Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Alan, The cost of doing the conversion is approx. US$600 with the customer supplying the lens. I don't do the conversion myself, it requires collimators and more optical know-how than I have. The original concept came about when I lost the umpteens finder for my 21/3,4 and I sat down and tried to figure out a better solution. A good friend of mine is the former head of Leica Canada's Service department , Reinhold Mueller in Toronto, and I managed to convince him to do the first one for me, this has since been followed by another 21/3,4 conversion, a 21/2,8 and last year a 21/2,8 Asph. It is rather obvious that I like it! You can reach Reinhold by phone, Canada (416)467-6992 or by fax (416) 467-7447. The price is high, almost 2 finders, but the benefits far outweigh the cost. The parallax problem is solved, you dont have to move your eye from focus to frame and it really looks neat too! You get a slight light loss in the finder, you add more glass and a slight loss is inevitable but not enough to worry about. On the M3 and M6HM you only get 35 and 28 viewing angles, but on M2/M4/M4-2/M4-P/M6 you get pretty close to the 21 (M6/M4P tends to cut it to 22 mm angle due to an antireflection mask in the finder). My personal favourite is a M2 with the frame illumination window covered, this way you have no framelines, only the rangefinder patch and "What you see is what you get". Tom A