The Leica

When I graduated from high school in 1958 I used the $80 that I received from various people to buy a 35mm camera (I believe that it was a Ricoh) and began a long life of photography with that format. But unfortunately, not long after I purchased that camera, I attended a party one night and made the huge mistake of putting that camera on a wall hook with my jacket over it in an attempt to hide it from prospective thieves. When I later retrieved the jacket, I accidentally pulled the neck strap of the camera off the hook and it fell to the floor, striking itself on the front of the lens, destroying the camera for all time. I subsequently began a search for a better camera and during a phone call with Ed Buck's camera shop in Winona, Minnesota, I was told that they had an M3 Leica in stock that had just arrived. I went there and bought the camera, which at that time cost me a little more than $400, which was less than the retail price, something which was rarely done at that time and almost never done later. It came with the 50mm F:2 dual range Summicron lens, which I have been told by some is the very best lens ever made for any 35mm camera, although some would argue the point, especially in the world today. Below is a picture of the M3 Leica, although this photo is shown with the F:1.4 Summilux lens, instead of the F:2 Summicron. Over the following years, I took thousands of pictures with the Leica, one of which is mounted on the wall of my study here in Price, Utah, and it demonstrates profoundly what a wonderful camera this was. That photo of Mount Rushmore was taken in the 1960's on Kodak Ektacolor professional negative film, using a tripod, and was enlarged to 20 x 24 inches and framed for my collection. Some of the other Leica images I captured are also posted here on this web site.

The Leica M3 with the f:1.4 Summilux lens. Mine was fitted with the F:2 dual-range Summicron lens