Frankencamera, the project behind the great Ollie Baker, is back with another accurate digital conversion of one of the most loved camera ever: the Leica M3.

“The reason for the project is the phenomenal rangefinder viewfinder in the M3. I have always loved manual focus, I feel it forces me to interact with the scene in front of me more and I love rangefinders, arguably the easiest viewfinders to focus, as I find they don’t have the distractions of other viewfinders. The light doesn’t travel through the lens but instead through a window with frame-lines and rangefinder window inside. I enjoy the mystery this affords the final photo as you do not see the depth of field, bokeh or exact frame-lines whilst composing, so I concentrate more on the “story” of the photo than visual effects. Besides being exceptionally clear and bright, the M3’s viewfinder has a magnification close to 1x (with 50mm frame-lines) which for me, adds to the unobtrusive nature of a rangefinder. The M3 is a beautiful and revered camera so I have made sure the conversion is completely reversible and does not damage any Leica parts. I hope that this project celebrates the M3, expanding the possibility of its best feature, its viewfinder: one model allows film and digital to be used interchangeably, whilst the other can recycle the rangefinder from an M3 whose shutter mechanism is broken.” says the young Baker in his website.

Even the conversion might seem a bit complicated and sounds pretty challenging, Oliver Baker published a very detailed guide about the entire process: how to dismantle a Leica M3 and their relative digital choice, a Sony A7 or the Soy NEX-5.

“I started trying to make a version similar to my original Konica conversion but with a Sony A7 sensor. I quickly ran into difficulty with space as the A7 parts were larger and more fiddly than those in the Sony NEX-5. My attempt to shoe-horn the A7 parts in made the camera large, ugly and unreliable. I was not interested in creating a camera that was less than the sum of its parts so I split the project into two models, one using the NEX-5 sensor which essentially just clips onto the back of the Leica, and another with the A7 sensor and parts of the Leica (including the functioning rangefinder of course) but not the body and shutter of the Leica. I felt that these two models should satisfy different priorities: if you want the most authentic, fully manual M3 experience with all the Leica engineering, the NEX model suits you. On the other hand, if you’re mostly interested in the M3 rangefinder and you want a full-frame sensor and metering; the A7 model would be best. It may seem ridiculous to only use the rangefinder and disregard the mechanics of the camera but when you consider an external Leica viewfinder (with no rangefinder) is worth £625 it makes more sense, Leica is an optics company after all.”

There is one set of instructions for each of the three tear-downs (M3, NEX, A7) and a set for each of the two reconstructions.
Next, you can buy the 3d model files by contacting the author via email.

More info on Frankencamera’s website.