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These lllg cameras are typically the most expensive of the Barnack models, but not including very rare examples. On the other hand there seem to be plenty of them about in very good condition, perhaps because they were the most recently made model. They are generally much cheaper to buy than M cameras. For the complete camera shown in this video, complete with leather case (but not lens hood or cloth neck strap and screw-in ring) I paid about half the price of a second hand M body (body only, no lens) in similar condition.

Yes, it’s an expensive app compared to most others, but these ‘others’ are mostly games that don’t save you any of your time or money. On the plus-side enLARGE is a one-time purchase with no additional in-app purchases, upgrade costs or extra costs (you only need a tape measure to use it with your enlarger) and it’s designed to save your time, photo paper and processing chems every time you use it, and you’ll save much more than $20 every time you use it. You’ll also make better looking enlargements in any variety of sizes, instead of just enlarging to one size only! Liberate your wallet! Liberate your ideas about enlarging! Liberate your enlarger! With enLARGE!

Try turning the lens’s focusing ring. Perhaps it is not set correctly. Also check that your lens’s serial number matches up with the s/n printed on the enlarger’s nameplate.

@@enLARGE.darkroom yes that lever was not engaged properly. It is working accurately

The strap is a cotton belt which came from a wooden Japanese crockery packing box, which I sewed together with some plastic clips taken from a cat’s neck collar. The metal ring and screw is taken from a Leitz heavy duty leather camera strap.

Yes I certainly would. I will produce one as soon as I can. It is quite an interesting enlarger! Thanks for your request!

The Visoflex ll can’t be made to work with the M240 because the release lever is in the wrong place and thus won’t connect with the M240’s shutter button, so yours must be a Visoflex lll, the same as the one in my video. In this case, you need to set the Visoflex’s plunger adjustment screw so that the threaded silver plunger just touches the shutter button of the M240 when the Visoflex is set to the red dot position. Then, to use the whole thing, set the Visoflex to the black dot position and make sure you keep your finger or cable release fully down (depressed) until the M240 has finished making its exposure, and then you can view your finished picture on the rear monitor screen. The mirror needs to be up and out of the way when the camera is exposing, so it’s a matter of controlling the actual exposure at the M240. Remember that your lens won’t stop down automatically so you need to view and focus with the lens already stopped down. Try using the A setting on the shutter dial and see how it goes.

It’s a cotton packing strap taken from an old wooden Japanese crockery packing box and stitched together with a plastic joining clip and adjustment buckle taken from a thrown-out kittens collar. Very hi-tech! The screw-in metal loop is a Leitz camera screw taken from one of their heavy duty camera straps. Because the tripod socket is at one end of the camera this type of attachment carries well, and I try to avoid using key rings at the side lugs because I think they wear them out. The new Leica fabric neck straps have metal loops which look and feel much more sympathetic, and that’s my 2nd option other than using the leather everready case, which also works well, it’s very compact and protective.

No, I think you could set the speed first if you wanted to, but with the camera in the not-advanced position then the shutter setting knob is difficult to read and set properly, so you wouldn’t normally do it that way.

Thanks for your comments. It’s a good thing that Nikon used the same shutter button collar design as the lllg’s, because when I went to buy a new cable release for my lllg I was able to buy a brand new Nikon release for it from Japan at a very reasonable price!

Yes, for many photographers you’re right, the M series was more efficient in many ways. I have owned several M cameras and I never wanted a vintage Barnack Leica until a lllg, with its improved viewfinder, became available. For fast, professional work the M series is surely the winner.

and one without any viewfinder also

@@gusatvoschiavonYes there are many ways to like a Leica!

Yes when everything is so manual and mechanical you finish up with an intricate design. Something which is missing from today’s digital cameras

Yes, this camera takes regular factory packed 35mm films in lengths of eg. 12, 24 and 36 exposures.

No, the lllg is not a good camera to use if you need to wear glasses. You really need to get your eye right in close at the deeply recessed tiny peep holes and glasses will prevent this. However because the camera has a focusing eyesight adjustment lever at the rewind knob this may make it possible for some glasses wearers to use the camera without their glasses, but you’d still need to find the main framing window peephole to be compatible with your eyesight, either with or without your glasses on. I need glasses only for reading and I find that the camera works fine without them, but if you need glasses for general vision then you may find the camera unusable. One of the interesting things that I find about the lllg which is not the case with the more modern M series cameras is that the smaller more deeply recessed optical elements of the focussing and viewing ports at both front and back of the camera tend to stay naturally and permanently clean, free of fingerprints etc., which is very convenient but it makes eyeglasses impractical.

I’m pretty sure that the main differences are the self timer, the lllg’s bigger, more sophisticated viewing window, and a simpler form of flash synchronisation setting in the lllg. In the video the bright line compositional frame has appeared bent (pincushioned, I recall) whereas when you look through the camera in real life its perfectly rectangular, very neat. The lllg viewfinder also has the parallax correction too. I couldn’t imagine using a camera that doesn’t offer accurate compositional framing (and the lllg is very accurate) so the lllg is my choice. Yes, you need to use your camera!

Yes they are mechanical marvels, accurate and well made

Yes - what you are saying is true - the sensor has its own innate ‘sensitivity’ which is not actually affected by changing the camera’s ISO setting. So it would be more technically correct, in order to avoid your ‘digital ISO malarkey’, to describe the control instead as ‘gain’, correct? And then users would say, “oh yes, GAIN, but what does that mean?” And you’d explain by saying “Well, when you RAISE the gain to a HIGHER number value then you get a grainier look in your pictures, with slightly reduced definition, weaker colouration, and lower contrast, and you get an opposite effect when you REDUCE the gain number value instead.” And the user would say, “Oh yes, that’s just the same as changing ‘ISO’ in the old days of film photography! Why didn’t you say so?”

@@enLARGE.darkroom This ' confusion ', and I am being kind here, was originally caused by the marketing people in the early stages of the design of digital cameras. They wanted familiarity with terms used in film photography, so they opted to call it ISO, rather than the proper term GAIN. They also conveniently forgot to tell people that the sensor at the heart of a digital camera is actually an analogue device. The conversion to digital takes place by the ADC. The increase in iso in a digital imaging device, simply amplifies the signal, good signal and bad signal or noise at the same time., and as a consequence a decrease in dynamic range. Then it is up to the processor within the camera and sophisticated algorithms and noise profiling to try and clean the signal and give the impression that digital is clean and sharp. Best to tell people the truth, I think.

​​@@enLARGE.darkroom This is the right answer. Adding the lengthy step of "well, actually!" to what is standard nomenclature for 99.9% of users is a waste of everyone's time and energy. You made the right call, as everyone has for decades now.