Saturday, July 25, 2020

Testing the 3C

I shot a roll of Kentmere 400 in the newly arrived Leica IIIc.  My main objective was to determine if there were any pinholes in the shutter curtains that needed mending.  There were no streaks or blotches on the negatives, and the shutter seemed smooth and accurate in operation.

All but one of my exposures were with the Elmar 3.5/50.  The lens has a blue tint, so it is likely that it is a post-war model that came along with the camera in 1946 or 1947.  Besides being a competent performer, the collapsible Elmar contributes significantly to the compactness of the camera.  The camera with the lens pushed in fits easily into a small zippered belt bag which makes it easy to carry when I'm out on the bicycle.










The last picture on the roll was made with the Soviet-era f2/50 Jupiter 8.  At f4 and 1/60 there seems to be no practical difference between the Jupiter and the Elmar and I am pretty sure the same will be true with my other Soviet normal lenses.  Nevertheless, it will be nice to be able to shoot the Leica IIIa and IIIc cameras with the proper German glass.  I am also looking forward to trying the 135mm Hector, for which I have no Soviet counterpart.

3 comments:

JR Smith said...

Would enjoy hearing more about your user experience with this Leica...film loading, setting of shutter speeds, viewfinder, feel in the hand, etc. The images here look really fine!

Kodachromeguy said...

Mike, nice job with the IIIC and the little Elmar. My IIIC has serial 478xxx, so it is only a year or two newer. My IIIC came with a 50mm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, which I still occasionally use. The hoods and filters for the 50mm Elmar tend to be a bit expensive now, especially now that film is popular again. Have fun!

Mike said...

I'm generally familiar with the Barnack cameras from using several Soviet clones over quite a few years. I've done some work with the IIIa, but am going to try to do more now with both the IIIa and the newly arrived IIIc along with the two Leitz lenses. I dug through my misc. parts collection and turned up one yellow push-on filter which looks like it will work, though a little awkwardly on the Elmar.