Camera Speed Triple Date – Leica M3

Those that know Meghan and I know that we have what appears to be an on going camera acquisition problem. To remedy this but continue to try out ALL of the cameras we have decided to start borrowing cameras from our fellow camera enthusiasts instead of trying to purchase or hoard them all to ourselves. Not all are winners though and some are just easier or more fun to use but you have to shoot with them first to find out! Thus, we decided if we run a roll through every camera we are interested in, not unlike going on a 5 minute date with a bunch of strangers at a singles night, we can quickly see which are worthy of being added to our collection (or put on our list of “must haves.”) Camera speed dating!

This is a triple date because Meghan and I shot the same Kosmo Foto 100 roll in the same Leica M3.

This Camera Speed Date edition is a continuation of a previous one. After loaning me the Braun Paxette last spring Raz was kind enough to let Meghan and myself take his fathers Leica M3 out for a date. The Leica M3 was the camera Raz’s father, Bill, purchased as an upgrade to his Braun Paxette. I definitely felt the upgrade part, firstly because the M3 has  rangefinders focus (and a very clear one at that), the Paxette uses zone focus and zone focus means I will inevitably forget to focus….! Also I’m not sure if it was just me being more practiced now, but the Leica M3 felt easier to load than the previous Leica III I’ve used. Of course the light the morning we went out shooting was spectacular so of course we wished we’d had colour film loaded in it! We had fun shooting it though and it was great to have the opportunity to try it out.

Here’s our previous date with the Paxette: https://www.beauphoto.com/camera-speed-dating-braun-paxette/

 

 

We also thought it would be a good opportunity to try out the “new” Kosmo Foto Mono 100 speed black and white film that we have in store for sale. This film now comes in 135 and 120 format and it seems most people love it for it’s very stylized box. Great marketing on their part! As for the film itself, it is an existing emulsion from a European film producer, but it is new stock. We found it to be a bit grey, as both of us enjoy a more high contrast black and white film in generally. We did achieve a few high contrast shots, but with a fair amount of loss of detail. In the right light though we did enjoy it’s subtle tones which made for a nice portrait of me taken by Meghan. Here are a few shots taken by both of us…