said part between them when loading in a rush. El Nino is really playing havoc with your weather, we seem to get less effect up here, cherry trees are almost bloomed out, except on the street we live on where the late ones exploded today in deep pink flowers. Even I broke down and shoot a roll of colorneg (Gold 25),mind you it was a 24 exposure roll and it was the last 8 frames left over from a shoot this morning. Looked really pretty though, might reshoot in the morning in black/white. I am working on the soft release design and hope to have something in May to play with. Initially it will be a small prototype run to decide final design, dimensions and also allow the anodizer to clip it on to the titanium springs and do a trial run. They will of course be black or maybe we should do a red LUGgers only version? All the best, Tom A