On The Road with Vicky Lamburn

As I am quite tired tonight, and I fell asleep for about 2 hours whilst watching telly (or not as I was asleep!) this part isn’t nearly as full as it should be. But I’m going to write something anyway, and probably delete it all tomorrow evening when I decide it’s awful!

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Continued from Part 1

The main thing that had changed was a simple matter of a Leica available at a price I could afford. As I said, an R3M from Voigtlander/Cosina was the plan right up until pretty much the last minute. The R3M is a well made camera, decent frame lines, a wonderful 1:1 viewfinder and a decent effective base length which would mean decent focusing at wide apertures. It’s a very decent camera for the money but it’s oft cited that a Leica has the feeling of being better made (in part down to its sheer heft) and is quieter (it is, but not as quiet as something like an Olympus XA.)

From a local camera dealer, second hand obviously, a Leica M2 came up for £300 with 12 months warranty in decent condition. Sure it wasn’t perfect but then I don’t care for things like that, so long as it wasn’t falling apart, it was mechanically tip top and ready for use, that was worth it. The R3M would have cost me £350 brand new including VAT (now at 15% in the UK until 2010) — which was a fair deal. Let’s face it, £300 was cheap for a Leica in the condition it was promised to be and with 12 months warranty from a local dealer it made sense.

The differences I have already outlined, that is namely a quieter shutter and generally the feeling of a very solid camera, but then metal does have that effect!

The other differences come down to aesthetics and design differences. The R3M has a built in meter for example and a very good accurate one, and it uses a current battery rather than those darn Mercury PX625s. But it’s a mechanical camera so it doesn’t need batteries to operate. It also supports a 1/2000th sec shutter speed, DX coding, a faster flash sync (which I can guarantee I will never use as per my EOS 3 — I really don’t like flash.) So there are some good technical reasons for the R3M. Another good thing about the R3M is the 40mm frame lines, and 40mm is a very nice aspect.

However, it doesn’t have 35mm frame lines and that to me was a big downside but one I was willing for forfeit.

In essence, you can see I was set to go with the Voigtlander R3M, a great camera, and it was only just pipped to the post.

The bottom line to anybody reading this is thus: If you are in the market for a rangefinder (or indeed a small, light camera with interchangeable lenses) and you are considering an R3A/M — do look at a Leica M2 if you get a chance, they are good. Likewise I do think those absolutely locked into the mindset of must have a Leica, check out the R3A/M — they’re a good camera.

Everything else I could now go into, e.g. the Leica’s operation etc. would be pointless. You can read that anywhere else, the bottom line is that it is a good camera and on first impressions matches up to what people would expect from the namesake. Even its quirks such as the film loading can somehow endear you as being ‘charming’ — largely I wouldn’t stand for such an old fashioned loading system like a Leica’s. This is something which the Voigtlander Bessa’s from Cosina are much better in: the back door opens and it’s easy to load.

There is something to be said of the M2’s loading mechanism, it feels secure and smooth to operate so that’s how somewhat annoying ends up being charming. It’s one of those quirks that you forgive it entirely because it’s a Leica. Irrational and stupid as it is!

Anyway — gushing aside and generally positive first impressions the next step is the most important one, actually taking some photos with the Leica M2 and how it works in operation…

Check back soon for the third and final part (I have to receive the lens, get out, shoot, process and scan before I can write this part, and that might not be until after New Year now…)