I just acquired a Leica M4. Anyone here know much about it? Lens? history etc.?

-- Jimmy Bruno (jbguit@mindspring.com), June 05, 1998

Answers

I would be interested to know how someone "acquires" a Leica M4 without knowing anything about it. Anyway, you have one of the very finest 35mm cameras ever made. A very, very special tool. You don't mention which lens you have, but the 50mm Summicron is standard. Again, a magnificent lens. The M4 is a "refinement" of the M2 & M3, though many people, such as myself, regard the M2 & M3 as the pinnacles of 35mm RF design: the M4 has a number of plastic parts, for example. Nevertheless, the loading of the M4 is easier, and it has frames for 35, 50, 90, and 135mm lenses; the M2 has only 35, 50 & 90; the M3 for 50, 90 & 135. There are other minor differences as well. There are undoubtedly web sites that have much more info for you. Leicas are perhaps the most collected and talked about cameras ever made.

-- Peter Hughes (leonine@redshift.com), September 20, 1998.

An interesting anecdote: one often comes across in college beginning photo classes, completely ignorant students with the most coveted cameras. This semester a girl appeared in one of our classes with a mint Leica M3 with a full complement of classic lenses. Her father had given this 'old' thing from the 60's to her for her class and she wondered whether it was good enough. A dealer offered to take it in as trade-in for the latest electronic gee-whiz Canon Rebel-G with AF zoom at no extra cost to her. She asked whether she should do it. Thankfully, we stopped her just in time and told her to put it away until she knew more about photography.

Last spring semester, another student showed up in class with one of those old things from circa World-War Two given to her by her grandfather; the old things were a mint rare NIKON rangefinder and its accompanying mint lens. I didn't tell her how much they would have fetched on the collector's market but did tell her to put them carefully away until she found out their real worth.

Apocrypha? NOT! These are true stories.

-- Mommy (000@ooo.com), September 25, 1998.