The Leica bug
Posted on December 22, 2006
Filed Under All, Photos |
So, I’m not quite sure what brought this on in the middle of holidays, remodel, cancer treatments et al., but I’ve been thinking a lot about my Leicas lately (maybe the N Judah exercise?). When I still was working as a press photographer and shooting every day in the late 80s and early 90s, they were a favorite tool for the kind of close-in work that is a staple of the metier - courthouse mob scenes, some press conferences and the (dread) society party shots are examples.
Yesterday, the most modest of my M-mount rangefinders came off the shelf where it may have sat relatively unmolested for, um, 17 years. It’s actualy a Minolta CLE, a camera that Minolta made in collaboration with Leica in 1980. Two other ’serious’ Leicas, a M4-2 and a motorized M4-P also sit in a new Domke bag (to replace the 25-year old canvas Domke that, while still structurally sound was otherwise beat) with a clutch of Leitz lenses. We’ll get to them, later.
The CLE is the first ‘electronic Leica:’ it has auto-exposure and an electronically-controlled shutter. The upcoming M8 will be the first Leica-produced electronic shutter, I believe (is the M7 electronic?), some 27 years after the CLE. I bought the CLE used (as I did most of my Leicas) because a working photog with a family just did’t have the bucks for new. I was hoping to leave the Leitz 21mm f2.8 Elmarit on it, always around my neck and set for hyperfocus to grab those fleeting moments that sometimes come from nowhere. Unfortunately the 21’s deep rear element wouldn’t allow it to mount on the CLE.
So I used with the 40mm f2 M-Rokkor that came with it. I remember being unimpressed with the M-Rokkor’s quality (relative to Leitz M lenses) and didn’t much use it after a while - by itself it didn’t solve a lot of problems. The Camera Quest writer really likes it, though, so, we’re taking it out for a shakedown cruise. Miraculously, they still make the batteries (the evergreen MS76 ‘button’ cells) and I still have yellow and red filters to complement the freshly-loaded roll of TMAX 400 B&W film. I loved the smell of fresh film when it came out of the box: it took me a minute to remember how to open the camera and slot the film on the take-up spool…
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Love that Minolta CLE…great surveillance camera, Chris.
I somehow acquired an early post-war Kodak ‘Retina’ and have been mucking around with it. Great camera.