Meet the LEICA lllg 

Yes they are mechanical marvels, accurate and well made

and one without any viewfinder also

@@gusatvoschiavonYes there are many ways to like a Leica!

Yes when everything is so manual and mechanical you finish up with an intricate design. Something which is missing from today’s digital cameras

Thanks for your comments, yes I like to use my cameras too rather than just collect them for display or investment. Good luck with your 35mm RF shooting!

Hi Gaurab, Thanks for your comment. No, this camera is not a good one for eyeglass wearers. You’d have to try it to see if you can see through it properly without your glasses on but you really need to jam your eye right into the viewing peepholes in order to focus and compose with them properly. Part of the problem is that the lenses in the peepholes are fairly deeply recessed, which has the advantage that they always tend to stay clean. Incidentally, in the video the 50mm bright line frame appeared pincushion-distorted but when actually viewing through the camera it appears perfectly rectilinear.

Thanks for your comments. It’s a good thing that Nikon used the same shutter button collar design as the lllg’s, because when I went to buy a new cable release for my lllg I was able to buy a brand new Nikon release for it from Japan at a very reasonable price!

Hi Peter - I picked it up from a very well stocked camera dealer here in Australia, Camera Exchange in Box Hill, Victoria. But I have noticed quite a few good IIIgs around, perhaps because they were the last model made and particularly expensive. The case is compact and very usable!

@@enLARGE.darkroom DROOL, DROOL !

I’m pretty sure that the main differences are the self timer, the lllg’s bigger, more sophisticated viewing window, and a simpler form of flash synchronisation setting in the lllg. In the video the bright line compositional frame has appeared bent (pincushioned, I recall) whereas when you look through the camera in real life its perfectly rectangular, very neat. The lllg viewfinder also has the parallax correction too. I couldn’t imagine using a camera that doesn’t offer accurate compositional framing (and the lllg is very accurate) so the lllg is my choice. Yes, you need to use your camera!

Yes, for many photographers you’re right, the M series was more efficient in many ways. I have owned several M cameras and I never wanted a vintage Barnack Leica until a lllg, with its improved viewfinder, became available. For fast, professional work the M series is surely the winner.

It’s a cotton packing strap taken from an old wooden Japanese crockery packing box and stitched together with a plastic joining clip and adjustment buckle taken from a thrown-out kittens collar. Very hi-tech! The screw-in metal loop is a Leitz camera screw taken from one of their heavy duty camera straps. Because the tripod socket is at one end of the camera this type of attachment carries well, and I try to avoid using key rings at the side lugs because I think they wear them out. The new Leica fabric neck straps have metal loops which look and feel much more sympathetic, and that’s my 2nd option other than using the leather everready case, which also works well, it’s very compact and protective.

Hi Steven, I don’t own, and haven’t owned, very many of these Barnack cameras but I do own two of these lllg cameras of very similar age, serial number and overall external condition and I can tell you that one of them (the other one) fires with a noticeably louder and sharper sound than this one, so I guess they’re all a bit different, and I have noticed different shutter release loudness in the several different Leica M cameras which I have owned. As for having a broken shutter (eg. a broken shutter drum spring), I have had this once in a very well used Leica M5, and you’ll discover the state of your shutter, in this and other respects, eg. pinholes, fabric fraying and other faults, quickly and easily if you shoot a short test roll at a variety of different shutter speeds. The noisiness of the shutter may also be influenced by its internal lubricated condition and may be improved upon by cleaning, servicing and relubricating. Good luck with yours!

@@enLARGE.darkroom Thank you very much for sharing your valuable experience! Really helpful to me! Thanks 🙏

No, I think you could set the speed first if you wanted to, but with the camera in the not-advanced position then the shutter setting knob is difficult to read and set properly, so you wouldn’t normally do it that way.

The strap is a cotton belt which came from a wooden Japanese crockery packing box, which I sewed together with some plastic clips taken from a cat’s neck collar. The metal ring and screw is taken from a Leitz heavy duty leather camera strap.

No, the lllg is not a good camera to use if you need to wear glasses. You really need to get your eye right in close at the deeply recessed tiny peep holes and glasses will prevent this. However because the camera has a focusing eyesight adjustment lever at the rewind knob this may make it possible for some glasses wearers to use the camera without their glasses, but you’d still need to find the main framing window peephole to be compatible with your eyesight, either with or without your glasses on. I need glasses only for reading and I find that the camera works fine without them, but if you need glasses for general vision then you may find the camera unusable. One of the interesting things that I find about the lllg which is not the case with the more modern M series cameras is that the smaller more deeply recessed optical elements of the focussing and viewing ports at both front and back of the camera tend to stay naturally and permanently clean, free of fingerprints etc., which is very convenient but it makes eyeglasses impractical.

Yes, this camera takes regular factory packed 35mm films in lengths of eg. 12, 24 and 36 exposures.