by johanniels.com
Black and white photography is about contrast with me. Sure I like nice grays in an image but certainly not too much. I need whites and blacks. Recently I lucked into a stash of perforated 35mm Fomamures microfilm and set to shooting it in a Leica IIIc. Let me tell you the story and show you the shots.
Continue reading “shooting microfilm in a Leica IIIc”
A Leica IIIc arrived from the United States. It was a late wartime camera, likely produced between May 1945 and June 1946. And, all vulcanite came off in bits at the very moment I unpacked it. Camera leather replacement made easy in this how-to article!
Continue reading “Leica needs a new dress: leather replacement made easy”
This article contains a list of the screw mount Leica models, from the early 1913 Ur-Leica to the Leica Ig from 1960, the last screw mount model. Brief descriptions and images from official Leitz brochures are included.
The Tower type ’45’ camera was a screw mount Leica clone built by Nicca from Japan. It was sold exclusively by Sears in the United States, who commissioned cameras with their ‘Sears’ brand name with various Japanese and German camera manufacturers in the late 1950s and 1960s.
The second half of the 1950s saw the Japanese camera manufacturers face some difficulties in their production. Many of them (Canon, Nicca, Leotax, even the British Reid & Sigrist) had built their empires on copying the German design of the Leica IIIc. The Germans had lost their patents after World War II and the Japanese and other manufacturers had jumped on the opportunity to create their own versions of what had proven to be very well-built and highly effective cameras. But then, the Germans took the market back by releasing the Leica M3, which was a whole new level of camera and it was patented again too! The Japanese copy-cats were left lightyears behind.
But, they quickly figured out that Leitz had filed for a combined patent of all new features and had not filed the single alterations and improvements for patent too. And they set out to close the gap between their own (very capable!) models and the Leica M3.
And it got us some interesting developments.
Continue reading “The Tower model 45 rangefinder, the improved Barnack Leica”