john dorfman

May I tap the group's considerable expertise on the subject of making prints? I have

no scanning equipment, and I'm interested in making 8x10 prints from slides. A bit

OT, I realize, but most of the slides were made with a Leica! I'm not interested in

buying equipment right now, so do any of you have recommendations as to

exactly what the process should be and what kind of lab I should go to? How low can I

go on price (I'm in NYC), approximately, and still get good results? Yes, I know

everyone's idea of "good" is different... Also, I don't necessarily need to keep a disk

with the scan on it afterwards. And Cibachrome/Ilfochrome -- if it still even exists --

is not what I need. Thanks very much.

I'm not just being a provocateur! In the December issue of B&W magazine ("for

collectors of fine photography"), there's a nice tribute to HCB that includes a photo of

him shooting in Paris in the '50s with a camera that looks just like a Canon

rangefinder. The picture is kind of small, so I can't say for sure, but I swear I can see

only one round rangefinder window and one rectangular viewfinder window. It's

certainly not a Leica M of any kind. Most likely a knob-wind Canon II series.

 

And while on the subject of the great Leica master using non-Leitz gear, in Clemens

Kalischer's book of photographs (titled "Clemens Kalischer," published by Hatje Cantz

in Germany, still in print) there's a big, clear picture of Cartier-Bresson shooting in

New York City in 1948 using a Leica equipped with a Zeiss Biogon 35/2.8 lens. He

must have been using one of the fabled Cook & Perkins adapters that are so sought

after nowadays, because the lens is clearly Contax-mount; you can see the clip on the

side.

 

By the way, Kalischer is a wonderful photographer who is less well known than he

deserves to be. He's now about 85 and lives in Stockbridge, Mass., where he has a

storefront gallery to sell his prints. He came to the U.S. in '47 as a "displaced person,"

and made a lot of pictures documenting his fellow DPs. In the '40s and '50s he did

street photography in NYC, then moved to New England. I've gone into his gallery a

couple of times and met him, and he seems like a gentle soul, polite but extremely

reserved. Check out his book.

I second the nomination of the Canon 50/1.8. Great sharpness, vibrant color, low

flare. Also, the black version is very lightweight. Mine cost $150 (no adapter).

It's definitely LTM. The M version of the Summaron had a totally different

construction.

I think I know what's going on with this camera. It's true that the engraving has white

paint in it instead of the solder that was used on the original pre-WWII black Leicas.

When they made those conversions in the late '50s, during the late IIIf to IIIg era,

that's the way they did it. Back then, if you sent an early black Leica to E. Leitz for an

upgrade, they made you an entirely new pre-war style top-plate and engaved the

original serial number on it. That also accounts for the newer-than-1920s-looking

black finish.

 

What's weird about this one is that the body shell seems to be of a later vintage, too,

judging from the vulcanite texture and the disk where a slow-speed dial would go.

Plus the lens is not original to the camera, it's a "red-scale" Elmar from the time of

the conversion.The advance and rewind knobs also look postwar; I can't tell their

exact color from the picture, but I think they're chrome, not nickel. So it seems as if

the only thing left of the original Leica I when Leitz got finished with it was the

shutter assembly!

 

The flash synch socket on the front of the camera looks like it was done afterwards.

Leitz's factory conversion to flash synch in that era were done the IIIf way, with the

socket on the back and the numbers 0 to 20 engraved around the shutter-speed dial.

 

I have no idea about the collectibility of this camera. It's not a fake, it's unusual, and

it has a very early serial number. I hope it works well!

Henry, thanks for the tips. I once tried a wrist strap and found it hard to wind the

camera while wearing it. How do you do it?

Thanks for the responses. Harry, what about the straps? They're always brittle or

rotted, and the one time I got a shoemaker to cut me a new one, it turned out to be

the wrong thickness and bled dye as well! What do you for straps to thread through

the old cases?

I've got a Leica II (no strap eyelets) that I'd like to able to carry around my neck. Any

suggestions for a case/strap setup other than the vintage Leitz item? I haven't been

able to find a prewar Leica case that isn't falling apart or decayed. The postwar Leica

cases are too big. Does anyone know of a modern case or half-case for another

camera (with strap attached) that would fit or could be made to fit? I think the "Luigi"

cases are way too expensive for me. Thanks for any input, vintage screw-mount

users!

I have an F2 that was given to my father in about 1975, and I've been using it steadily since about '97. It's never given me any cause to worry, and the shutter speeds have always been accurate. I took it on two reporting trips to tropical climates in South and Central America and it didn't let me down there, either. The Photomic (DP-1, I think) meter isn't jumpy, although it's off by half a stop or so. I just compensate for it when I set the ASA.

 

Around three years ago I slipped on some ice and the camera hit the pavement. The wind shaft was damaged and the corner of the body was dented. I took it to a (now-defunct) repair shop in New York City that fixed it and did a CLA at the same time, including replacement of the mirror cushion and the foam seals. The dent was hammered out, and only a little loss of paint shows that it was there. In short, a tank.

 

By the way -- does anyone known how I can get a plain prism finder for this camera without paying $300 or so? I keep seeing huge prices for this accessory.

I find something voyeuristic and inhuman in Riefenstahl's photos of the Nuba. Just compare her pictures with George Rodger's wonderful documentary "Village of the Nuba" done 20 years earlier and you'll see what I mean. Also, she supposedly paid them to do things (rituals, etc.) that they didn't at first want to do in front of a camera, whereas Rodger took care not to interfere.

I was out and about in New York City today with my IIIc around my

neck. The temperature was about 20 degrees. After a while, I started

noticing that the shutter sounded different -- less "snap" to it. I

haven't developed the film yet, but I strongly suspect that the cold

air turned some lubricants viscous and slowed down the shutter. After

I was indoors for a while, the normal sound and feel came back. Have

any of you had this experience? What's the temperature range of a

screw-mount Leica supposed to be? (Mine was recently serviced and

should be in good shape) What do you do to keep it functioning on a

bitterly cold day? Keep the camera warm in a pocket or under your

coat and only bring it out when you want to take a picture? Thanks

for any suggestions.

I believe Capa wrote "Slightly Out of Focus" with the idea that it would be made into a movie, but for some reason it never happened. He certainly had a screenwriter's verve and didn't let reality get in the way of a good story!

It's interesting to compare Riefenstahl's pictures of the Nuba with those made by George Rodger in 1949 and published in book form as "Village of the Nuba" (reprint available from Phaidon Press). Rodger, who died recently and was one of the founding members of Magnum, was a wonderfully sensitive photographer and writer who portrayed the Nuba people with understanding and modesty. Riefenstahl's photos, not surprisingly, seem to fetishize the tribesmen and reduce them to beautiful bodies.

 

According to Peter Hamilton's preface to the reprint of "Village of the Nubas," Riefenstahl saw some of Rodger's photos in the National Geographic and got in touch with him, "asking him to divulge the location of the tribe, and offering him a thousand dollars for an introduction to the wrestler [the subject of Rodger's most famous image from the series]. He wrote back, 'Knowing your background and mine I don't really think we have much to communicate.'"