Shooting film has always interested me. I started out using my mom’s Pentax ME Super as well as a Leica iiic that I had picked up off of eBay for $250 with a 50mm collapsible Elmar lens. Coincidentally still my only true Leica lens. But I always wanted a film Leica M camera but as the years went by they kept getting more and more expensive. I did end up getting a digital Leica M8 which basically rekindled my passion for carrying around a camera and not just my phone, and making art not just snapping away incessantly, but I still wanted to shoot film on an all-mechanical, manual M camera.
M4, A Brief History
The Leica M4 is the last camera that Leica manufactured using all hand-selected brass parts in Germany, due to the massive flop of the M5, which nearly bankrupted Leica causing them to need to manufacture cameras in Canada. The cameras that came before the M4, the M3 which was the original M, then the latter, and the cheaper M2 (budget M) were also options that I was looking at in my eBay quest.
eBay Quest
Buying an M camera in this day and age is full of pitfalls and gotchas! While heralded as the pinnacle of build quality and design the M(3,2,4) cameras are going on 60 to 70 years old and as we should always recognize things fail. The best thing that you can do is do your research. I have been buying used cameras off eBay since my Nikon D7000 and you really want to do as much as you can so you get a working camera and not a dud. For Leicas of this vintage, you want to make sure all of the shutter speeds trigger and are accurate. The next thing is the rangefinder focusing mechanism. You want it to be bright and provide accurate focus as well as be responsive as you align the images in the rangefinder patch. Any issues or broken components in these areas is basically a no-go for me.
Another indicator of confidence is if the camera has been CLA’d or (Cleaned Lubed and Adjusted) this is a service that Leica repair professionals do to maintain cameras in their best working order. Another note is to not be discouraged new listings regularly pop up on eBay so you can find good deals so stay persistent.
I was able to get my M4 for just under $1500 after about a week or so worth of eBay hunting. This one had some cosmetic damage to the top plate as well as the vulcanite (the grip material on the body) is cracking and falling off but all the shutter speeds work and the range finder focus is responsive albeit a bit slow. It also had a 14-day return policy so if it was not what I wanted I could return it. Now I need to actually shoot some film to make sure it is working as expected.
Loading the Film
The loading mechanism on the M4 was a new feature that differed from the M3 and earlier Leica cameras. The M4 uses a built-in take-up spool that has 3 metal prongs that you slide the film leader into at the same time as you place the canister into the camera body. Many people think the M4 is hard to load because they are cranking the film advance before closing up the bottom plate. But if you follow the instructions in the manual and the image on the camera itself you are going to get it right! Then once it’s closed up crank the film advance till the indicator is at 0 then I like to roll the rewind back a bit so that the film is taught inside the canister. Then when you are ready to shoot crank the film advance to 1 and you should see the rewind lever spin in the opposite direction. This means you are loaded correctly and the film is being pulled from the canister onto the film spool.
Taking pictures
Since I had already used a Leica iiic and my M8 it was pretty easy to get right to shooting. One of the major modern conveniences missing from the M4 is a light meter. The light meter is used to measure the light levels and allows you to set your shutter speed and aperture according to the film sensitivity or ISO speed. I am still a novice to be able to meter by eye so I use an app on my iPhone to meter as well as to log the photographs I am going to take.
Then set the shutter speed to the closest value trending toward overexposure and taking the shot.
Location
I wanted my test shots to be of something or somewhere interesting so I decided to venture out of my neighborhood to a town close by called Benicia CA. It is a quaint little town on the bay that is a few miles away from Vallejo. It has a downtown area with little shops, coffee houses, a bakery, and a plethora of restaurants. There are also a few too many antique shops as well to lose yourself in. I mostly wandered around this area taking pictures of the water and the local shops.
Rolls 1 and 2
The first two rolls of film I shot on the M4 were basically a complete wash. I mistakenly used some old Kodak 100 and 200-speed film that was probably purchased sometime in the late 1990s. So while I did get a few images they are way underexposed. Here are a few shots that I was able to recover by bumping up the blacks and desaturating the color to black and white.
So in order to make sure the camera was working I needed to shoot more rolls of film and on ones that weren’t expired for 20 some years…
Rolls 3 and 4
This time I shot on two rolls of FujiFilm 400. I shot the first roll as if it was 200 speed to account for if the film sensitivity had changed in the last few years (was also expired by a couple of years or so, didn’t have an exact date) and the second at 400 to see if the shutter was possibly slow by a stop. The first roll turned out great with most of the images right on exposure. The second roll came out a bit underexposed on the higher shutter speeds but a few on the lower speed settings turned out better.
I lightly edited a few of the images I got back, darkening the blacks and adjusting the saturation a bit. The images are up on my Instagram please like and share if you enjoyed them.
Hardware Evaluation
So am I keeping the camera? Absolutely! The first two rolls were my mistake, with such expired film it is no wonder the images were completely underexposed or just gone entirely. The 3rd and 4th rolls though turned out much better, so I am confident that the camera is performing adequately at the different shutter speeds. The images are also coming out very sharp, but I am mostly shot at infinity and f16 so there could be a minor offset that I have not encountered yet.
I am excited to get out and shoot some more now that I have it. It’s about the experience while shooting, the feel of the camera, and how you interact with it. I have other film cameras and they take great pictures but they don’t feel like a Leica, it may just be hype or all in my head but if it’s what gets me out the door and excited to take pictures it’s more than worth it!
Developing and Scanning Notes
When I first got into film I wanted to do everything myself, including developing and scanning my film. I got all the chemicals and a small 35mm developing drum timed out all the chemical washes and rinses. Dried the film and used my DSLR at the time to scan the film. Then I had to invert the images in photoshop.
What a pain, now I just take it to get processed at a local camera store, thank goodness they are still around! Please support your local film shops before they all disappear! Since I am in the Bay Area I went to my local Mikes Camera which has really decent prices and are super nice and welcoming. Plus if you get the yearly club membership each roll you develop is 25% cheaper what a steal.
They develop and scan your film then send you an email with a link to download your images. They are pretty quick, with a turnaround time of 2 to 3 days depending on how busy they are.
Check them out at mikescamera.com
