INTRODUCTION

The Leica IIIa is a 35mm film rangefinder camera made in Germany between 1935 and 1938. Mine is from 1935.

BEST SUITED FOR:

Art

Fun!

Travel

PERSONAL NOTES

Over the years, I had many Leica. All of them were great. I also had many russian copies. Even if these copies look the same, let me tell you that they are not at all!

I probably had a dozen Russian or Ukrainian cameras. Each of them developped all sorts of issues, then they -all- died.

On the other hand, a real Leica from 1935 is still working great today. Sure, if you buy one it can sometime need a CLA (clean lube adjust), but you then have a tool you can rely on.

If you take account for reliability, the Leica IIIa is not expensive at all, even if it's very old, it's still a great camera today.

The Leica IIIa is rudimentary compairing to the M series of rangefinders, but much less expensive and they work great.

CONCLUSION

I would recommend any Leica, especially the M3 for shooting street photography with a 50mm, and any Leica from the 30s because they are cheap and they still work great today.

Forget about the russian copies, they break too easily.

PHOTO SAMPLES

VERDICT:

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