Photographing a wedding with a 1934 Barnack Leica

1934 Leica iii

Have you ever wondered what results you would get taking a camera that is 92 years old to a wedding? Probably not, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway. Obviously this was not my main camera for photographing this wedding as I also took along my Leica M4-P that was made in 1983 and a Minolta CLE which is also from the early 1980s.

“Barnack” Leica cameras are so called as they were designed by Oskar Barnack who was employed by Leitz in Germany, Oskar suffered with asthma which made carrying a heavy camera difficult so he designed his camera around 35mm movie film but with one change that shaped the future of photography, the film would run horizontally rather than vertically and this gave the 35mm standard that remains to this day. The first prototype was in 1913 although this lacked a rangefinder and viewfinder. The Leica iii was released in 1933 and included both a viewfinder and rangefinder as well as slow shutter speeds. My camera was sold in 1934 and shipped to a customer in Berlin, I don’t have any of the history after then or know how it ended up in the UK. The camera came to me in excellent condition and with all shutter speeds working & accurate, it also included the original leather case.

Photographing a wedding on a Barnack Leica

It really blows my mind that a camera that is 92 years old can still be used today with 35mm film. Compared to my Leica M4-P the Barnack Leica is very slow to use with separate windows for the rangefinder and viewfinder, loading the film is also a slow process but all part of the joy of using the camera. This camera really does slow you down but that is a positive as it gives you time to think and compose images rather than taking snapshots. Winding the film on between frames is also a slower process and a complete contrast to digital photography. Shutter speeds can only be selected once the film is wound on and you must lift the shutter speed dial to rotate it.

The Leica iii lacks a light meter, the same as my M4-P, I never find this a problem as I can generally estimate the exposure and use the latitude of film to cover any slight errors. I have two lenses for the screw mount on the Leica iii, a 5cm F3.5 Elmar folding lens and a 3.5cm F3.5 Summaron lens. The Leica iii only has a 50mm viewfinder and it is tiny, so I prefer to use an external finder for both the 50mm and 35mm lenses. The Leica iii is tiny compared to most other 35mm film cameras and can fit in a jacket pocket with the folding 50mm lens.

I used the Leica iii for slower parts of the day where I wasn’t trying to catch action and had enough time to put my eye to the rangefinder to focus and then transfer my eye to the viewfinder, that doesn’t mean you can’t capture fast action and plenty of legendary photographers back in the day did exactly that.

I really enjoyed the experience of using this camera for wedding photography and it will find a place in my camera bag for summer weddings, the slow aperture lenses I own are less suited to low light with winter weddings and as I also own some amazing low light lenses for my Leica M cameras they are better suited for this.

Click the link below to view the rest of this wedding from Ivy Lodge.