Camera of week 13 – Leica C3
Hello friends, today we will talk about first Leica camera in this blog and it is Leica C3. It’s quite boring P&S zoom although considerable improvment over C1 and C2, it’s still pretty plain and only selling point of this camera red Leica logo. Camera takes 35mm film and use automatic film transport, including rewinding at end of roll. Lens is 28–80 mm f/3.6–7.9 LEICA VARIO-ELMAR ASPH with 8 elements in 6 groups. It’s quite slow at longer end but as camera have inbuilt flash pictures won’t get blurred out. Minimum focusing distance is at pretty decent 0.6m or 2 feet. Camera is using Infra-red sensor for auto-focusing, metering mode is Center-weighted. C3 also offers most of popular flash modes, like rear and slow sync, double flash to reduce red eyes effect and several more. Shutter speeds range from 1/370 s to 99 seconds. Viewfinder covers up to 80% of frame, which may seem low compered to SLR’s it’s quite good for compact zoom P&S. Camera weights 270 grams and takes one CR 123A battery for operation. It was made in two batches bigger one in 2002 (25K units) and second in 2003 (10K units).
Price on eBay for full set with manual and case is about 300$. Cheapest one right now is on Italian eBay for 145 euro. - http://www.ebay.it/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280867886125&clk_rvr_id=336613946403&item=280867886125&lgeo=1&vectorid=229494
Leica C3 from http://www.l-camera-forum.com/
Info from: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/C3
