How much Leica lore do you know?

[chip j]

Just curious!

 

[cuthbert]

Does it matter?

 

[onre]

I know their most famous product is a 35 mm rangefinder camera with a focal plane shutter. Earlier models have a thread mount, later ones have a proprietary bayonet.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Lore?
I know about Leica RFs and RF lenses. But nothing comes in my mind as the Leica lore.

 

[John Koehrer]

I know a bit, what do you want specifically?
Keep in mind my answer may have absolutely nothing to do with your question.

 

[chip j]

Any stories, anecdotes, legends, etc..

 

[Jon Buffington]

Some nostalgia (I always liked this paragraph), from the Leica Book in Color, c 1938, p 10. "We are facing a new era in photography, so revolutionary in its scope that we cannot as yet comprehend it fully. The film which made all this possible is called 'Kodachrome'. This film is as much a pioneer of a new era in photography as was the Leica when it revolutionized all camera construction and opened so many new fields to photography."

 

[tokam]

Miserable ergonomics on the LTM bodies - a big penalty for the legendary lenses. I would , however, be very interested in a CLA'd Nicca rangefinder from the late '50s or a really clean Canon P or 7. They tidied up the ergonomics.

 

[CMoore]

How did "The Red Dot" come to be.?

 

[pentaxpete]

I lost my 'Red Dot' in a smelly market in the Philippines ----- lens is now 'Dot-Less'

 

[Jim Jones]

Miserable ergonomics on the LTM bodies - a big penalty for the legendary lenses. I would , however, be very interested in a CLA'd Nicca rangefinder from the late '50s or a really clean Canon P or 7. They tidied up the ergonomics.

I owned a Nicca, Canon P, and Canon 7. My prewar Leica was still working when the Japanese trio quit, although its shutter has finally become sluggish. After enough use the Leicas "Fit in your hand like the hand of a friend."

 

[John Koehrer]

If you refer to the mounting index dot on the lens, it's so you can mount the lens in subdued light

 

[cliveh]

Shooting with a Leica is like a long tender kiss - HCB.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

How did "The Red Dot" come to be.?

I lost my 'Red Dot' in a smelly market in the Philippines ----- lens is now 'Dot-Less'

If you refer to the mounting index dot on the lens, it's so you can mount the lens in subdued light

I think the original reference is to the nasty red advertisement dot on the front of the camera.

The most elegant products (not necessarily cameras) are those that don't promote themselves shamelessly. Having a name enscribed discreetly is ok; having the equivalent of a bright red LED... not so much.

Here you can see the marketing philosophy of the 50's, 60's, and 90's:

 

[CMoore]

Yes...I was talking about the red dot on the front of a Leica.

 

[ciniframe]

Don't know whether this would be called lore exactly, but look up "Leica freedom train " the Leitz family were genuinely good people that took risks to help others.

 

[MattKing]

I've recently been told that unlike the lenses, the majority of cameras that were assembled in Canada were labeled "Made in Germany". If you have a "Made in Canada" labeled Leica camera, it is rare and worth a lot more to a collector.

 

[Alan Gales]

The Leica Man by Ken Rockwell.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/leica-man.htm

 

[cuthbert]

The Leica Man by Ken Rockwell.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/leica-man.htm

Best thing that Rockwell wrote.

I used to hang around the Red Dot Camera in London and I've seen many Leica men buying Noctiluxes and complain the owner didn't even made 10% of discount on the price.

However it's a good shop with a good fella that sold me a 1939 Leica IIIb for £200 and a Summaron 35mm f2.8 for £475, so I can't complain.

 

[chip j]

Yes, I read "Leica Man" several times--a real thrill!

 

[Alan Gales]

Back in the 80's I was in a camera shop talking to a salesperson who was also a friend. A Dentist came in with his Contax RTS-ll kit with 6 lenses. He had just bought it all a couple months before but was trading it in on a Leica SLR kit. Some rich dude had told him that Leica was the camera to own. His wallet of course took a real beating but he didn't seem to mind.

I wonder what he did when he found out that real Leica men shot rangefinders and not SLR's.

 

[cuthbert]

Back in the 80's I was in a camera shop talking to a salesperson who was also a friend. A Dentist came in with his Contax RTS-ll kit with 6 lenses. He had just bought it all a couple months before but was trading it in on a Leica SLR kit. Some rich dude had told him that Leica was the camera to own. His wallet of course took a real beating but he didn't seem to mind.

I wonder what he did when he found out that real Leica men shot rangefinders and not SLR's.

In the 80s my uncle (notorious snob and owner of an Hasselblad COMPLETE system that used only twice, all the gear is still stored in boxes) kept on repeating that Leica was making the best cameras and lenses ever and Contax and Zeiss lenses for 35mm were still made in W.Germany and superior to the Zeiss East Germany. He also wanted my father to spend the money for a Contax when I was 13 but my old man thought he was crazy, with some good reasons.

Talking about Leica lore, in the same years the Red Dot was forced to ask Minolta to make SLRs for them as the first and second Leicaflex proved they couldn't understand how to make proper SLRs but they refused for years to admit that, or they kept it "confidential".

 

[ColColt]

Alfred Eisenstaedt once said the Leica was made for him. I believe it was Andre Kertesz that echoed that same sentiment. What I know about them is they are superb cameras with German engineering and handling second to none, IMO. Easy to focus, light weight, quiet and superb optics be they Leitz or Zeiss.

 

[BradleyK]

I know their most famous product is a 35 mm rangefinder camera with a focal plane shutter. Earlier models have a thread mount, later ones have a proprietary bayonet.

...and that a French fellow, by the name of Henri Cartier-Bresson, apparently used one. He was of the opinion that said camera was like an extension of his eye?

 

[chip j]

I read that Leica lenses have "built-in sunshine".