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Home >> Photography >> Film Equipment Leica M3
Leica needs no introduction to photographers worldwide. The name has been synonymous with high quality since the birth of 35mm format photography when Oscar Barnack created the first Leica camera and took some modified motion picture film to use in his camera that gave birth to the 35mm format in 1913 (Leica did not market a commercial product until 1924 though).
I’m not sure which is more significant, Leica’s penultimate creation of the rangefinder camera, or the legendary optics that went with it. For both are considered very important individually, but when put together, many consider the two sublime, not only the alpha, but also the omega of rangefinder cameras. If we look at the styling of manual cameras, we see much that is similar to the classic Leica rangefinder design. A film advance lever and shutter speed dial on the top right hand side of the camera with the film rewind dial on the left. This classic ergonomic design is still used in even quite modern manual cameras such as the Nikon FM3A.
As most know, the street photographer’s camera of choice is a Leica, or other rangefinder camera. Why is this? Some quick points:
While many photographers are attracted to the benefits offered by the camera with the high quality lenses being a huge bonus, for others, the lenses are the key attraction and the camera is just an appendage (okay, maybe not quite as flippant as I made that last statement out to be J I suppose some of the quality can come from the difference in camera design. With no mirror to worry about in a rangefinder camera, the lens designers need not worry about retro-focus and can produce uncompromised lenses, especially in the wide-angle focal lengths that can have the rear element within millimeters of the film plane. Ironically, this benefit in design for film photography may be a hindrance for digital because of how digital requires a more precise path for light to travel through the lens and onto the capture chip. Some speculate that lenses that go far back to the film plane can present challenges to maintain the same level of quality from film to digital capture without excessive chromatic aberrations or purple fringing from showing up in the image files. German lens makers also have the reputation of being uncompromising with their optics, from the materials used for the glass, to the grinding and polishing, to the final assembly and testing. The reputations of Leica, Zeiss, Schneider, et al., did not arise because of shoddy workmanship and quality. While
there are certainly excellent Japanese optical companies, rightly
or wrongly, there is a perception that lenses made in the Far East
are just “somehow” inferior to those made in the European heartland,
unless the Germans have a direct role in producing lenses made in
When
Hasselblad announced a new auto focus 645 medium format camera, many
were taken aback by the company’s decision to use lenses sourced from
There is often a neurotic attitude found by various users posted on Internet forums about the merits of German versus Japanese lenses. It use to be about sharpness, but when the lenses are compared objectively and found to be equal in detail resolved, the fall back for the German fans (snobs?) is to point out the superior bokeh of the German lenses, that so-called creaminess in the out of focus elements of the image. Ironically, bokeh is a Japanese term and apparently, Japanese collectors place a premium on lenses with good bokeh and for the most part, the collectors market has favored German made lenses. So, if even the Japanese consider their lenses to be inferior, there must be something to this German superiority (rhetorical question)? This review is brought to you by…
People often joke about finding that gem amongst the old stuff of one’s parents or grandparents, but in this case, my coworker really seemed to have lucked out in having a father who appreciated high-quality photographic equipment. Doing a bit of research into the M3 found that it’s a late model M3 that holds a premium among collectors because it has all of the little upgrades and modifications Leica made over the life of the M3 camera.
There was some trepidation in taking the camera for review. Here we have a cherished family keepsake, almost an heirloom to be passed from generation to generation and here I am, some stranger putting his grubby hands on this precious Leica. But, on the other hand, Leicas are made to be used, to take photographs, for that is their purpose, a purpose that has found favor with many worldwide.
I recall a story of a photographer’s Leica that was sold by his widow. Unfortunately, the photographer’s name escapes me now, but his Leica was very well used and brassed, but still working perfectly and the widow’s condition in selling the Leica was that the new owner had to actually use it instead of merely “collecting” it just because it used to belong to a well-known photographer. The new owner is apparently good on his word and uses that old Leica often. Update: a reader was kind enough to send me a note advising me of the name of the photographer and some additional details: The photographer you are refering to is the 1960's, 70's street photographer Garry Winogrand. I think that M4 the widow had sold to that photographer for $100,000 or so by estimates, though the cost was never released.
I also appreciated the trust from the coworker in letting me use his father’s cherished camera. I recall many years back, when I was first getting serious about photography I was interested in seeing if there was anything to the superiority of German designed lenses. I arranged with another coworker to do a shooting session with his Contax gear, not borrowing it, but to just photograph together for a few test shots. The coworker backed out because he considered his basic Contax kit to be too expensive to risk bringing it to work. I suppose I’ve been around relatively expensive equipment too long, or I just have too much of it lying around (tongue firmly in cheek), because it doesn’t faze me to haul around a bag that could be worth as much as an entry-level car. It would probably shock people to discover the worth of the equipment I’ve taken out just to do some test shots between 35mm, digital and medium format. It would probably shock me too, but then what’s the point of having all that gear if it’s just locked away in a cabinet? I certainly don’t hold to the notion that good photography requires a second mortgage on the house, but, unfortunately, some equipment is expensive. And if you’re into photography in a very serious way, you may eventually accumulate enough gear to even make some real pros blush. But in the end, you gotta use that gear if you consider yourself a photographer and to treat your expensive, but maybe not really exceptional (insert whatever brand you want here) like a jewel, well, I don’t know what to say… Okay, what I’m trying to say is, if you’ve got good stuff, use it! If you’re that worried about it, get it insured and then don’t worry about it. I’ve been through the process of losing a few grand of equipment before, so it’s not like I cannot relate. My first Nikon F90x along with a Nikon lens and Nikon flash were stolen and as much as it pained me then, I came out with zero loss because I had insurance to cover everything, even right down to the lithium AA batteries I had in the MB10 grip. My coverage then required no deductible, which is why I had zero loss. Anyways, I digress on this “tools not jewels” topic. We’re here to look at the M3, not the anal attitude of some photographers towards their equipment. The M3 The curiosity of the M3 is that it is actually the first bayonet lens mount rangefinder made by Leica, not the third. The M2 camera came after and reading Karen Nakamura’s review of the M3 revealed that the 3 represents how many viewfinder outlines are available as standard for 50, 75, and 90mm lenses.
Before getting into the using the M3, I wanted to figure out some of the terminology with the lenses, like what’s the difference between Summicron, Summilux and Elmarit? With Nikon, you basically have to study the alphabet to decipher what all the letters stand for when looking at a given lens, e.g. AF-S, D, ED, G, VR, etc. From what I could discover, Summilux lenses are ones that have a maximum aperture of f1.4, Summicron are lenses with maximum apertures of f2, and Elmarits are lenses with f2.8 apertures and Elmars are anything slower than f2.8. There was an old posting at Photo.net that indicated that “Summi” refers to summit and “cron” refers to color, so Summicron is akin to color or chroma supremacy with the highest correction of chromatic aberrations. “Lux” refers to light, so Summilux, light supremacy, or highest achievement in a fast lens, and Elmarit, well who knows?
I checked Vistek for current Leica prices and noticed the Summicron 50mm f2 lens with a list of CAN $1800. Whoa! Almost two-grand for a 50mm f2 lens, which is more than 10 times the cost of a new Nikon 50mm f1.8. Major ouch factor for the wallet and one can imagine how much more the Summilux 50mm f1.4 would cost new. A new Leica MP camera with the Summicron 50 lens would set a person back nearly CAN $6000. This high price helps to put the M3 into proper perspective of just how much this camera would have been worth in its heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. While comparing a 50mm lens to another 50mm lens would seem pretty apples to apples for comparison, it isn’t because one is a rangefinder lens and the other a SLR lens. Rangefinder lenses aren’t stuck with compromises inherent in SLR lenses because there is no mirror clearance to worry about. While this may not be a big deal for normal lenses and longer, it apparently is a big deal for wide-angle lenses, where rangefinder designs are lauded mightily for their superiority over their SLR brethren.
The Skeptic
I’m also wondering about the whole point of having the best lenses in 35mm format in a rangefinder camera. If we accept that Leica is supreme for optical quality, are we not throwing away much of that quality by handholding the camera for the kind of photography people claim Leicas excel at? Users have often claimed the ability to handhold rangefinder cameras at very slow shutter speeds thanks to a lack of mirror slapping up and down the box. But by handholding at very low shutter speeds you’re still asking for trouble with regard to hand shake. Or is it the case that the Leica optics make up for less than stellar technique, or picture-taking environments forced upon the photographer? Of course, my perspective is that of an aspiring landscape photographer, who shoots from a tripod, uses a cable release and attempts to minimize vibration in order to resolve as much detail as possible on film or digital chip. Shooting handheld for quality is anathema to such photographers. I know, I know, this is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but I have a much easier time accepting the superiority of Leica optics in their R series SLRs in which landscape and wildlife photographers like Norbert Rosing shoot from a tripod all the time. On the other hand, because I’ve photographed weddings here and there, most of the interesting stuff that happens at weddings is exactly hand-holding-the-camera moments. It’s sometimes painful to realize that a shot that you thought you had really nailed and that looks sharp at 4x6 inches turns into a soft 8x10 because your technique was not so great. Shutter Noise The quietness of Leica cloth shutters is legendary with tales of only Leica cameras being allowed in some courtrooms and movie sets (if no sound muffling blimps are used with an SLR). When my coworker handed me the M3 for the first time the M3 felt surprisingly heavy, like it was cast from a solid piece of metal and makes my Konica S2 feel like a plastic toy. I was eager to cock the shutter and release it, but much to my surprise, a very audible click was heard.
My memory of past Leica use was but a haze at that point with the last time I handled and used a Leica being in 2000 with a M6, but I never recalled the shutter being anything more than a snick of a sound. The M3 was not necessarily loud by modern standards, but it seemed nothing special at all in terms of noise levels and about on par with my budget Konica S2 (bought used for CAN $75) that uses a leaf shutter in its fixed lens. This was not blowing up my skirt, as Charleton Heston remarked in his cameo in True Lies. While a quiet room is not the best way to gauge a camera’s practical silence, I was no longer impressed with the mythic qualities of the Leica cloth shutter. That was until I actually used the Leica in situations with more ambient noise than found in a very quiet room that a pin drop could not hide in. In keeping with the classical theme of a 1960s era Leica and one of the most popular films associated with Leica cameras, the first roll loaded was Kodak Tri-X film. Not the old classic Tri-X, but its modern day variant and the first time I’ve ever shot this much-heralded film. I lean towards simplicity, convenience, and cost effectiveness for B&W photography and as such, I shoot primarily Kodak Portra BW, or T400CN chromogenic films. I shoot Kodak TMAX 3200 for ambient only shots or Ilford SFX 200 for a near-infrared look, sparingly, when I’m photographing weddings. A few snapshots of the kids playing around to get use to the rangefinder style was my indoctrination, but it wasn’t until I had to do a parent duty day at my daughter’s preschool that I got a better measure of the Leica silence. Duty day also coincides with your child’s show and tell day and when it came time for my little Amy to do her show and tell, I took some shots with the Leica. In the past, I’ve taken photos with my Nikon Coolpix 950 or Nikon D100 SLR and in all past duty days (with Amy and my oldest son Patrick when he was at the same preschool), I always caught the attention of the kids with my cameras and their flashes going off. While I could have taken ambient only photos with the D100 set to a higher ISO, the Coolpix 950 being typical of digicams, does not output a good looking high ISO image file. With the Leica M3, I was sans flash and the ISO 400 of the Tri-X (rated lower at ISO 320) allowed me to shoot in the range of f4 or f5.6 with a shutter speed of 1/250 or 1/125 in the classroom’s mixed fluorescent and window light conditions. I metered the room generally before the class started with my Sekonic L188 reflective handheld meter. While some of the kids still noticed me taking pictures, because there was no flash popping off, they soon lost interest and without an obvious thunk of a mirror being slapped up and down and film being wound forward by a motor, little heads did not turn my way every time I took a photo, as has happened in previous times. That’s the thing I didn’t think about that first time I released the shutter on the M3 in a deadly quiet room. There are very few times that one will find oneself photographing in a truly silent room and in most general situations, the ambient noise of the world is more than enough to mask the sound of the Leica’s shutter. In normal use, the shutter indeed becomes a nearly inaudible snick of a sound. This silence and smoothness is almost disconcerting for one that is used to SLR style of photography. The Nikon F100 has a smoother sounding shutter than the Nikon F5 from which it was derived from, but it’s still a fairly loud beast, especially in quiet church wedding moments. The Nikon F80 and F70 mid level cameras have very smooth shutters as far as SLRs go, but even so, no matter how smooth and quiet a SLR shutter is, the mirror slap…well…it kinda slaps you in the face at times. Even if it isn’t the “smack” of say a Canon EOS 3, which I find very jarring, mid-level cameras still have a “thunk” compared to the “snick” of a Leica. With a camera that calls as little attention to itself as the Leica, I sometimes wondered, am I even taking any photos with this darn thing? Once you’ve used one, you can very quickly understand why Leica’s are so favoured amongst street photographers from a silence is golden perspective. Focusing Rangefinder focusing is a bit different than what most photographers are used to with SLR focusing. From what I’ve read in the past, rangefinder focusing has its origins from military applications (artillery probably), but the basics of it is fairly simple enough. While one sees a view of the world in clear focus through the Leica’s viewfinder, one does not know whether the subject of our photography is really in focus. A rangefinder is located in the middle of the viewfinder to serve as the focusing aid. This rangefinder is quite tiny, but basically there are two tiny windows that show your subject. By rotating the focus barrel on the lens, you want the two tiny windows to align on top of each other to create one window. When you have done so then your subject is in focus, but if you still see two windows, or portions of them then the subject is not in focus. It’s a lot easier to do than to explain and generally works okay, but there are times when I can’t see the rangefinder very well and I have to shift around my position to try and get a better view.
I was also missing one of the key features that users claim to make the Leica fast and easy to use, the focusing tab on the lens that came with this M3. Even if I wanted to immerse myself with that Leica style of street photography, I couldn’t because nothing on the lens would tell me by feel that at a set position, I have a five-foot focus distance, or ten-foot, or infinity, or whatever. Usage
However, over the weeks I had the Leica in my hands, I just never warmed up to the camera. I fumbled around with using it, my meter readings seemed to be off at times, resulting in underexposed negatives, and I was just plain slow in using the camera. This is just user error of course and of one who’s primary experience with 35mm photography is with auto-everything, gee whiz cameras. I was also taken aback by the one-meter minimum focusing distance of the 50mm lens. My Konica S2 has a similar minimum focusing distance as well, but I had forgotten about it and it’s quite a contrast to the cheap Nikon 50mm lens that can focus as close as foot from the subject. The film
loading is one those things that you have to accept with Leica rangefinder
cameras, but bloody hell, this film loading process is something that
must have sprung from the mind of a young Rube Goldberg. Okay, I exaggerate
the difficulties of the film loading process, because it isn’t that
bad once you know it, but it took me a good 15 minutes or so to finally
load my first roll of film (yah, no one ever said I was the sharpest
lens in the cabinet). Subsequent rolls took far less time to load,
but good God, I think I can load a roll of 120 film in my Bronica backs faster than the Leica and that’s without the
I cannot imagine having to fumble with such an archaic film loading process for shooting on the go, such as a wedding. The Nikon F100’s 11 second film rewinding time can be an eternity when you’re covering a wedding solo, because the ceremony isn’t going to take a 20 second pause while you rewind and load a new roll of film, which is why you should have at least two cameras to use. That’s not to say that a Leica couldn’t be used in some specialized or limited applications, such as available light photos using high-speed film, but for the way I cover a wedding, it would simply be the wrong tool in my hands. This is what it comes down to; the Leica rangefinder camera is just the wrong camera for me. It has nothing to do with the quality of craftsmanship and build, or legendary optical qualities that Leica offers, it’s just me and my style that won’t be compatible with it. I’m also not into street photography either, so one of the key styles of photography that the Leica caters too is a non-factor and none of its advantages mattered to me. Hence, I don’t have too much more to say about the Leica’s usability, but again, I reiterate, this is nothing more than an observation based on my needs, not yours. If the Leica or other rangefinder floats your boat, that’s great and more power to you, and my comments won’t mean a thing. After all that, I decided not to bother doing any sort of lens testing1 to see how good the Summilux 50mm lens is. There’s no point because the rangefinder (any rangefinder actually) is not for me and hence I wouldn’t bother buying one to use.2 Which is kind of a shame because there have been so many good things written about the Voigtlander cameras and lenses and their much friendlier price really gave me brief thoughts about buying my own rangefinder? At the end of the day, I had to look at such a purchase objectively rather than romantically, because I already have a number of cameras and lenses that go unused for the most part, and they are all older, manual systems. All this only serves to reveal how deficient a photographer I am with the Leica and I’m one for blaming the photographer for bad photos, not the equipment unless there is an obvious technical fault with the equipment. And I can assure my coworker that his Leica is not deficient in any way. As far as the photos I took are concerned, the ones that turned out look fine, but they are just snapshots and certainly nothing that would test the limits of the camera and lens. Conclusion Horses for courses as the British say and while I was very grateful to have had an opportunity to use a Leica for a fairly lengthy period of time, it made me realize that I’m just a regular Joe, an SLR kind of guy. I suppose a few out there will consider me a Philistine for not taking to the Leica way of photography (actually, the rangefinder style of photography, the brand name is irrelevant), but I gotta be me.
My lack of abilities with manual cameras is the reason why I do not own a manual Nikon to supplement the auto focus cameras I have. A classic two-camera Nikon kit comprises of a current AF camera and a manual camera, such as one of the FM series. I’ve considered an FM2 and FM3A in the past, but in knowing how I use my cameras, I know that a manual 35mm camera would see little to no real use and would be a waste of money. Interestingly, I don’t seem to have such hang-ups when using my manual Bronica medium format cameras, but then, it offers a much larger film size and the nature of the beast requires a tripod and a more calculated approach to photography than the snap and go approach that 35mm caters to. It stems from a sorting of roles I gave to my equipment some years ago. Medium format for quality on a tripod, 35mm for handheld photography on the go, which for me means a fast handling camera that won’t slow me down. The Nikon F100 has been stellar for this approach and I think the new F6 would be even better, but for the lack of money on my part. I also tend to think of wedding photography requirements for my major equipment needs. Another aspect of this personal reflection is that I’m a product of my generation. I came of age when MTV was becoming a pop culture icon of its own instead of being a medium for pop culture. I like my modern conveniences, my attention span is short, and horrors, I’m coming to terms with MP3 as an acceptable form of music playback, Surely, a severe fall from grace from one that once owned and used another classic relic of a bygone era, a turntable (a pretty decent one too), but sold out because it was so…manual J Rather an anticlimactic conclusion after the big build-up about the Leica mystique. Other writers, such as Michael Johnston, make eloquent arguments for the benefits of the Leica way of photography. Others such as Erwin Puts go into minutiae of everything about Leica cameras and lenses and give you an appreciation of just how much care and attention to detail there is about building a Leica. It’s all good and for a great many photographers, the Leica is the epitome of allowing for their photographic expression to flow through to the film. For me, Leica’s are something to be appreciated, but owning one would mean it becoming an expensive paperweight or a display cabinet object, and that is just something that no Leica deserves, even the exotic alligator or ostrich leather covered ones J Could I ever come to love and use a rangefinder style camera? I think I could if the camera resembled the auto focus Contax G2 more than the manual Leica M series and in fact I have looked at the G2 fairly closely in the past, but decided to spend the money on something instead.
Readers Comments Hi Edwin, I was very interested in your comments about the M3 which you recently posted on your web site, since I have owned one of these cameras for many years. How did I come to acquire an M3? It was quite a drawn out process actually. When I graduated from school (many more years ago than I care to think about) and finally began to earn some cash with which to fulfill my long-held dream of having a camera of my own, I was disappointed to find that my first choice, a Kodak Retina IIc (yes, I'm that old!) was temporarily unavailable. With some cash now in my hot little hands and a burning desire to start taking photographs, I made the bad decision to settle for a lesser product. After 6 months of mediocre results, I traded up to the IIc, a little wiser and poorer from this experience. Although I was quite satisfied with the results I was now getting with my second camera (I did my own B+W processing and printing), somewhere in the back of my mind there was this desire to eventually own a Leica, perceived by me as the pinnacle of 35mm prowess. Since there was no way I could raise anywhere near the required amount of cash to buy one of these marvels in the foreseeable future, it remained just an idle dream. Then one day I spotted a Canon IV-S2 in the window of a camera shop for a ridiculously low price. It wasn't a Leica, but it was a virtual copy of one (the III-f) and in mint condition, so I decided to take the plunge and bought it. Imagine my horror when I developed my first film and found that every negative had a bright white spot in the centre! Neophyte that I was, it had not occurred to me to check the cloth shutter blind which had a neat little hole burned into it, probably by the previous owner having left the camera pointed into the sun without the protection of a lens cap. Horror soon turned to delight however when, after having the shutter curtains replaced, I began to get 12"x16" enlargements that were significantly sharper than what I had achieved with the Retina. Suddenly my results began to approach the quality our company photographer was getting with his medium format Rolleiflex. A few years later, by which time I had also acquired a Canon Vt, a friend offered to buy me an M3 on a trip to Singapore (at a significant saving over the local Australian price) if I sold him the Canon IV-S2. I jumped at the offer and so finally became the proud owner of my cherished idol. After a few rolls of film (I used mainly Kodak Panatomic-X and Kodachrome 25 in those days), it appeared to me that there was nothing much to choose with regard to resolving power between the f2.0 Summicron on my M3 and the f1.8 Canon lens that came with the IV-S2. But there did seem to be a significant difference in camera build quality. Although there was nothing wrong with the way the Canon product was made and put together, the M3 just seemed to ooze quality of a level I had not seen in any other camera Some major SLR advances had come about at around this time, such as instant return mirrors and through-the-lens metering, so in due course I was seduced away from rangefinder cameras into buying one of them. In doing so however, I switched brand loyalty from Canon to Nikon since I was put off by the frequent changes Canon made to their SLR offerings in those days at the expense of backward compatibility. Here again, I found that the humble f2.0 Nikkor-H on my Nikkormat gave me results that compared favourably with what I was getting with the f2.0 Summicron. It made me wonder about all the hype I had been reading regarding the superiority of German optics. This was reinforced later by the excellent results I obtained with a f1.8/50mm Super Takumar mounted on a Pentax borrowed from a friend. I guess I must be old fashioned - no auto-exposure, auto-focus or digital yet in my photography arsenal. I still have (and use) my old Nikkormat, although my mainstay at present is an FM-2 on which I use 3 constant aperture Nikon zooms that are so good (especially the f2.8/35-70mm) that I hardly ever resort to my primes anymore. The AF-S feature on one of them is wasted on me I suppose, but I love the wonderful optics. So where does that leave my lovely old M3? I have not shot any pictures with it for a long time, having been won over by the convenience and versatility of SLR photography years ago. But every now and then I like to get it out of its case and handle it just for the sheer pleasure I get from fondling such a fine piece of craftsmanship. Despite telling myself that I must run some film through it again, the camera has, to my shame, become a kind of masculine jewelry. In your appraisal of the M3 you mentioned that you were not comfortable with this camera and if I understand correctly, attributed this largely to not having grown up in an era of rangefinder dominated cameras. Well, I'm an oldie who did (an unprogressive oldie at that - witness my preference for manual everything) and even I have abandoned the M3 way of photography. Lets face it, although rangefinder cameras have advantages, the SLR wins out for most of us by virtue of its overall versatility that can be appreciated regardless of which generation one belongs to. Cameras like the M3 have become a niche tool. I'm not a street photographer; I enjoy shooting landscapes for which an SLR has become my preferred choice. You may get a flood of responses to your M3 critique, so I hope that I have not been too much of a bore with mine. I enjoy your web site - please keep up the good work. Gerry Sinzig This
is just an observation about an article and subsequent comment in
February 2005 that I've only just come across, by Edwin and Gerry
respectively, concerning the Leica M3. Never have I read such perfectly
formulated present-day appraisals of the M3 (and to a large extent
the Leica rangefinder dynasty in general). |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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As
I was tweaking and refining this review, news came of 
Since
1924, Leica has produced cameras that are collected and still used
by photographers worldwide, but in 1954, Leica changed the game with
what some consider 
Leica
lenses have a near mythical reputation for being the absolute best
in 35mm photography, even more so than the other celebrated German
brand of Carl Zeiss.
This
review was made possible by the kind loaning of a M3 from a coworker.
From an initial question and answer exchange my coworker and I had
about digital photography, it eventually meandered into a discussion
about photography in general. I guess my coworker was so enthused
about photography that he finally took up his father’s offer to take
his old camera equipment and in describing it to me; I perked up when
I read Leica in the e-mail.
It
is also a mint condition M3 and doing a quick scan of KEH Camera Broker’s
listing sees that an earlier production M3 in excellent condition
is selling for nearly US $1000 for the camera alone. Add in the metering
accessory for this M3 under review, the lens, and the mint leather
Leica cover and we’re talking some pretty good coin. It maybe isn’t
as valuable as the same era 1966 Bobby Orr rookie card (the greatest
hockey player ever in my not so humble opinion), but not too shabby
at all as a hand me down.
While
I didn’t go as far as handling the M3 with white gloves, I was much 
The
lens used with the M3 under review is the Summilux 50mm f1.4. A modest
sized lens and one that I wondered how I should compare with appropriately.
This is a lens that’s older than me by a number of years and the only
lenses I had that were close to its age were the Konica 45mm f1.8
lens on my S2 and a Canon 50mm f1.4 for my FTb. I also had a late
1980s era Nikon 50mm f1.8, and probably a same era Yashica 50mm f1.8;
both budget lenses. Actually, all of these lenses are budget compared
to the Leica lens.
I
admit that I took on this review, as somewhat of a skeptic of the
Leica mystique and, without questioning the workmanship and quality,
as to whether or not there is any inherent “practical” superiority
to Leica. Personally, I’d rather become a Canon user than a Leica
one if I were to change brands and I’m not that comfortable with the
ergonomics of Canon’s 1 series cameras (if you’re going to switch
brands, you should go with a real upgrade and not just a lateral switch 
As
one who did not cut his teeth with manual focus cameras, I have no
affinity or old style love for manual focusing methods, as many old
timers claim to have. I’m firmly ensconced with modern day technological
wonders, so I was a fish out of the sea in using the Leica. It’s all
about familiarity with one’s equipment and while I believe myself
to be proficient with my F100 and D100 cameras (and with my manual
Bronicas) I felt less than comfortable with the M3. 
I’ve
already mentioned that the M3 has a surprising heft to it that belies
its size and appearance. 
