Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]thibault collin wrote: > Hello luggers, > I just saw an M4-P with a straigh M4 viewfinder! > It only has screens for 35, 50, 90 and 135 mm lenses! > Is that a strange fruit or a modified stuff? > Thanks for your help! > Thib. Dear Thib, I hope it will be a long time until we see a Leica Rangefinder with focusing screens in their viewfinder; but then with Solms, you never know. SLR have focusing screens. Leica Rangefinders have projected brightlines. A good repairman can do pretty much anything you want with your brightlines within a compatible family. The M2/M4/M4-2/M4-P/M5/M6 can be interchanged so far as the brightlines are concerned. IE you can add the six framelines of the M6 to the M2, or cut back the six framelines of the M6 to the three of the M2, or anywhere in-between. The M3, M6J, M6 HP all have finders which are apparently distinct designs. You can also have a top repairman put the later RF/VF into a M3, or you can also put the M3 finder into the M6 (while of course losing the metering). Not many people are willing to go to the expense or trouble, but it has been done. Several people on the LUG have talked about the M6J finder retrofitted into a M6, one of those is for sale now. In the future, a popular modification is likely to be retrofitting a M6 HM finder into a regular M6 body. I have a page at my site on RF/VF which might be interesting to you http://cameraquest.com/leica.htm Your M4-P was most likely modified privately. IF you have a very early number M4-P, production officially started at 1543351, perhaps it was a prototype or test camera. Regards, Stephen Gandy