S FOND as I am of many cameras in my collection: Canon SLRs, Zeiss Ikon Contax II, the small Kodak Retinas et al, and I hope I don't upset these cameras by saying this within their hearing, for me there is just something about using a screw-thread Leica. I don't think it's just the pleasue of handling a beautifully made piece of precision engineering, I also get that with other cameras. Some of my more modern cameras are much more convenient and easy to use and their lenses produce better quality pictures. Maybe it's nostalgia because a Leica was the camera I wanted for many years, long before the M series appeared, but couldn't afford. Maybe this longing was reinforced because two of my early photographic idols, Henri Cartier-Bresson and J. Allan Cash both used Leicas. I don't know, but I do know that when I load one of my two pre-war Leicas, which I must admit isn't all that often, I just want to keep on taking pictures.
     I have two Leicas, a Leica IIIb, which I bought, and a Leica II, which used to belong to my son John who has now passed it on to me. The history of Leicas is so well documented

Leica IIIb with f/2 Summar lens.

that there’s no need for me to go into it here. Instead, I’ll describe the two I’ve got.
      The IIIb was introduced in 1938, but the serial number on mine dates it as being made in 1939, so it was one of the last few thousand civilian models to be made before World War 2. It isn’t in pristine condition, the wind-on knob and the corner edge of the top plate have rubbed through to the brass, and the bottom plate shows marks where it’s been mounted on a tripod. But it’s quite presentable and, most important, everything works just as sweetly as it did when it left the factory in Wetzlar. I bought it from a local camera shop over 20 years ago, and though Leicaphiles will probably say that I ought to have lubricated the shutter bearings during that time, I haven’t. If I were using it as an everyday camera I probably would have done, but though I often use some of the cameras in my collection, the Leica’s had only about 15 films though it since I’ve had it. The only lubrication I’ve done on it is to put a spot of silicon grease on the lens focusing thread.
      It’s fitted with an uncoated f/2 5cm Summar lens which any lens expert will assure you is far from being the best large aperture lens that Leitz made. I’ve no doubt that if you test it on an optical bench, or photograph a lens chart and blow the picture up goodness knows how many diameters, you can pick holes in its performance compared with a Summitar or a Summicron, particularly in fall off of illumination right in the corners. I’ll also agree that it hasn’t got the biting contrast of later lenses with rare-earth elements in the glass mix. But I don’t really mind. I think it’s an underrated lens. Even at full aperture, I’m pleased with the pictures I get. Any faults are down to me, not the lens.
      The camera was made for export because everything apart from the shutter speed dial is in English. The positions for the key to unlock the bottom plate are marked Open and Close, the word Germany on the bottom plate is in

Leica II with f/3.5 Elmar lens.

English, and the lens is scaled in feet. How can the numbers on the shutter speed dial not be in English? Well, the numbers are, but next to the 1/20 sec is a marking labelled Z, short for the German word Zeit which, roughly translated, means ‘for the moment’. If it were in English it would be B for Bulb. Maybe Leitz didn’t think it worthwhile to make two differently engraved shutter speed knobs.
      A nice little touch is a small lever under the rewind knob. This has an infinity mark and a small arrow pointing in a clockwise direction, and it alters the dioptre number of the rangefinder window. The travel is quite small, and some people don’t rate it as being very important, but for my old eyes being able to focus the rangefinder makes a definite difference.
      The Leica II I got from John is a German home-market model with the locking key positions on the base plate marked ‘auf’ and ‘zu’, for open and close, and the lens focusing is scaled in metres. The serial number dates it as being made in 1936. The lens is an uncoated 5cm f/3.5 Elmar, the base-model Leica lens. It’s a four-glass three-element Tessar-layout construction that has an excellent reputation for definition, and this example is well up to standard. Like the Summar, it hasn’t got the contrast of later lenses but it’s still an excellent all-round performer.
      The rangefinder and viewfinder eyepiece windows are further apart than they are on the IIIb, where they’re very close together in the same housing. In this respect it’s not quite so convenient to use as the IIIb, but after a few shots you forget about it. The rangefinder doesn’t have a focusing lever, but as John’s eyes are a lot younger than mine it didn’t worry him.
      The shutter is speeded from 1/20 to 1/500 sec with no slow speeds. I haven’t found the lack of 1/1000 sec any drawback, but I like to use a 200 ASA (or ISO if you like) film. With a maximum aperture of f/3.5 I would have preferred to have 1/8 or even 1/4 sec for some available light shots. But John had been shopping around for some time for a Leica within his budget, and this was the cheapest fully working one he could find. The only thing wrong with it when he bought it was that the rangefinder images weren’t quite lined up vertically, but that was easily fixed. He passed it on to me because he prefers using his Canon F1.
      At some time it’s been modified to synchronise the shutter for flash, and there’s a neat co-axial socket on the front of the body. I suspect that at the same time the camera was given a general overhaul, or even a rebuild. In the early post-war years this happened a lot in the UK because of the economic situation. The country was almost bankrupt after six years of war, and imports were strictly controlled. Import of so-called luxury goods, like cameras, over a certain price wasn’t allowed.
      The wind-on knob, the shutter speed dial and the rewind knob look much newer than the rest of the camera, and the shutter works really sweetly. The body is in very good condition with just a few marks on the bottom plate and a slight rubbing through to the brass on the outside knurled edge of the lens and the little aperture lever on the front. Also, the small knurled ring round the shutter release button, the one you have to unscrew if you want to fit a cable release, is missing. It shouldn’t be difficult to find one, but so far I haven’t bothered because, with no slow speeds, I like to use a cable release sometimes with the shutter speed set to Z (or B if you use the English term), and judge the exposure by guesstimate.