the addictive silky feel of IIf screw-mount body!

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hi all

I've just acquired a mint IIf body with crystal clear viewfinder and silky smooth winding and shutter release.

I did not know what I was in for. I only know that I needed a screwmount body to mate with my trusty red-dial 5cm elmar... so i choose i red-dial IIf.

Wow.. the winding is so so smooth, but when i squeezed the shutter.... its silky and ultra soft shutter sound grip me! What a sound it is! I wind, choose a shutter speed and squeeze the shutter release button gently... wind, choose, squeeze, wind, choose, squeeze ...

I can't help it but feel that it is so much smaller and feels so much comfy in my hands than my M4P. I'm shocked.

The shutter sound of 1/25 and B mode is especially killer and awesome.

Wonder if folks here have the same feeling. suddenly my M body with 35f2 (4th version) feels so big in comparision, and the shutter sounds so loud and crude.

-- luxman (ericssan@yahoo.com), June 05, 2002

Answers

luxman was just kidding about the "silky feel" of the iif RD. they are, of course, useless pieces of crap, and you lot should just go on ignoring them along with the other barnack cameras (especially the really foul, nowhere-near-as-good-as-a-iiig IIIf RD STs), keeping the prices low for those poor deluded saps who mite want to buy one as a paper weight or something. forget anybody said anything, just go on about your business . . . hey! look over there, a mint m4.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), June 05, 2002.

hey get one now before leica decides to bring out a commemoretve IIIf red dial or IIIg and pushes the prices out of the original out of reach. FWIW i understand the prices of a used mint M4, but a mint M5, you have got to be kidding.

-- greg mason (gmason1661@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

Now you know why IIIgs, with the same body under a better viewfinder, are so incredibly expensive. :-)

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), June 05, 2002.

Thanks for the advice, Roger. I'll going to stick to M cameras.... wait a minute...

-- Hadji (hadji_singh@hotmail.com), June 05, 2002.

Hi!

My IIf is sitting next to me as I write. Something like that silky feel made me buy mine at K&S in Palo Alto back in 1996 along with an Elmar 50/3.5. I took it to France in spring 1997 and then just let it sit in at home, occationally entertaining guests with it. With the Abrahamsson Rapidwinder prototype it is with me every day. It has become a real street shooter, a real trooper.

There is something of the vintage Leica look to the shots with the Ultron 28/1.9 that rides permanently on it.

Best,

Alex

-- Alex Shishin (shishin@suma.kobe-wu.ac.jp), June 06, 2002.



Yes indeed, all those old screwmount Leicas have that indefinable precision feel. Why not contrast an old black and nickel one with a later chrome IIIf? Then enthuse over the big bright rangefinder of the M3. And then, just for fun, try out a classic M6, compare with an M7, and how about those wonderful old Leicaflexes?

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), June 06, 2002.

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