Two classy ladies
Hard to believe that these two German classics are separated by 19 years. The elder of the two, the IIIa, was manufactured in 1939, The IIIg is from 1958.
Yes, there was a war in between. Even taking that into account, it's surprising how small the changes are. There are many of changes, all of them rather insignificant.
Both cameras have a fastest exposure time of 1/1000 seconds. Both have a separate dial for long exposure times, long meaning everything above 1/20 s (IIIa) or i/30 s (IIIg) and up to 1 s.
Both require the first 10 cm of the film leader to be trimmed with a scissor. And both require unmounting the bottom to load the film, which has to be fumbled onto a metal spool. That used to bother me, at first. I doesn't any more, I'm used to it now. No point in grumbling about such things. If you don't like it, a Leica isn't the right camera for you. No problem with that - there are plenty of other cameras.
No thread-mount Leica really is a rangefinder camera. The finder is physically separate from the range measurement. You peer into the little viewport that's more to the left, which gives a magnified image of the scene, focus, and then switch other other viewport to do the image compo. With the IIIa, the two viewports are about 3 cm apart. With the IIIg they're right next to one another (this can be rather tricky if you use them alternatingly).
Yes, that is ante-diluvian. It was obsolete in 1939 and it certainly was obsolete in 1958. No question about it. I mostly don't even use the range-measurement. I guess the distance and use hyperfocal DOF for focusing.
Zeiss-Ikon offered a real viewfinder in 1936 on Contax II that Leica introduced only with the M3 in 1954. In terms of ergonomics, the Contax ran rings around the Leicas. Apart from the rangefinder with a much longer baseline, the Contax offered a back-opening body, and a bayonet for fast lens exchange.
But hey, the reason why people use Leicas is the reason why I use Leicas. Because they are so well engineered that they just go on working, every single bit of them, decade after decade after decade.
Both of these two ladies make a wonderful, round ker-lick sound on shutter release. The sound of a well-made mechanical device. And both feel good in your hand, really good. The almost 80 year old IIIa even more than her younger sibling. Two good reasons for me to go on taking pictures with them.
The IIIg has a larger viewfinder and shows a parallax-corrected frame for a 50 mm or 90 mm focal length. The IIIa doesn't offer that feature, and its finder is rather arbitrary anyway. It's calculated for a 50 mm lens, but I use her with a 35 mm Summaron, so what I want to be in the frame mostly is in the frame, erratic finder notwithstanding.
The IIIg has a self-timer. It works fine, but I never use it. The IIIg also offers an M-sync for a bulb flash unit. I never looked into how to sync the flash because I only do available light.
Two classy ladies
Hard to believe that these two German classics are separated by 19 years. The elder of the two, the IIIa, was manufactured in 1939, The IIIg is from 1958.
Yes, there was a war in between. Even taking that into account, it's surprising how small the changes are. There are many of changes, all of them rather insignificant.
Both cameras have a fastest exposure time of 1/1000 seconds. Both have a separate dial for long exposure times, long meaning everything above 1/20 s (IIIa) or i/30 s (IIIg) and up to 1 s.
Both require the first 10 cm of the film leader to be trimmed with a scissor. And both require unmounting the bottom to load the film, which has to be fumbled onto a metal spool. That used to bother me, at first. I doesn't any more, I'm used to it now. No point in grumbling about such things. If you don't like it, a Leica isn't the right camera for you. No problem with that - there are plenty of other cameras.
No thread-mount Leica really is a rangefinder camera. The finder is physically separate from the range measurement. You peer into the little viewport that's more to the left, which gives a magnified image of the scene, focus, and then switch other other viewport to do the image compo. With the IIIa, the two viewports are about 3 cm apart. With the IIIg they're right next to one another (this can be rather tricky if you use them alternatingly).
Yes, that is ante-diluvian. It was obsolete in 1939 and it certainly was obsolete in 1958. No question about it. I mostly don't even use the range-measurement. I guess the distance and use hyperfocal DOF for focusing.
Zeiss-Ikon offered a real viewfinder in 1936 on Contax II that Leica introduced only with the M3 in 1954. In terms of ergonomics, the Contax ran rings around the Leicas. Apart from the rangefinder with a much longer baseline, the Contax offered a back-opening body, and a bayonet for fast lens exchange.
But hey, the reason why people use Leicas is the reason why I use Leicas. Because they are so well engineered that they just go on working, every single bit of them, decade after decade after decade.
Both of these two ladies make a wonderful, round ker-lick sound on shutter release. The sound of a well-made mechanical device. And both feel good in your hand, really good. The almost 80 year old IIIa even more than her younger sibling. Two good reasons for me to go on taking pictures with them.
The IIIg has a larger viewfinder and shows a parallax-corrected frame for a 50 mm or 90 mm focal length. The IIIa doesn't offer that feature, and its finder is rather arbitrary anyway. It's calculated for a 50 mm lens, but I use her with a 35 mm Summaron, so what I want to be in the frame mostly is in the frame, erratic finder notwithstanding.
The IIIg has a self-timer. It works fine, but I never use it. The IIIg also offers an M-sync for a bulb flash unit. I never looked into how to sync the flash because I only do available light.