As I read the variety of questions, answers, and observations of Leica users, I recognize an allegiance by a good number of persons to the M-3. Why? Also, I, obviously cannot procure a new M-3, if I wanted one, so I have to settle for an M6-TTL. I realize we all have our favorite features of the various M versions, and that not everything can be included in one camera body that would pass the scrutiny of every individual. However, assuming that Leica improves its product with every succeeding generation of rangefinders, can I confidently make a purchase of an M-6TTL knowing that, all-in-all, it is the best of Leica's science and art?

-- Max Wall (mtwall@earthlink.net), May 28, 2001

Answers

My pleasure with the M3 is completely based on the viewfinder. I don't use 35mm lenses at all, and don't need the reduced view of the later M-cameras that allows them to have 35mm and 28mm finders. This weekend, after helping someone with a digital camera I realized that as the years have passed the general run of viewfinders are getting worse and worse, based mainly on the size of what one sees through the window. I looked through a Contax a couple of weeks ago and was floored by the crummy finder, which was similar to what my Fuji digital has in it. For the 85mm/50mm/25mm-and-wider user (me), the M3 is the ultimate camera.

Based on other characteristics, however--a meter, standard synch sockets, a hot shoe, general freshness, the black coat, quick loading, etc.--I'd rather have an M6.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), May 28, 2001.

I never cease to be amazed at the intractability and aversion to progress and its inherent changes exhibited by Leica owners. Let's face it, Leicas are anachronistic in this era of "do it all for you" cameras. The small incremental improvements made to Leicas are exactly that. They improve our ability to take photographs while firmly keeping the user "in Charge". The M3, just like my favorite IIIF are a dead issue. Some of us continue to use them as I do, but it is an injustice to dismiss the M6 in its various iterations as inferior. It is, in my opinion, the best Leica for a user ( as opposed to a collector). It has simplified the art of taking pictures as far as the Leica philosophy has (so far) allowed. My M6, yes, a TTL, (why deprive myself of an advantage even though seldom used?) is a great product: reliable, accurate, a tactile pleasure and it gives me superb photographs. No it's not perfect in my eyes (that would be a III F sized with all the current advances incorporated...dream on...) but I simply wish all this whining about M2,3 and 4 being superior would go away. We now have the 6 TTL with or without script ( I do realize that some owners would rather admire their Leica than actually use it... too bad for them) and it is to be used and enjoyed to its fullest. It is the best that Leica now offers and the bench mark for others to shoot after without quite making it.

Max, if you want a Leica and can afford an M6, get the current one. You will not be disappointed.

-- Jean-David Borges (jdborges@home.com), May 28, 2001.

So the past is ALWAYS wrong, and the present is ALWAYS better, and nothing ever gets worse. I'm so glad THAT's been made clear!

I just picked up an interesting book in the airport the other day--"A History of Knowledge" by Charles Van Doren. You should check it out.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), May 28, 2001.

I wouldn't exactly call the attraction for the feel and finders of the older cameras "whining". They just have a different set of qualities that are appreciated more by some folks than the current cameras. I do not shoot Leica for a living-only for pleasure. I prefer the simple, un-cluttered finder(that doesn't ever flare) and un-matched feel of the M3, and like the near 100% viewfinder mag for using a 50 and 90 lens-the ones I shoot the most. The lack of a meter is a nuisance at times. I don't have even the slightest problem that most users probably prefer the M6 here at this site. By the way Max, you can't buy a new M3, but you can pick up a clean used one, have it gone through, and probably take pictures with it until Kodak and Fuji stop making film.

-- Andrew schank (aschank@flash.net), May 28, 2001.

Jean-David, let's revisit this discussion in 2039, when your M6 TTL is as old as my M3 is now.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), May 28, 2001.

Although many people prefer the M3's and other meterless cameras for their unique qualities, I tend to agree that the best _user_ camera is the M6. I don't have the TTL, but since using Leica I am using much less flash anyway.

Is the M6 not so well asembled/specified as the M3? I've heard this many times, but I don't believe it's a practical issue, more one of aesthetics. Frankly I feel the M3 is pretty useless for shooting slides and changing film many times in a day, but nice enough in the 50 mm lens black and white approach. A sort of sunday camera.

Someone on a separate thread said that they would like Leica to produce a meterless camera. That really makes no sense to me at all. That would be sacrificing a huge amount of ease and speed of use, for what - adherence to a "philosophy"?

If you were to ask me which Leica to get, I would point you at the Konica Hexar RF, which is probably the direction I'm headed in myself. In practical terms the best M-mount camera around, far better featured than the Leica bodies, and you can use Leica lenses on it without a worry. You can use probably even the 24 on it in a pinch (if you want a flash in the hotshoe, for instance).

I think that since the introduction of this camera, the Leica bodies are looking pretty outdated. Nice to hold and look at, still very useful for 35/50/90 (although the 35 is far more useable on the Hexar), but not really as practical as the Hexar.

-- rob appleby (rob@robertappleby.com), May 28, 2001.

"Jean-David, let's revisit this discussion in 2039, when your M6 TTL is as old as my M3 is now. "

This has nothing to do with taking pictures today. Who cares, realistically, about forty years from now? Please!

-- rob appleby (rob@robertappleby.com), May 28, 2001.

Rob:

IMHO, when I pay this much for new lenses, I have a right to my logic no matter how flawed. :) My M3 is a ds. I like it. I tried an M6 for a short while. The meter was nice, but I don't use this to make a living; so it wasn't that nice. I decided not to change. 35 mm works fine on the M3; the frame lines are somewhat of a guess in most cases anyway.

Now if they add 6 more sets of frame lines to the M6, I will consider changing. Then I can justify putting tape over the illumination window and have a III with a meter.

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), May 28, 2001.

I can't speak for others but if I had a choice between a brand new M6TTL and a used M3 I would take the new camera simply because I am a camera user who simply wants a body for my lenses to interface, and a new camera would have brand new parts in it from the crank to the curtains to the little intricate mirrors and prisms under that brass top (ok it'll have to be black paint though!). Look, I just want to use the thing and could care less about whether a little part inside was stamped by a machine or filed from a block of brass by hand.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), May 28, 2001.

I got a M3 a little while ago, If I had the money I might have got the M6 - but this oppernatunity just shoved up and my guess was that I could get a M6 later but a Mint- M3 might be dificult. I would have liked the internal meter of the M6 but I'm learning with my new handheld meter (seconic 308). The M3 is a absolute joy to use, and to my big suprise the camera is well suited to photograhp my vifes fast running dogs (with a M-Rokkor 90f4)the focus snaps in easy. Bur build quality I dont know if there is a diference. But I hope to be able to get my hands on a 90f2AA soon. So my 2-cents - get a good M6 with the 35f2A to start with and enjoy!

Cheers

Kaj

-- Kaj Froling (saluki@mail.tele.dk), May 28, 2001.

Some people don't seem to be getting the point I was trying to make-- that there isn't anything "wrong" with someone preferring the older M3 over the current M6, or vice versa. It is just a matter of personal taste and has nothing to do with one camera being better than the other, or those who prefer one over the other being smarter or better photographers. I sometimes wonder about the need people have to convince others there point of view is the correct one.

-- Andrew schank (aschank@flash.net), May 28, 2001.

Dave,

2039 hmm! I'll be 97 then. I wonder where my mind and eyes will be, not to mention where I will be...

Michael,

Please re-read my post carefully. It is an opinion and an expression of a sort of exasperation with this endless carping, with M2,3,4,4p,5 being better than the M6, ad nauseam. I use a III F that I love but my 6 TTL, taken as a whole, is way better than all of the above. And yes I've tried or owned them all.

-- Jean-David Borges (jdborges@home.com), May 28, 2001.

I prefer M3s because of their accurate rangefinder (I shoot a lot at wide apertures and in dark conditions) and their simplicity of function. All my metering is done with a handheld meter (if I'm using a meter), so the lack of metering in the camera is not an issue. Faster loading would be nice, though.

My M3s are everyday shooters (not just Sundays!), and they do a fine job with slide films as well as b&w. For the way I shoot, the abilities to focus quickly and accurately, set the shutter speed, set the aperture, and advance the film are the only "features" I need--everything else is superfluous. I understand that others may have uses for additional features, but to define a camera as better simply because it has more features is bit silly (and, if following that definition, even bothering with a Leica M is foolish).

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), May 28, 2001.

Iīve used a M3 for fourteen years, and I loved it, now I have a M4P, and canīt leave home without it; since Iīm using the 35mm lens, the M4P is more of my choice, even with the 50mm, but when going 90mm I donīt change my M3 for nothing I know yet, even the 21 with finder seems better for me in a double strock M3, unfortunately that body is going off, no many rolls left to take, I have hold a M6, but I would use it without batteries, donīt like the small arrows flashing, and if I can take twenty rolls a day with a M3, without a meter and the film loading unconviniences, I can live with it.

-- R Watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), May 28, 2001.

Just have to add my two cents here. If ANY camera works for you and you get the photographs you are intending, then it is the right camera, no matter how old. Most of my shooting is done with a 40 year old IIIg (though primaily with the LTM 35 Asph), and as above I'm no Sunday shooter either. When I need all the modern conveniences (meter, quick load, etc) I pull out my 'new' R3. As with many things, new doesn't necessarily mean better, sometimes just more convenient, and if your subject, or shooting style doesn't demand the convenience, buy the M3, and if you do some careful shopping you can probably pick up an extra lens, or a swack of film, which will improve your pictures.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), May 28, 2001.

Andrew:

I can be cryptic, but I thought that I agreed with you. I usually carry the thing along with an unmetered Blad. Meter is not that useful to me.

I am not doing street work. I am driving the back roads of my state, documenting what is quickly vanishing. Some of it, I return to with a large format; much of it has been there for a couple of centuries and will be there next week. Meter doesn't mean that much; I always have two hand held meters and this stuff doesn't move.

People should work with equipment that fits their needs. It reminds me of the computer argument. I use a Mac with about 1.5 gigs of RAM. Nothing wrong with Windows machines [I have those too]. The software that I use is only available for Mac and Unix. So I use a Mac.

Choose what you want to do and choose the equipment that will do it. That is my philosophy. Enuf said.

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), May 28, 2001.

Well, I may have come over as slightly agressive, for which I apologise.

Feature sets - that is what makes a camera for me. The feature rangefinders have that make them superior to any other for me personally is the focussing. However, given the choice some time back, I would probably have gone for the more _fully_ featured option. Too late!

It's true that you can make the M3 work for you, but I do feel that the M6 is a more practical tool. Why carry a separate meter if you can have one in the camera?

-- rob appleby (rob@robertappleby.com), May 28, 2001.

Jean-David--I read your post VERY carefully. You are entitled to your opinion, which is simply one opinion, not verifiable fact, as are those of us who prefer other options, in our own opinions. I don't find your opinion offensive, but I don't particularly care for your attitude about mine, and your carping and whining about it, either.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), May 28, 2001.

Can't resist this contentious thread, as a died-in-the-wool M3 user. Why my M4 stays home and the M3 slips into my pocket is:

1) The 0.92 rangefinder is close enough to life sized that I can follow action with both eyes open. This is a real advantage.

2) It's the most accurate rangefinder Leica ever made. I shoot wide open more often than not, and the 90mm Summicron and the 50mm Noctilux are unforgiving wide open.

3) While it's slow to rewind and load, I've never had a misload with My M3. My M4, on the other hand, took some getting used to.

4) I use the self timer. In very dark rooms, just set the pre-focused camera on a shelf and shoot 1 second (or 2: Set the shutter on B) with the self timer. Pin sharp, as long as your subject does not move.

5) Ever since I discovered the accuracy of incident metering, I haven't used any built in meter in any of my cameras.

6) The M3 finder might not be as bright as an M6, but it doesn't flare.

-- Tom Bryant (boffin@gis.net), May 28, 2001.

"Why carry a separate meter if you can have one in the camera?"

Like Tom Bryant, I like to use an incident meter most of the time. Also, I can use the same meter (Sekonic 408) for all my metering needs, ambient or flash (or a mix) and incident or reflective spot. I know how the behavior of the films I use will correlate with the readings on that one meter. I don't have to adjust my metering style to accomodate the different metering patterns I get using the center-weighted meter in my Pentax 645 stuff, the central-area metering in my old Canon F-series SLRs, and the who-the-hell-really-knows matrix metering in modern autoplastic cameras.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that they have to do it my way, but my way makes perfect sense for the way I work.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), May 28, 2001.

there is something weīll never all agree, it is the way we use our cameras; rob claims for the meter in itīs M6, and heīs rigth, he is using color slides as far as I know, on the other side Mike prefers a incident ligth meter, I like that too, īcos you donīt have to point anything to nobody to make a lecture, although I prefer to use my eyes and calculate it, with Tri-x I hardly ever go wrong, I can calculate minus 14 steps,something like 1/4 at 1.4 at 400 asa, it takes five second to do the all thing (calculate and set the camera), probably an Hexarīs faster.

-- R Watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), May 28, 2001.

Ho-Hum, it's raining here. Cattle all fed, fire going nicely, just rug up and have a read of the papers, and life's like that. Much ado about nothing, to each his own. This little forum is totally about opinions, with some facts thrown in. So why whinge about an opinion you don't like, just don't read it. Think of a M6 as a M3 with a Metrawatt inside, rather than on top.

It's still raining, Cheers, PN

-- Paul Nelson (clrfarm@comswest.net.au), May 28, 2001.

Max, to get back to your question: The M3 has a much less cluttered finder compared to the M6. It also has no rangefinder whiteout problem. Finally, it has the highest finder magnification of any M camera, making it well suited to the fastest 90mm and 135mm lenses.

On the other hand, it lends itself less well to the use of wideangle lenses, unless an accessory finder is used. And it lacks the convenience of the bulit-in meter. Using aseparate meter is really OK for landscapes and so forth. The M6's meter is a little better for shooting subjects that are constantly changing, like street photograpy. It also corrects for the individual transmission of each lens, which can differ a bit from the marked f/stop.

You might say the M3 is "cleaner" to shoot with if you don't need the M6's features. Slower to load, though. You don't have to "settle" for an M6TTL if it's not what you really want. There are enough used M3's out there!

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), May 28, 2001.

Rob,

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who doesn't need a built in meter. With all those posts, maybe the idea of Leica re-introducing a meterless M body isn't that ridiculous. I also want to thank you about the advice you gave me in my other thread; "If you want a meterless M6, remove the batterie"

PS, Did you ever bother to compare several M6 meter to see if they will give you the same reading, reading from your post, I guess not.

-- Eric Laurence (Edgar1976@hotmail.com), May 29, 2001.

Eric, I may have compared the meters in my cameras at some time, I can't remember. I use two M6's, shoot slide, and haven't noticed any systematic difference between the results from the two.

I have been playing with colour neg film recently, but the workflow overheads are too high for me and I'll probably be back to slide soon.

As for Mike Dixon, sure I agree that if you can use the M3 for your kind of work, why not? It's the rewind knob/loading issue that keeps me away from it. Too slow for my uses which are all pretty fast moving. I think they look pretty cool, though!

Anyway, if I go on like this much longer, I'll be turning into Ian Cruikshank, so enough!

-- rob appleby (rob@robertappleby.com), May 29, 2001.

Max, getting back to your original question, the M6 TTL is not necessarily the best of Leica's science and art -- but it's likely not the worst. Most things most people said above are indeed true, often useful, even if personal. You too are the scientist and artist! Get a good store or friend and take out an M6 TTL (new) and an M3 (used) for a while and then buy one of them. As far as I'm concerned, an M4, M4P, IIIf or IIIg too, if you can find them. Then you'll know what they have that you want, and what they don't have that you don't need. Just do it.

Mike near Wetzlar.

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), May 29, 2001.

Any tool in skilled hands will yield acceptable results.

-- jeff voorhees (debontekou@yahoo.com), May 29, 2001.

Max: I think there are three factors at work keeping the M3 in the running with later models: 1.There are tons of them. 225,000 were made, the bestselling pro rangefinder of all time, making it easy to pick up a good user body for $800 or even less. 2. They are gorgeous. Two decades after the Bauhaus took it's last bau, Willi Stein came up with a design that perfectly expresses the form-follows-function ideal of Walter, Mies and the guys. Of course it wasn't long before visual idiots were assigned to screw it up with blobs of plastic and that ridiculous canted rewind crank -even though Canon had already shown everybody how to visually integrate a big crank on the model P. But to this day, whenever Leica wants to put out some really special version of the M6, they graft on some feature of the M3.

3. It makes you feel like Robocop. This is not such a big deal since the .85 M6 was introduced, but the .92 finder makes it easy to shoot with both eyes open, with the frameline hanging there in space like it was part of your eyeball -next best thing to a built-in,

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 29, 2001.

Which is best, a Jaguar S type or E type? All Leicas are superbly made machines capable of excellent results. The obvious answer is to get both the M3 and the M6, and maybe a screwmount too, but in the real world more mundane concerns often intrude...Every time I rationalise about my M3 it doesn't make sense; every time I go out and use it I enjoy its handling and ease of use. The main thing is the great finder, but yes, the meter - such a simple thing! - would be the main advantage of an M6. But if you ever wanted a self-timer, Leica deemed serious photographers didn't need one on the M6 and sacrificed the space for the meter.

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), June 07, 2001.