Granted, I was reading Brian Bower's Leica M Photography book (wonderful it is) and saw a B and W photo of the fabled Leica IV (note yet it's a LEICA IV AKA FOUR) prototype which wasn't made during WWII. It looked kinda funny to be honest but a logical step from the Leica IIIg with bigger viewfinders and rangefinders I think.

Does anyone have the lowdown on the fabled Leica IV camera? Is it a Leica M prototype? I wonder where you can dig up one of these cool beans... :)

-- Alfie Wang (leica_phile@hotmail.com), March 01, 2002

Answers

Leica IV aka Voightlander Bessa R(2)?

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), March 02, 2002.

Bower's discussion is about the extent of the readily available information, although James Lager's books may have some additional information.

As to where you can "dig up" one of these, I imagine that the Leica museum in Solms is your best bet. I can't tell you what the price might be, but if you buy the Leica company (and you wouldn't need to be as rich as Bill Gates to do that) you could probably just take it out of the display case and start using it.

-- RP Johnson (rpjohnson2@mindspring.com), March 02, 2002.

Hi Alfie! I happened to be reading the Japanese magazine Leica Tsushin No. 6: Mechanism and Prototype (Tokyo: Ei Publishing Co. Ltd., 2002) which has an article about the Leica IV prototype (I don't read Japanese, but there's enough illustrations and Chinese characters in the text to figure out what the article is saying). Essentially, as I understand, the Leica IV prototype was designed to tackle two shortcomings in the Leica screw-mount body, namely, the cumbersome seperate viewfinder and focusing finder, and the fiddly film-loading method. This 1936 prototype has a combined view/focus finder like the M3, but the design is in the form of an inter- changeable viewfinder that couples to the camera's focusing mechanism. It also has a hinged back that is similar to that on the M body. The war interrupted its development, but, in the event, it became the basis of the M3. In this regard, it can be considered as the prototype for the M3 camera.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), March 02, 2002.

Alfie, if you like experimental Leica's - here's a couple more:

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), March 02, 2002.

The Leica H that Giles illustrated was developed at the same time as the Leica IV by another group of engineers in Wetzlar in the mid-1930s. It went head to head with the Leica IV and lost. I suspect that the only prototypes extant are in the Solm's museum. Keep accumulating that Microsoft stock.

-- Albert Knapp MD (albertknappmd@mac.com), March 02, 2002.

Speaking of Leica H prototypes...

-- Tod Hart (tghart@altavista.com), March 02, 2002.

LOL! Tod, thanks for the Leica-H link!

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), March 03, 2002.

Tod:

I'm selling my M7 (or, at least, I WILL as soon as it arrives) to buy a Leica H. Should I get silver or black? Can I use my Voigtlander lenses on it? Thanks.

Dennis

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), March 03, 2002.

Sorry, since this is a medium format camera your 35mm Voigtländer lenses won't work. But an authorized Leitz repair shop should have no difficulty replacing the original 60mm lens with a 75mm Skopar salvaged from an old Voigtländer Brilliant TLR. The budget-minded could use the 75mm Kodet lens from an old Kodak Duaflex. That should drive the used prices of those old cameras up considerably. As to the body color - I have it on good authority (my neighbor's second cousin's brother-in-law runs a cafe where one of the Leitz Engineer's barber ate lunch last Tuesday) that the camera will be supplied from the factory only in black. But it will be sold with a tube of aluminum-colored model airplane paint so the user can change it to a chrome model if desired. Of course this raises the issue of whether or not to paint over the red dot.

-- Tod Hart (tghart@altavista.com), March 03, 2002.

How come the Leica-H in Tod's post looks more akin to the "Leica Box" in the pictures?

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), March 04, 2002.