[Leica] Advice needed: Buying Leica IIIf and 50mm lens

[pdzwig at summaventures.com (Peter Dzwig)]

Colin J wrote:


> However, I still want to use two bodies and am
> considering buying a screw mount Leica body and a
> 50mm lens.  I would also use this body with
> Voigtlander 12mm and 15mm lenses.

with the wide angle lenses you could also buy a Bessa T or L for 
architecture. 
Indeed CV were promoting them as such in their early catalogues. The latter 
are 
very cheap at the moment and for architecture etc could solve your problem 
at a 
very cheap price - and plenty of people are using them in situations where 
they 
get paid.
> 
> Is it viable to use a 50+ year old screw mount
> body for paid work?  Is it possible to get
> reliable, repeatable results from a IIIf? 

absolutely, there are plenty of LUGers using IIIfs to produce reliable 
results 
you can look at a reasonable proportion of the LUG PAWs including my own. 
You 
may not like what you see ;-) but they are reliable. If you buy one use some 
common sense and test it in much the sam,e way as you would test a new 
M-mount 
and if necessary get it CLA'd.
  I ask
> about the IIIf because it seems good value, with
> black dial versions selling at very attractive
> prices.
> 
> Would there be a better choice than a IIIf?  What
> would I need to do to ensure that a used IIIf
> could become a reliable professional tool?

The seperate eyepieces for finder and focus are different and are a bit of a 
pain in the *** at first, with experience it seems to get easier. Exposure 
is a 
question of using the usual rules ("sunny 16" etc) with B&W and as you are 
experienced with a darkroom post-processing. People used to shoot plenty of 
Kodachrome...

The Bessa T has TTL metering, speeds to 1/2000th and flash sync...

> 
> I also need advice on which would be a good
> choice of 50mm lens.  

It depends what you want to do. You have got a choice of modern glass or 
older 
glass. The older glass has a certain nuanced image all of its own which you 
may 
well like - or not! I use an f1.5 Summarit which gives me good low-light 
capability, if not Noctilux level. There are a huge variety of lenses to be 
bought in LTM and not just Leica, the 5cm f1.4 Serenar is supposed to be 
better 
than the Summarit, but is much rarer - at least here in the UK, some people 
prefer the Nikkor. Then there's the modern CV Nokton 1.5.Begining to get the 
picture? Th

I currently use a
> collapsible Tele Elmarit (Leitz Canada) but would
> be selling this and buying a good screw mount
> 50mm.
> 
Hope that this helps, would be happy to discuss further off list - or on if 
M &R 
people don't mind!

Peter Dzwig