Dear Leicaaddicts,

to most of us, the LEICA is more than just a camera, isnŽt it?

Sparkies post further down let me to the question, of how the very beginning of the affair and the life with the LEICA occured to you. At what point did the LEICA-bug bite you and you couldnŽt recover from it any more?

This post is an act of pure selfdefence because I also feel a tiny mechanical watch-bug just now and I search for sound reasons to get rid of it. But this time in time ...

Best wishes

-- K. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), November 30, 2001

Answers

I was 13 yo when I fell in love with photography. For 15 years I couldn't understand why Leicas were so special. BUT!.. I never had touched one! One day a friend had a Leica II in his hands and I asked to play with her. That was it! Love at first sight. She was beautiful, small but heavy and soooo sexy! I bought her immediately and since then everything changed in my photographic life. After a month I bought my first M6 and I knew that I would never be happy without a Leica again :o)

-- Jordan Koussis (jordan@koussis.com), November 30, 2001.

Got a IIIf with 50 and 90 Elmar from my Grandfather at the age of 16. Worked at a local newspaper as a photographer with M3 and M2 (including action sports)back in the early 70's. Bought a lot of Nikon stuff and studied technical photography. Dropped all Nikons after 25 years and use my M3 and IIIf.

Greetings

-- Ralph Busskamp (ralph.busskamp@philips.com), November 30, 2001.

Hang onto your hat! I like Leica because an M is my type (mechanical perfection and timelessness etc etc) but to get back to your exact question (>>When...?) the answer is that it was at that time when I started reading everything posted here in this whole forum. How do you like that?

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), November 30, 2001.

About 16 years ago a co-worker brought to work his newly acquired black M6(new)& made the mistake of letting me touch it. I've now owned (5) M6's. In my quest to have it "all" on a limited budget, I foolishly kept selling & going back to Nikon F3's with primes. I now am the proud owner of a nearly mint M4 with 35/f2 asph (chrome), 50/f2 latest (chrome) & 90/2.8 elmerit-m (black) latest. I now have my ideal system & will not look to others ever again. Leica offers a passion that, for me, no other system can provide. Just my thoughts...

-- Ron Snyder (studio1401@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

For me it was when three things happened in a very short time frame 1. I lugged my F-100, and bunch of lenses and flash around for a vacation and broke my back, 2. I had a sore arm from shooting a wedding and having to carry the F-100 and AF-S 28-70 +sb28 around the entire day. (honest, my lower right arm was sore for two days) 3. Seeing Rei Suzuka's (i hope I spelled it right) noctilux shots.

That's when I realized that superquality lenses didn't need to be huge and heavy and I started looking into the Leica seriously. Now I don't think I will ever let it go, although I will keep the Nikon for wedding assignments, but not for my personal use.

Regards Bas

-- Bas Wip (bas@baswip.com), November 30, 2001.

I was in Ffordes in Southend (UK) and first handled an M4 after reading so much about Leica. I was astounded by the _feel_! Simply incredible - solid, tactile and that wonderful Leica SMELL! You know what I mean?

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), November 30, 2001.

I was about 13 when I inherited a IIIa, IIIfBD, 35, 50/3.5, 90 and 135 from an elderly friend of the family who had known I was into photography (I was using a folding Kodak 620 at the time!). I still have that outfit, in beautiful shape. Later on I got a collapsible 50 Summicron in LTM, which I used when I got a pair of M2's in college, along with a 21,35, 90 and 135. Later one of the M2's was replaced with an M4 and eventually the other M2 was replaced with an M4-2 and I sold the earlier M lenses and accumulated a 21-35-50-90- 135 set of 1970's lenses. I sold the M4-2 on an M6 but otherwise I've still got the rest of it. I added a second M6 and recently a Hexar RF, and accumulated my current (and final) set of lenses: 15 Heliar, 21ASPH, 35/1.4ASPH, 50/2, 90/2.8, 135/3.4, Tri-Elmar. Along the way I sold a 90/2 and 75/1.4, the only 2 disappointing M lenses I've owned, and a 28/2.8 that became superfluous with the 3E. Stupidly I also sold a late-model 135/4 for the APO-Telyt. At this point so late in the age of film, I don't see making any further additions to my Leica lineup...but one never knows.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), November 30, 2001.

I'd been aware of Leica ever since I got seriously interested in photography at the age of 18. I was offered the chance to buy one (criminally cheap) from a cash-strapped friend when I was 25 - an almost-new M4 with a 50 Summilux. Holding that camera in my hands felt like coming home. I was reminded of the story of Mary Ellen Mark holding her first Leica and realizing that this was IT.

I stupidly sold it (for a lot more than I'd paid) and was without a Leica until 1997 when I was finally seduced by a minty M3 with a DR Summicron. Now my whole psyche has been ravaged by the Leica bug, and I'm afraid there will be no cure this time. Neither impecunety nor stupidity will be allowed to wrest these jewels from my grasp :-0

-- Paul Chefurka (paul@chefurka.com), November 30, 2001.

something quite similar happen to me when I first bougth my first M3, for 500 USD with a 35/2.8, 50 D.R., 90/4 and 135/4.5, it was a bargain, and was the reason I got it, after few month latter I got a second body for 225 USD, it was a beat up M3 that is still working after 14 years, I was happy with my leicas, until both brake down and freak leica may close down and prices will go higher than they are, so I bougth a M4P and a newer 35 (a 1.4 non asph), and by chance in the same week a friend offered me another M4P and 28 elmarit (3), and took it, (my credit card still suffers that date), next few months I meet Tom G. in Mazatlan and ask him to take my SWC/M and exchange it for summicrons (35,50 and 90), now I can breath, there is nothing I may need, well exept the 1.4 asph, some day maybe, unfortunately dealing with leicas in mexico is not a bussines, and old lenses are so under valuated, specialy ugly ones.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.

I was working at a camera store in Atlanta Ga back in 1982, and the owner hired Leica factory trained Manfred Krauter (Sherry's husband) to do camera repairs in store. Leicas owners soon found him out, and I got a chance to handle a few cameras. Although I liked the feel of the camera, and the legendary Leica names like "Summicron", I must admit I wasn't overwhelmed with rangefinder viewing and focusing. I still remember he first time I fired a recently tuned M3 and experienced the quiteet, most vibration free shutter I ever knew. Made my Nikon FM sound like a piece of...

Manfred assured me a Leica was more accurate focusing than my Nikon SLR, but I wasn't totally convinced. Not that it mattered much, becasue at the time I was in no position to afford Leica M equipment. (It's for rich old men I thought at the time-pretty funny huh?) I never did forget the feel of the camera, so I guess I had a "latent" bite of the Leica bug that took 15 years to take full affect. When a good friend showed up at my house back on 1995 with his late father's Leica M3 outfit, I purchased it and it actually rekindled my interest in photography which had been sitting more or less dormant at the time. Then I got online, found forums like this, and blew thousands of dollars on a lot of stuff I don't even need (like 3 different 50mm lenses) Anybody have a vacine for the Leica bug?

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), November 30, 2001.

I was shooting from the 1960's with F series Nikons and by the 1980's I had accumulated quite a group of cameras and lenses. While I had of course heard of Leicas, and even handled them in stores, I never "got it"... the Nikon was all I needed.

While in the Military, I was deployed to a hard one-year remote tour to an un-named third world country. While traveling to my home for the next year, at an airport magazine rack, I bought an issue of "Popular Photography" in which Bob Schwalberg had an article "Practical Classics"... buying classic cameras for actual use, not just looking at. Each of his represented cameras had a narrative on the high points of the design as well as a beautiful B&W photo of the camera and the contemporary accessories from the period in which the camera was king. The Leica M3 was the camera of choice from Schwalberg, and terms like "...uncrowned king of all 35mm cameras..." and "...best and brightest rangefinder focusing ever achieved..." permeated the article. But it was the photo of the M3 sitting next to the canvas PJ's bag with a well worn leather strap and a chrome 50mm Summicron with black hood sitting next to the camera that got to me. Suddenly my then modern Nikon F3 seemed so bland and soulless. I had to have a Leica. I only had to wait one long boring year until I returned to "the world" to buy one. Of course it was an M3. A month later, another M3... then an M2, an M4 and then the M6. All from looking at that picture.

I still have that dog eared magazine and that old B&W photo of the M3 still gets me off of my butt and out with my camera to do the Leica thing.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), November 30, 2001.

About 5 years after I bought my first M6 body.

Sigh, I guess I was always slow on the uptake.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), November 30, 2001.

In 1971 as an engineering student, the tech building's night security guard offered to lend me his camera - a IIIg with collapsible Elmar.

At the time I had 2 Nikon F bodies and 4 lenses, and my first thought on seeing the camera was "oh bother, a funky antique that can't use long lenses" but with uncharacteristic tact I thanked the guard and picked the camera up. I was bitten on the spot. The slow speeds were off, the Leicameter was dead and the rangefinder had vertical alignment problems but within days the IIIg was my favorite camera and the Nikons were gathering dust.

It took another 8 years and a dead Photomic meter to do the inevitable: I bought a Leicaflex SL.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), November 30, 2001.

I was smitten the first time I picked one up and held it in my hands, roughly one year ago. I already loved the look of it, but holding it, my God, that was something else. I felt like an electric charge went through me. It was at an equipment trade fair open to the public, and I had the financing worked out by that evening.

So you are feeling the mechanical watch bug, too? I also have two of those, and prefer to use a fountain pen. What does this say?

-- Margaret (fitz@neptune.fr), November 30, 2001.

What I meant to say was that let's face it, the only way to get rid of that mechanical wathc bug is, well, you know the rest, buy one; like Leica, new or used. Same beautiful precision.

-- Margaret (fitz@neptune.fr), November 30, 2001.

I got into photography rather late and it started with the medium's history. I still prefer reading photographs rather than making/taking pictures. From the very beginning it was the Leica. The best after the pin-hole according to G.B. Shaw. It was a black M6 and I had to wait 6 long months to get a lens and finally start using it. Changes were to follow soon. Met my girl, sold the M6, took a trip to Amsterdam and ended up buying a Nikon and a Sunsan Sontag book. Never got used to the nikon and finally sold it get a chrome M6 with a 35 cron. That's when I got bit by the LF bug and finally traded my Leica outfit for a mint Linhof Master Technika with some lenses. Left Europe for Asia with the technika and a bunch of polaroids. Sold the technika there, got back to europe and now I have a mint M3 and a new Elmar 50 and as my economic woes are "over", it's here to stay. Nothing compares to it apart my first M6 and I long to have it back but the person I sold to (a neighbour) would rather keep it :( Well that's my on/off realtion with the Leicas.

-- Hemant Gurung (hgurung@free.fr), November 30, 2001.

I've been aware of Leicas more or less since high school (early 70's). After a couple of years with a Canon SLR I tried some (at the time) less expensive RFs ($100 IIIc with 50 Elmar, $400 Nikon SP - wish I'd kept THAT one!!, $200 Canon P). Then ran across a show by Geographic photographer Dick Durrance II (all Nikon SLR) and left RFs for the graphic abilities of the SLR screen. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Flash forward to grad school (late '70s'). I'm out shooting with a Canon F1 and AT-1, and suddenly realize how much I prefer the compact, lightweight body. I think that's when I really started down the track to a Leica. In that same era I was also looking at work like Mary Ellen Mark's "Ward 81" and Jill Freedman's "Firehouse" and I began to see the connection between the kind of pictures I liked and the way Leicas made them more accessible.

It's just taken another 20 years to get my head straight!

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), November 30, 2001.

About 45 years ago, when I looked through the bright line optical viewfinder slipped on top of a IIIa given to me by my uncle. Only my M3 viewfinder approaches the effect, can't take pictures without it.

I switched to 4x5 systems and got a bit too serious about photography, ignored 35mm and then realised that I missed out on taking pictures of my kids growing up. Am back in 35mm MLeica, never too late, must admit that my vision, framing, approach etc has benefitted in a very positve way from the viewcamera use.

-- Hans Berkhout (berkhout@cadvision.com), December 01, 2001.

About 45 years ago, when I looked through the bright line optical viewfinder slipped on top of a IIIa given to me by my uncle. Only my M3 viewfinder approaches the effect, can't take pictures without it.

I switched to 4x5 systems and got a bit too serious about photography, ignored 35mm and then realised that I missed out on taking pictures of my kids growing up. Am back in 35mm MLeica, never too late, must admit that my vision, framing, approach etc has benefitted in a very positve way from the viewcamera use.

P.S. And Margaret- yes I also prefer mechanical watches, just bought a very nice auto-wind Omega, about 40 years old (Squires watches, on the net). Use a Waterman, my Parker 51 needs a new gold nib (medium), hard to find! It's from my high school years, would love to use it again.

-- Hans Berkhout (berkhout@cadvision.com), December 01, 2001.

The bug bites whenever I pick it up start taking pictures of people. Hard not to snap away...

But sometimes I bite right back and pick up my Nikon instead :-)

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), December 01, 2001.

The Leica Bug is nothing more than the camera bug taken to the limit.My first camera was a Kodak Brownie 127, about the age of 14. It was not until the age of 33 that I had finally decided to try the Leica. A professional photographer was selling three Leicas-- 2 M-5s and an M-4, all with 50 crons. All at the same price. I took the M4 and have been a Leica fan ever since. I have probably had 40 good quality cameras in my lifetime and have never owned the most popular type-- the 35mm SLR.

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), December 02, 2001.

Thank you for all your answers, appreciate every single sentence in my search for a working antibug.

I got to know the LEICA years before I met my wife. In the early 70ies I invested my very first salary as a building engineer in a LEICA M4. Some years later and having aquired quite a bit of additional gear in the meantime (LEICA CL, five lenses, uninsured) everything was stolen from my car. How stupid to leave it behind me ...

But the bug had already been working for years and I could not be without a LEICA. So the next move was a LEICA M5, still have it.

And it took me 25+ years before I reached out for a LEICAFLEX SL2, just for curiosity. Now the LEICA R bug is also working.

It is all a matter of priorities. IŽam working on these for a long time now. And you can create wonderful photographs with these priorities.

Having found this forum showed me, that there are quite a few fellow Leicaaddicts around, good to know!

Will not search for a PATEK PHILIPPE or BREGUET ...

Best wishes

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), December 02, 2001.

(one word got lost, sorry)

... site.

Best wishes and good shooting

-- K. G. Wolf (k.g.wolf@web.de), December 02, 2001.

For me, it was probably around a year ago, after taking many photos with a Konica Hexar classic. Many rolls would have consistently great shots- like post cards, and people were always impressed. I think a combination of a relatively vibration-free shutter and a single focal length helped with sharpness and composition (my SLR system had gotten too complicated).

I've had similar luck with the M6 and a pair of lenses. In fact, just this weekend I was showing some 4x6's I did- and friends were all ga-ga over it "wow look at the shine on that metal!" (wrought iron beam in a cafe); "Wow, this is art looking better than nature!" (shots of the cliffs on the beach at Pt Reyes, where the sand looked like halvah). Maybe we live in a world over dominated by $100 P&S snaps, or, disposables; all optimized to give your 4x6 prints that merely don't suck. But it's good- simple, quiet, you know what your camera is doing (even the Hexar was a bit more automated that I liked at times, now that I think of it). That's worth a lot.

-- TW (tsesung@yahoo.com), December 03, 2001.

1994, I bought a 3F with a 50 Summitar at the Rosebowl flea market. Driving back to LA one day a weather front was moving in over the Mountains near Palm Springs. My wife said "how beautiful", I said, "stick that old Leica out the window with the lens wide open. The picture will not come out but lets try. " When the picture came back, we could not believe the the Look. I do not know what it is but it is there and nobody other lens can match that Look. So I guess it is the lenses man - the lenses

-- Hayden Eiswirth (haydeneisw@cs.com), December 05, 2001.

I was a diehard Nikon F user for ten years. Two bodies and a s#*! load of lenses, ( as my friends said, "thirty-five pounds of lightwieght photo gear")in a very large gadgetbag crammed to the gills with seldom used accessories. A friend much more consevative than I said to me one day..."here try my M3 and these lenses (35/2.0 50/2.0 and 90/4.0). Two rolls of film later I was in the middle of my photo shop with an open case of Nikon gear for sale. In three hours it was over...Using a Leica RF is like your first kiss from the gal your going to spend your life with!

-- Scott Hayden (fulldome51@cs.com), January 15, 2002.