When is a Barnack not a Barnack?
Question: When is a Barnack Leica not a Barnack Leica?
Answer: When it’s an early Canon … possibly.
I decided to pick up another ‘premium’ LSM (Leica screw mount) rangefinder body to act as backup to my lovely 1938 Leica iiib and at below £100 body only I picked up this lovely old 1952 (ish) Canon iid. Below half the price of the cheapest ‘Barnack’ Leica about. First impressions:
The Canon definitely feels more bulky than my Leica, a little heavier, and the squared ends of the body feel a little less ‘comfy’ in the hand. The Canon is a three or four millimetres taller and three or four millimetres longer too. The Leica iiib was the last Leica to be pressed from brass sheet. The later ones had cast main cast chassis like the Canon. Given that the Leica feels more refined and indeed luxurious … while the ‘cart horse’ Canon feels like it could take a pounding that might wreck the more thoroughbred Leitz camera.
Relative sizes:
Not much in it … but the Canon feels a lot heavier, and the angled body ends are not quite as comfortable as the Leica.
The Canon’s shutter sound is a big surprise - it’s super quiet. My Leica has a crisp but quiet plop … the Canon has a very similar sound, but possibly even quieter. The shutter release action on both cameras is silky smooth anyway.
The Leica has a smoother wind on … but not by much, and a brighter viewfinder. The ace up the Canon’s sleeve is the integrated rangefinder/viewfinder … an improvement that didn’t arrive for Leica till the M2. The Canon’s viewfinder, while feeling a bit pokey, feels more like a ‘control centre’ in the modern camera sense. The two stage viewfinder magnification switch gives a big, clear view of the rangefinder patch at 1.5x … yes I know that that switch is actually meant to act as an approximation of the 100 and 135mm lens angles of view, so you can swap longer focal length lenses without the need of an auxiliary finder for each … but at least for my eyesight the viewfinder edges are too woolly to compose accurately.
Canon viewfinder on the left … Leica on the right … yep that’s the tiniest viewfinder eyepiece I’ve ever seen!
The real eye opener is that I paid £99.00 for the Canon, half the price of my Leica body. This is practically Russian rangefinder price bracket … and the Canon is way more classy than for example my Zorki 3C which cost me over £70.00 (admittedly with a lens). I suppose the problem is that rangefinder Canon bodies are not super thick on the ground in the UK, and the superb LTM Canon lenses get snapped up by Leica owners as they are soooooo much cheaper than Leica glass. My Canon 50mm f1.8 shown in the pics came from Japan … so I had to pay customs and postage on top of the very reasonable 140 quid it cost me. If you are prep aired to shop for lenses in the ‘land of the rising sun’ you will still be paying a fair bit … for example good 28mm Canon lenses seem to fetch around £300 … but compare that to the thousand quid plus a pukka Leica lens will cost … you have a bargain … well if you want to shoot rangefinders that is!
Cheap Russian rangefinder lenses work on the Canon … at least the wide angle and standard ones … but those who know seem to think there is a basic non compatibility between the longer lenses and both Leicas and Canons … due to the Russian cameras having a slightly different lens to film plane distance. I’m going to be conducting some tests with my 135mm Jupiter 11 over the coming weeks so I’ll let you know.
The conclusion is that I absolutely love the little Canon. While obviously not as refined as my Leica its a professional feeling, solid and gutsy machine. It makes any Russian rangefinder feel a bit ‘tractor like’ … and I say that as a fan of Russian rangefinder cameras. It’s somewhat of a bargain if you accept that you’ll pay modern, medium price lens money and have to buy from japan for your optics
Above: shot with Canon iid with Jupiter 12 35mm Russian lens. Yes it has very filmic flare! But then in fairness the sun was actually in the frame … and the lens is from 1959!