If you want the best Leica CL, pinch a grain of salt and look for one of these later models. Our writer Dustin has it on good authority from Sherry Krauter, herself a famed Leica repairer and occasional grumpy Gus, that later versions (serial number 103XXXX and above) of the Leitz Minolta CL have over twenty internal modifications and improvements. In addition, there’s a relatively rare “50 Jahre” anniversary edition made to celebrate fifty years of Leica cameras (1925-1975) and these come with special serial numbers denoting their place in the production run.įunctionally, all of the differently-named cameras are identical. Let’s get back on track.Ĭo-designed by Leitz and Minolta and manufactured by the latter in Japan, the CL was known at various times and in various places as the Leica CL, the Leitz Minolta CL, or the Minolta CL. It’s cold here, and I do believe I’m fighting a bout of seasonal affective disorder. Aging electronics and critical components made of less-robust-than-brass plastics have made ownership of this camera something akin to falling in love beautiful and worthwhile, but ultimately doomed. The war of attrition that each of us will inevitably lose has compromised the greatness of the Leica CL. The importance of durability and longevity in any conversation around classic cameras has naturally taken on more weight than at any other point in these machines’ lives, and discussing a Leica CL is now all but impossible without direct comparison to its cousins, the Leica M series. These days the youngest Leica CL is more than forty years old. In 2018, the definition may have changed. In 1973, the Leica CL was a great camera by its own definition. It was a radical departure from the M mount cameras that came before it, and a short-lived harbinger of what would later succeed. The great thing about the Leica CL, when new, was that it shed the trappings of the brand whose name it wore.
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February 2023
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