[Leica] Visoflex III

[marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)]

At 08:07 PM 8/14/2007, Peter O'Toole wrote:
 >
 >This is my first letter to lug -- I joined the list serve last night. I 
 >need
 >to ask a favor. First a little about myself, I started shooting with an M6
 >in 1995, and I just got an M8 in April.  I am looking for a VisoFlex III, 
 >as
 >I sold my film-type photo copying system, and now I want to use my M8 for
 >copy work -- probably need a dedicated macro lense as well.  I tried ebay,
 >but the bidders are pretty cagey, and they appear to be collectors and
 >re-sellers.

Peter

Welcome aboard!

You have opened a can of worms.  There are a 
bunch of folks on the LUG who detest the Visoflex 
system and they will rale and rant against it in 
short order, claiming it is clumsy and 
worthless.  They are wrong, of course:  the 
Visoflex system is an elegant expansion of what 
is the ultimate system camera of the analog era, 
the Leica RF line.  (When you start digging 
around the catalogs, both photographic and 
scientific and start recognizing the vast breadth 
and depth of the system, what with all of the 
doo-dads, gee-gaws, and add-ons manufactured over 
the years, then you know what a TRUE system camera is!)

One example of the worth of the Visoflex system 
is that it continued in production for two 
decades after the introduction of the original 
Visoflex.  An RF with reflex housing is 
essentially superior to most SLR's for macro and 
extreme tele applications due to the lack of 
meter slap.  (Amateur astrophotographers in the 
1950's and 1960's often used the rather 
inexpensive Praktica FX series of cameras as 
these had a VERY long shutter release throw which 
allowed you to release the mirror and only then 
actually take the picture, this being in an era 
when more expensive SLR's generally did not allow 
such a mirror pre-release.  Questar until 1970, 
for like reasons, only advocated the use of a 
Leica RF with Visoflex on its telescopes.)

All of the Leitz reflex housings from the 
original PLOOT of 1936 to the last Visoflex III 
of 1984 will fit your M6, though the thread-mount 
versions will require an LTM to M adapter.  The 
M8 is a tad more selective:  all (PLOOT, Visoflex 
I, II, IIa, and III) will fit but the 90-degree 
VF for the Visoflex II and IIa will not 
work.  You can use the vertical VF on these or 
you can use the Visoflex III right-anngle VF 
which will fit on these earlier reflex housings.

I have never used an M8 -- hell, for that matter, 
I have never even SEEN an M8!  But I own almost 
all of the Leitz reflex housings (I am missing 
the original Epidiascope and the medical versions 
of the Visoflex) and regularly use these on my 
Leicas (I have a IIIc, IIIf RDST, IIIg, M3 DS and 
M6 Wetzlar), especially for macro work.  I 
generally work with macro lenses such as Leitz 
Photars or Zeiss Luminars mounted on a Bellows II 
rig.  For smaller-magnification work, I use a 
4/9cm or 4/13.5cm lens head on the Bellows.  I do 
own a first-generation 65mm Elmar but I rarely 
use this for micro work but use it instead for 
portraiture and the like.  I generally use my M6 
due to its wonderfully accurate metering.

(I also occasionally hook up one of my cameras to 
a telescope such as my Questar 3.5 -- a 2600mm 
telephoto is a Mighty Hammer, albeit the f/29 
focal ration takes some getting used to!  I also 
sometimes use one of these on my 76mm Swift 831 
refractor with its 1000mm focal length;  this 
allows great pictures of nesting birds and squirrel nexts and the like.)

Starting in 1984, Leitz began to abandon its 
system approach to either the M or R systems so 
that, today, we only have shards and remnants of 
what was once a magnificent and wide-ranging complexity of the line.

Listen not to those negative and wrong-hearted 
souls who deride the Visoflex.  It truly is an 
elegant addition to the camera which considerably 
expands the capabilities of the system.

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
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