Leica IIIG

The Leica III G (often said to stand for “Gorgeous”) was introduced by Leica in 1957.

It was the last of the screw mount Leicas as designed by Oscar Barnack. Barnack did not actually design the III G as he passed away in January 1936 after releasing the III A.

The Leica III G is considered the apex of his series and was actually released after the M3 that would introduce the new bayonet mount and uses a different architecture. The two models would be available together for a time before the M series took over.

Feature wise the Leica III G improved from the previous extremely successful III F by offering a larger and brighter viewfinder with projected frame lines and automatic parallax correction for 50 and 90 mm lenses. A distinctive change in body configuration was necessary to allocate the new viewfinder, making it very easy to spot.

Only 40 000 Leica III G were ever produced, making it a quite rare collectible today.