Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/10/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>Dream on, Mark. Feature for feature, capability for capability, M3 v S3, >the S3 - as a body - would win hands down. But this is one on which >great minds will clearly NEVER agree! :-) >(My biggest single photo equipment regret is that I didn't ever own an >S3, and that I don't own one today. ;-) ) I own both an S3 and a M3 and I can say that the M3 is a better camera: http://photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/NikonS3.html http://photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/LeicaM3.html The M3 has: * Faster lens changing (the S/Contax bayonet is a pain) * Availability of third party lenses * Switchable framelines (the S3 is fixed) * Brighter finder / rangefinder * Long optical (69mm) and effective baselength (63.7mm) Only 14310 S3s were sold between 1958-1967 while the M3 had a long record and over 225,000 sold. Now, if it was between an SP and an M3, then the SP might be better. Unfortunately, I don't have $3000 to buy an SP. Remember that even back then, the SP was priced incredibly high (Y98,000). Karen -- Karen Nakamura http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/