International Camera Museum : Blue Moon Camera and Machine

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Leidolf Lordomat

The Leidolf Lordomat is a rare 35mm rangefinder camera with interchangeable lenses, born in Wetlzar, Germany - the same hometown of Leitz and the famous Leica camera. Meant to be a budget-Leica of sorts, the Lordomat is well-built, with a coupled rangefinder, a proprietary lens mount, and a behind-the-lens leaf shutter. It retailed for less than $100 in 1952 money, making it a little pricey, but no where near the cost of a Leica camera.

The Lordomat features the basic controls you'd expect to find on a 35mm rangefinder, circa the 1950s. Shutter speeds are set via a knurled ring by the lens mount with speeds from 1 second up to 1/300th, plus Bulb. Aperture is set on the lens itself. The shutter release is a small lever, located to the side of the lens, and is similar to levers found on large format lenses. However, unlike those lenses, the shutter on the Lordomat does not need to be manually armed as the film advance takes care of that. The camera has an accessory shoe that is not hot, but a PC socket on the side of the lens, which allows for the syncing of flashes with the shutter. The camera has a removable back door for easy film loading.

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Dueling Leidolf Lordomats

How lucky are we to have, not one, but two Lordomats in the store at the moment? It seems like all we need now is a medieval fight club for them. You know, the two Lordomats enter, one Lordomat leaves sort of thing. ⁠

⁠But what exactly is a Lordomat? Well, it is an interchangeable lens, 35mm rangefinder made by Leidolf. Leidolf was based in Wetzlar, Germany, which was also home to Leitz. It seems Leidolf was a subcontractor for Leitz, until they decided to give them some competition. Talk about gumption. It was one thing to be based in Japan and give Leitz competition, as done by Canon and Nikon, respectively. It was another to be in the same country and butting heads with Leitz, as Zeiss Ikon had been doing for decades. Leidolf brought this competition back to the hometown of Leica and still made a go at out-doing them. That takes courage, skill, creativity, money, and luck. It seems Leidolf was missing some combination of these factors, as less than 10 years after the Lordomat was introduced, camera production was shut down and the company was taken over. They made the switch from producing cameras to surveying equipment.⁠

⁠Despite only being around for a short time, the Lordomat is a solid camera. Unlike Leicas, the Lordomat uses a behind-the-lens leaf shutter, instead of a focal plane shutter. It's top speed is a bit lower, at only 1/300th, but the leaf shutter could sync with flash at all speeds. It is, arguably, more age-resistant than cloth or rubber curtains. One notable quirk of the Lordomat - its film advance lever rotates in a clockwise, rather than counter-clockwise, direction. You wind, front-to-back, in a double-stroke fashion. We cannot say we are sold on it, but we do appreciate its unique quality; the cameras are a bit weird, but there is a lot to like to one of these.