{"id":27546,"date":"2023-12-14T01:03:50","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T05:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=27546"},"modified":"2023-12-11T20:33:24","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T00:33:24","slug":"unintended-consequences-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/unintended-consequences-2\/","title":{"rendered":"unintended consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"
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M3 metal pressure plate courtesy of Jim Lager and his coffee table size trilogy on Leica<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. In 1954 Leitz blazed a new trail in the minicam saga with the introduction of the M3 model Leica – Its first post war design, the camera had \u00a0features galore over the modest screw-mount line. Gone forever was the ‘bottom-place-access-only’ for film insertion.<\/p>\n

In the M series, Leitz offered a hinged camera back plus the bottom plate! To complement this camera back feature, the metal pressure plate was replaced with a glass pressure place, eliminating any risk of \u00a0‘tram tracks’ due to a rough edge on the plate and to ensure a solid , perfectly parallel film – lens distance.<\/p>\n

Cold dry weather had a surprising impact on the early M3. Fast movement of the film across the plate generated static electricity … this occasionally caused a spark … the spark illuminated the film briefly … and created a lightening like image in the negative.<\/p>\n

After manufacturing about 3,000 M3 cameras (Dr Alex Wight’s “The Collector’s Checklist of Leica Cameras ..<\/a>“, 4th edition, 1980). Leitz swapped the glass plate for a metal plate that used the more conventional smooth edges to eliminate any risk of ‘tram tracks’. During the Summer Olympics in Montreal, I saw a customer who accidentally created the nefarious ‘tram lines’ (and some ghostly writings) in spite of the plate’s change in material – he had scratched his name on the metal pressure plate using the conveniently hinged camera back ….<\/p>\n

Note, I have all three of Jim’s massive books published in 1993 – 1998, purchased directly from him as each was first published. A wonderful visual history of the little camera that had such a huge impact on photography.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. In 1954 Leitz blazed a new trail in the minicam saga with the introduction of the M3 model Leica – Its first post war design, the camera had \u00a0features galore over the modest screw-mount line. Gone forever was the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27553,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27546\/revisions\/27553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}