tom5

My camera is in the 109xxx range and the lens serial number also is correct for 1933. I'm

going to have this camera serviced by John Maddox. I talked to him tonight and he says

that some early Leicas had round rings attached to the strap lugs. These round rings are a

collectable feature. However, it seems that my rings are user additions. And, under a

magnifier, one can see the soldered ends of the rings. I'm still leaving them on until Mr.

Maddox has a look. Thanks for the reply.

I just bought a Leica III. The strap lugs have strange rings permanently installed. I don't

have a digital camera handy so I'll have to describe the rings - The rings aren't split rings.

There seems to be a continuous ring of metal attached to the strap lugs, much like a link

in a chain. Instead of being circular, the two rings, one on each strap lug, are sort of oval,

with one flattened end and one rounded end. I'm wondering if I should cut the rings off

and leave a normal mounting point for split rings or other types of modern strap

mountings (the present rings are not wide enough for any modern strap) or if I should

leave the rings because of some rare original equipment feature. The camera body is an

early 1933 model, according to Gandy's serial number list and I'm wondering if the strap

attachment rings were factory supplied on any of these cameras.

Given the present track and predicted timing of Ivan, I strongly suspect the airport will be

open on Saturday and perhaps well into Sunday, even if Ivan travels on a direct path to

Miami. When is your family arriving? I ask this

because you may be able to get to Miami, meet your family and even leave before Ivan

threatens and the airport is closed (if it does close) (Follow the storm at http://

www.nhc.noaa.gov/). Do you already have hotel reservations? Presently there is a

mandatory evacuation of the

Florida Keys and hotel rooms will be very hard to find in the Miami area. Email if you want

to ask more questions.

I think this weekend will begin with nice weather. But, people are already packing the grocery stores. Much will be boarded up. I was taking pictures on Miami Beach Monday and in the morning, the place was deserted. By afternoon, shutters came off lots of buildings and most restaurants were open but a lot of people were still keeping businesses shuttered in anticipation of Ivan. I suspect Miami Beach will be fairly shut down this weekend.

 

If you get stuck and want to take pictures, I'll trade you my Nikonos for your M6 and lenses. (You don't happen to have the 35 Summilux, do you? I've only got the Summicron. ... haha .. just kidding). Hmmm .. this gets me thinking .. maybe the Nikonos should be brushed off and loaded with film!!!!

 

Let's hope that Ivan misses and we both have a uneventful weekend and beginning of next week.

My house in S. Miami is at almost 12 feet and 1.5 miles from the ocean! Shutters are up on part of the house - next is the computer and photo room!

I just inspected my M6TTL (black chrome) and My LHSA M6TTL. Both have the raised lip on the body. There is absolutely no gap between the eyepiece and solid body. But .. isn't the LHSA M6TTL CNC-machined? I thought that the LHSA body was brass and therefore CNC-machined. If so, it would seem that the cost savings, if any, would be very slight to remove the lip on the newer cameras. Perhaps the LHSA was CNC-machined and then the eyepiece hole was threaded by hand.

Oh .. why not buy TWO Olympus Stylus (echo NON-ZOOM, as previous post said) cameras? Small, about $85, and excellent photos. If one gets damaged or confiscated, all you have lost is one roll of film.

I had a similar choice to make but in a very different context - I wanted something with a wide angle lens to take on a rather rough hiking trip in alpine conditions. My choice narrowed to my Bessa L ($75 when I bought it) + CV 21mm lens OR my Olympus Stylus with its excellent 35 or so mm lens. I eventually decided on the Stylus because of its compact size, fast 2.8 lens, and excellent quality. But, I agree that the Bessa-L would be an excellent choice for your use. Take the 21mm finder along but leave it off the camera for most of your pictures. If you got the black body and lens, the whole package would be fairly compact and sturdy, especially without the finder. Buy a 39mm UV filter to put on the CV lens for added protection.

I have both - There is quite a difference between the two - The 15 looks like a very wide angle, the 12 is really a very special purpose lens, by comparison.

 

I've shot the 15 with Ektachrome SW, with decent results. However, the 12 vignettes so much that I reserve it for negative film.

 

So, both on the perspective and vignetting issues, I find the 15 to be useful more often than the 12.

I strongly dislike the hood on my 50 'cron. I've begun to use a B+W rubber hood on this lens. The lens cap fits nicely over the collapsed hood and I haven't seen any vignetting even though the metal mounting ring on the rubber hood is quite deep. I haven't yet run tests to see if a filter added between the hood and the lens would cause vignetting - I suspect that this much depth would cause the deep metal ring on the hood to vignette.

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So, I found a convenient solution that shades the lens nicely. The downside is that I'm not using a filter on this lens.

I've had absolutely no troubles with the Sekonic 208. I can't speak about the Digisix, but the Sekonic seems well made and works beautifully.

Sorry .. two pictures were wider than 500 pixels.

All for now ...<div></div>

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I've tried to find out some information on a lens cap I have - metal

with inside diameter of about 63mm and outside diamter of 65mm. One

opinion is that it might be for a 85mm Summarex. Picture is below, to

the left of my IIIf. Does anyone have a catalog number or definitive

description for the cap? I'm curious!<div></div>

Well put, Jay. John Maddox is certainly the person to work on screwmounts. DAG does excellent work and I didn't want to suggest that his work is less than first rate. But, Maddox will do a great job at a very reasonable price. He has worked on my IIIa, If, and IIIf and now has my Tower (Nicca) Leica clone for a CLA. He also cleaned and repaired an old Zeiss finder. John repainted the anti-reflective black inside the finder, remounted and cleaned the lens elements, fixed the eyepiece that was coming unscrewed and even knocked out a dent in the outer shell, all for a small fraction of what a replacement finder would have cost.

I'll repeat my answer to a previous post - John Maddox is absolutely first rate - only works on screwmounts and prices repairs quite reasonably. I've also had good luck with Don Goldberg (DAG).

 

Send the camera away to Maddox or DAG. FedEx will cost you only $25 or so and get the camera to the repair person in two days.

 

Personally, I'd stay away from other repair services. Maddox and DAG are real experts on Leicas and will give excellent service.

I've collected a bunch (more than 3) Leica screwmount cameras. In the last couple of years, I've had several of these serviced by John Maddox. His work is excellent, his prices are very reasonable, and talking to him yields a lot of information about these cameras. He is a superb detective for Leica problems and solved one nasty shutter problem on one of my cameras and resurected an old Zeiss finder that I thought couldn't be fixed so nicely.

 

Best to give him a call, vs. email or other means. John has a backlog of work - You won't get your camera back immediately - but he does great work at prices that won't break your budget.

My wife claims that nobody takes my (black) M6 seriously because of the red dot. She says

that the red dot makes the camera look like one of those plastic cameras that was given

out free with a subscription to a magazine.

The Jobo tank looks interesting. However, I can't find it listed on B&H or Adorama. (11 pages of Jobo stuff on B&H but I can't find the daylight loading tank.) I wonder if it is available in the USA.

BTW, thanks for the dropper hint. Wentong - I have the same problem you did with

contrast. Most of my old transparancies were exposed to give deep, saturated colors

when projected. When I scan these, the contrast and saturation seem intensified. I seem

to need more Photoshop work on transparancy scans than I do for negatives.

GGr = Yellow-Green (in German)

Jay mentioned the desire to go even a little longer than 135mm. I have a Pentax 150mm

f/3.5 that I use on a Pentax MX - a compact lens on a small body!