[Leica] Re: More on the Medalist

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Jul 15, 2006, at 4:56 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org wrote:

> Lawrence,
>
> Did the Medalist have an interlock between the film advance and shutter
> being cocked?
>
> And how did it manage how far to advance the film?  By a little hole 
> in the
> back?
>
> regards
> Vick

The Medalist was a very modern camera for its era. The shutter is 
autococking when the film is advanced but it can be manually cocked by 
a little lever under the eyepiece. One of the camera accessories was a 
sheet film back which would take 2.25 x 3.25 films in single shot 
holders. The cocking lever was used with this back but it will work for 
double exposures on roll film. Kodak also offered an adapter to take 35 
mm sized 828 roll film. But that's even harder to find than 620 film. I 
suppose if you had 828 spools, you could wind 35 mm film on them.

The film is advanced by a knob. Some users, including myself, found 
this too slow and fitted a crank type winder, sort of like a cut down 
Rolleiflex crank. I'm certain these are not still available, although 
making one would be easy,  but the knob works fine if you are not in a 
hurry. The film advance is measured by a small toothed roller which 
presses on the film edge outside of the frame line. There is a window 
in the back to set the camera at the first frame, then the shutter is 
cocked by the lever and from there on everything is automatic. After 
the first half a dozen rolls, you can forget about the little window. 
You know that the first frame is in position after six twirls of the 
knob. There is enough extra film in a 120 or 620 roll to take care of 
slight errors in initial positioning.

The viewfinder is a reverse Galieo telescope, sort of like a Leica LTM 
finder on steroids. Many users, including myself fixed a Leica 
accessory shoe to the top of the viewfinder housing so that we could 
use a 50mm Leica Sportsfinder or a Linhof finder. Since 6x9 and 35 mm 
have the same aspect ratio, this was convenient for rapidly moving or 
sports photography. The Medalist rangefinder is a superbly accurate 
magnified split field type with the viewing hole just below that of the 
camera. This too is like a late model Leica LTM.

The Medalist was advertised as a miniature camera. In the late 40s and 
early 50s any camera using roll film 120 size or under was called a 
miniature. For more information on the Medalist, do a Google search. 
There are a number of web sites which cover the camera as well as 
providing information about respooling 120 to 620 film.

Larry Z