A year after the release of the Leica II, a new and more complete model, the Leica III, appeared. It featured a full range of shutter speeds from one second to 1/500 of a second. On the front of the camera was a separate dial for setting the slower speeds: one second, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8", 1/20", and the T setting.
In addition to its slow shutter speeds, which allowed the Leica to compete with any camera equipped with a Compur shutter, this model featured several important improvements. First, a welcome innovation was the inclusion of a strap eyelet at each end of the camera body. Second, the rangefinder offered a slight magnification (1.5x), facilitating precise focusing when using long focal lengths or wide-aperture lenses; finally, it could be adjusted to the operator's eyesight using a lever concentric with the eyepiece.
The Leica II and Leica III look very similar, which is not surprising since the Leica II was manufactured after the launch of the Leica III and therefore features the same improvements; the Leica III was initially only available in black, then chrome from serial number 116001.
