The Leica M3

At one time, the name Leica was synonymous with 35mm photography. The original design was more or less the work of one man, Oscar Barnak. An employee of the long established optical firm of Ernst Leitz and Sons, Barnak seems to have conceived the camera first as a device for testing cinema film and later as a pocketable camera. The story has become sufficiently confused by interested parties that it is hard to get at the truth now.

What is known for certain is that a prototype 35mm camera, bearing a passing relationship to the first production cameras, was in existence around 1913. The intervention of World War 1 and the economic chaos that followed probably contributed to the project being shelved until the mid-twenties when the first Leica (Leitz camera) went into production.

Competition

The Leica was pretty well an instant success, spawning a raft of descendants, immitators and competitors, the most important of which latter was the Contax, developed by the Zeiss Ikon conglemerate. Throughout the thirties, the two designs vied for the position of top miniature. In essence, the fight came down to the Leica's elegant, light weight design versus the Contax's complex but efficient 'brick'. What would have happened if the Second World War hadn't intervened is anyone's guess.

When the dust of the Third Reich had settled into the rubble, the camera landscape had changed dramatically. Zeiss Ikon had been dismembered and virtually the entire Contax production line, along with many of the key workers, had been exported to the Ukraine as part of East Germany's war reparations. Leitz remained intact in West Germany, though it had to hand over all its designs to the Allies, again as war reparations.

A New Challenge

Leitz trod water for the rest of the 'forties, probably only too happy to be in the relative peace and security of the western sector. For most of this period they continued production of the pre-war 'c' series cameras with minor changes to produce the 'f' series. Then, in 1951, the West German remnants of Zeiss launched a totally redesigned Contax - the IIIa.

If before the match had been even, now it was anything but. The IIIa was virtually the perfect marriage of the pre-war camera's features with those of the Leica. It was smaller, lighter, simpler and sleeker than its predecessor and it was priced to sell. Leitz must have felt the chill wind blowing right through the factory gates. Something needed to be done.

Rock the World

In 1953, Leitz did it. They rocked the photographic world back on its heels with the launch of the M3 - a totally new design that seemed, and was, years ahead of anything else on the market. On the outside of the camera were three obvious and far-reaching changes.

The first was the viewfinder. One Leica weakness against the Contax design had always been the 'squinty' viewfinder. Now that was gone and in its place was a magnificent large finder giving an almost life size view of the subject. Inside the finder were bright line frames for three seperate focal lengths (50, 90 and 135mm) linked to the focusing system for parallax correction. Gone also was the seperate rangefinder, that too was part of the new, large, viewfinder.

The second change was the film wind. No more turning of knobs. Now the user had an excellent short throw lever to wind the film and cock the shutter. This immediately moved the new Leica well ahead of the Contax which still retained knob winding and was never, in the event, going to get anything better.

A Clever Trick

The third change, though, was the most far reaching of all. Leitz had designed a completely new bayonet mount for the M3. A three claw, super-short turn design, it was, amazingly, backward compatible with all previous Leica lenses. The trick lay in the film plane register of the new camera which was just 1mm shorter than that of the screw mount cameras. Thus, all that was needed to fit the old lenses on the new camera was a simple adaptor and, guess what? Leitz had a lot of those adaptors ready at launch time. Moreover, if you inserted a lens that the camera recognised, the correct set of bright lines would pop into the finder, ready for use.

There were other things too. The shutter speed dial was non-rotating and grooved to mate to an accessory clip-on meter, so the Contax's built-in meter no longer seemed such a big thing. There was also a strange little lever under the viewfinder. If you moved it you could select a different set of bright lines to see what effect changing the current lens would have. In these days of digital SLRs this may seem trivial but in 1953 it was rocket science!

New Lenses

Along with the M3, Leitz launched new ranges of lenses, the most important of which were the Summicrons. The 50mm version was to set the standards of sharpness and general image quality for at least three decades. There'd always been a sneaking suspicion that Zeiss lenses were better than the Leitz versions and there were plenty of adaptors for mating Zeiss lenses to Leica bodies. Few attempts had been made to mate Leitz lenses to the Contax although this was, to be fair, a major undertaking owing to the gloriously complicated Zeiss lens mount.

The introduction of the Summicron gave Leitz a powerfull weapon in the battle for optical superiority and over the next few years a steady stream of new designs would keep the Leica range at the head of the pack. In any case, Zeiss began to concentrate their efforts elsewhere, letting the Contax range of lenses rest on their laurels, a posture which suited Leitz just fine.

Another point about lenses. The M3 finder showed bright lines for the three most popular focal lengths of the time but what about wide angles? Leitz had that covered as well. The 35mm lenses came with sets of 'spectacles' which fitted over the viewfinder and rangefinder. The lenses in the spectacles modified the view for the wider lens. To show how well thought out the new system was, the standard ever-ready case for the M3 had sufficient space to take the camera fitted with both the meter and a spectacled wide angle.

Internal Changes

Internally there were important changes as well and Leitz even made a gesture towards dealing with the Leica's weakest point, its film loading. Although still loaded from the base of the camera, the M3 now had a trapdoor to which the backplate was attached, making loading rather less of an excercise in keyhole surgery. The new system was, however, still not as easy as the loading system for the  Contax in which the entire back was removed and which could be speeded up even more by pre-attaching the film to a take-up cassette which also eliminated rewinding. Leica lovers would have to wait on the appearance of the M4 in 1967 before they finally got a quick and easy loading system.

But the most important thing about the M3, the thing which the reviewers raved about even years after its launch, was the feel. The camera fits the hands perfectly. Everything moves with a smooth precision that makes one think of soft butter. The finder, even fifty years later, is an amazing tool for selecting and composing images. Lens changing is so easy you find yourself wondering why all lens mounts aren't made like this. Release the shutter and the soft 'chunk' of the shutter blades is all that tells you the picture has been taken. Even a heavily used camera like the example shown here works like that and, if it doesn't, a competent repairman can soon ensure that it does. Yes, it sounds like advertising copy but no, it isn't.

Leicas still command amazing second-hand prices. This is only partly to do with a strong collector market because a well used M3 will cost more, much more, than a mint Nikon. It's really to do with the fact that, although Leicas were extremely expensive new, they really were worth the price. What's more, they still are.

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