Curious, when did you see/use your first leica?

[dude163]

Hi all, I was just thinking about this the other day going through some old photos . And I found a picture of my youngest daughter taking a shot with my M8 and was curious when you first saw/used one ?

My father was HUGE fan of leicas and could never afford one, so he bought a Soviet clone of one, the Zorki 4 , but he somehow instilled in me the mythic abilities of one so Ive always been lusting after them , once I had some health troubles a while back I thought screw it ............

.......so the first leica I even SAW was the one I bought sight unseen from a vendor 2 years ago and I was 45!! but my daughter who is almost 6 now has taken shots with it and so has my 9 year old ( insurance makes me foolhardy!)

Oh here is the 2nd shot i took with it easy to see why my poor pentax gear is gathering dust even though i didnt have an IR/UV filter yet

 

[iiiNelson]

If you count the D-Lux 4 then I bought my first Leica in 2009... If not then my first true Leica was my M9 that I got in 2010 which I sold after hearing rumors of the M9-P. yes it's the same camera but I prefer it aesthetically mostly unmarked. I guess the first one I can remember seeing in person was a Digilux2. The first one I lusted after was the M8 circa 2007 or 2008. By the time I got serious about purchasing an M and putting enough money aside for it the M9 was announced and I had to raise an additional $1500 or so.

I will say its been well worth it to me and its the first "serious" camera I really got along with. Us there are technically cameras than do things better like high ISO and telephoto. From the time I attached my ZM50 Planar to it though and did a few self portrait test shots I knew it was what I've been looking for. It only took me a Canon, two Micro 4/3, and advanced p&s to get it through my head though luckily.

 

[monza]

I bought an M3 when I was 18

 

[D&A]

When I was college age, my photographic mentor used a Leica M4 (while I used my Pentax Spotmatic F SLR). When I had the chance to use his camera, I was hooked...primarily on the ability to see outsides the framelines in order to better anticipate the decisive moment. Not long thereafter, I found a well worn M3 for sale with a 50mm cron (as it was the only Leica I could afford at the time) and as they say "the rest is history".

Postscript....there were many times in the interviening years, especially when digital photography was in it's infancy, that my interest (like many) waned from film and therefore my Leica....although I'd still often shoot it as I was very much into B&W and the wet darkroom. I'd tried keeping my hand into rangefinder photography during this developmental phase of digital with various incarnations of the M6, M7 but eventually merging my Leica and digital interests to the M8 and M9 when they were introduced.

Dave (D&A)

 

[RVB]

I bought a Leica S2 about 18 months ago,that was the first time I ever used a Leica,I just upgraded that to an S,I love the ergonomics and the lenses are exquisite

Rob

BTW,thats a sweet snap of your daughter..

 

[Vivek]

A black Leica SL2 with a 50mm Summicron in Mainz, Germany, ~1998.

I still have it and have lots of memorable pictures taken with it.

Much later, I bought a Nikon SLR with a 50/1.8. Holy crap the difference between the Summicron and the Nikkor was like day and night!

RF cams came much later. Though I like the compactness and the quietness, I really do not appreciate the limitations of the RF method, particularly if one has to deal with misbehaving (RF coupled) lenses.

 

[Per Ofverbeck]

Incredibly enough, I had my first personal Leica experience during military service in the ´60es: I was assigned one of these Swedish Army Leicas! I still have the receipt slip I had to sign for it.

The thing was: I didn´t like it at all! My own camera was a brand new Minolta SR7 SLR, and, to this youngster, the Leica felt very primitive in comparison....

More than ten years later, The Minoltas (they had multiplied somehow) were replaced by two Leicaflex SL´s. An M2 followed, and then I began to collect older Leicas, too. But by then, an Army Leica was much out of my financial reach...

 

[xdayv]

11/2012 to be exact, after a long stint with Nikon DSLRs which I still do have now; along with the Micro 4/3s system acquired in 5/2009. Now, I'm color blind.

 

[ptomsu]

I saw my 1st Leica when I was 16 and it was a Leicaflex SL. At this age it was far too expensive for me, so it stayed a dream for many years to follow and I bought instead a Minolta SRT 101.

I bought my 1st Leica - a used Leicaflex SL2 - when I was around 30.

I bought my 1st Leica M - a Leica M6 - in 1987. Together with a 2/35 Summicron and a 2/90 Elmarit. And I never sold this Leica M!!!

 

[BANKER1]

In 1969 I joined an Army National Guard battalion. At that time they had in their equipment a whole Leica outfit with additional lenses. And yes, I lusted for that camera system. However, with my limited funds at the time, I opted for a Canon SLR and later into MF with a Hasselblad 500 C/M that I still own. So, now that I have lived to be a senior citizen with some money to purchase a Leica, I am on the waiting list for my first Leica, the M.

Greg

 

[Shashin]

I first Leica I saw was in 1990 in Tokyo. Just rows and rows of them in a camera store window. I had my first picture taken with a Leica, an M5, at the opening of my show in the Kodak Photo Salon in Ginza in 1994. To this day, I have never handled one. But if someone wants to visit...

 

[Shac]

Not sure when I first saw one, but bought an M3 used in 1970. Sold a year later and next one (an M4) bought in 1975

 

[D&A]

To this day, I have never handled one. But if someone wants to visit...

Good thing you've never handled one...or you'd might be spending most every waking hour figuring out the possible combination of winning lottery #'s and a whole lot more. In fact I suspect you'd also be investing in ramping up production of ski masks....even though it might be in the dead heat of summertime with temps in the mid 90's :ROTFL: Count yourself as one of the lucky ones!

Dave (D&A)

 

[Godfrey]

My grandfather had a IIIc that he wouldn't loan my father for his honeymoon in 1952. So my father's first act upon arriving home was to buy a IIIf... He used that camera all through my childhood, both for family photos and to document his work (dental reconstruction, with a bellows and Hektor short mount).

In '67, I started assisting him at the office in the darkroom and at the chair. I worked the camera and developed the films from it and the X-ray machine. That was my first use of a Leica.. A couple years later, I had one of my own...

G

 

[Double Negative]

Well, Leica for me was 2008. But rangefinder (a Voigtländer Dynamatic II) as early as... 1981/82ish? It was my dad's and my first exposure to a "real" camera. With its broken selenium meter I learned to guess exposure *real* quick. The rest, as they say - is history. Still have it:

 

[MikalWGrass]

DN, that is a beautiful camera.

I first saw an M6 in my college roommate's hands almost 15 years ago. A few years after and a year before he died, my late father bought me an M6TTL that I still use.

 

[animefx]

I purchased a Leitz Minolta CL off of eBay in 2010, but I'm still not sure if I consider it a "real" Leica since there was an actually Leica CL as well. I purchased the Leica M8 on eBay in 2011.

There were some William Eggleston and Garry Winogrand documentaries I had watched that really inspired me to try a rangefinder camera. I immediately fell in love with rangefinders.

 

[edwardkaraa]

I'm fairly new to rangefinders. Bought my first Leica (M6) in 2011 and M9 in 2012.

 

[robertwright]

the first rangefinder was my father's Agfa Ambi Silette- he had the 50 and the 90. At 15 I pleaded and pleaded and we bought a sears (ricoh) 35rf, which i still have and takes decent pictures.
I first saw an M6 I guess at the Maine Workshops and wondered about the special sauce everyone said it had. Didn't buy one till 1998 but got it home and had a hard time seeing through the small exit window, got scared, thought my editors would never bother with 35mm so I returned for the Mamiya 7 which essentially taught me the mechanics of the rangefinder with it's bigger eyepiece.
Feeling flush in 2000 I bought a used M6 and elmarit 28, followed by a 35 and 50 and haven't looked back since. M8 in 2007 since sold. Awaiting possible future with M240 but maybe not.
Two years ago I bought the agfa 35 on ebay to complete my dad's set and gave it to him for christmas. He was astonished I could find it. The ambi was always called the poor man's leica. In some ways it is better, leaf shutter, bayonet is indestructible.

 

[Godfrey]

I purchased a Leitz Minolta CL off of eBay in 2010, but I'm still not sure if I consider it a "real" Leica since there was an actually Leica CL as well. I purchased the Leica M8 on eBay in 2011. ...

The CL was a collaborative effort between Leica and Minolta. The body design came from Leica, the manufacturing techniques and production from Minolta. The 40 and 90 mm lenses were designed by Leica, Leica manufactured all the 90mm lenses, branded both Leitz and Minolta, and their branded 40mm, the Summicron-C 40mm f/2, where Minolta manufactured the gen 1 & 2 versions of the M-Rokkor 40mm f/2. Same designs, slightly different materials and finish ... it's hard to tell them apart. (The M-Rokkor 28mm f/2.8 is a 100% Minolta design and manufacture, and not up to the same performance level as the 40 and 90 mm lenses.)

(You can see the difference to the Minolta design DNA when you look at the Minolta CLE body—that's what they wanted to produce after the CL. It was too radical a departure for Leica, I suspect, and Leica hadn't made much profit on the CL anyway was my understanding.)

So I see the CL as a real Leica, regardless of the facts that Minolta manufactured the bodies and they were sold as "Leitz Minolta CL" and "Leica CL". They're all the same camera, just the branding is different to satisfy the two collaborators' different market demographics.

I've had three CLs and a CLE; still have my third CL now. It's still one of my favorite film cameras. A good CL is a very good shooter, and it plus the 40 and 90mm lenses make a superb kit. Add a shorter focal length (I use the Color Skopar 21mm f/4) and you have it all for a film kit.

G