[Leica] LUG: Your Softie

["Chris Quinn" <cquinn@mail.sjcsf.edu>]

Victor:

Victor wrote about taking pictures of the inside of his camera bag because
of Tom's Softie (the blessing & the curse).


I've got the softie on my M6TTL, and have found two solutions: one mine, one
Lutz Konermann's (of Sling, Slide & Shade fame). Lutz' is easier, mine will
prevent the softie from even turning on the meter. Lutz' first:

Go buy an o-ring that's big enough to reach from the right split-ring
(connecting your strap to your strap-lug), and put it on the split-ring.
When not using the camera, stretch it around & under the Softie, and it will
keep it from taking pictures (Lutz, what's your link to this image?); the
o-ring I found will not prevent the meter from engaging, hence, my solution:

Unfortunately, it involves a toilet-bowl washer, which will cause
heart-failure in certain LUGnuts. I use a new one, if that makes you feel
better. Buy some of those toilet bowl washers which are the black rubber
jobbies. They're a little over an inch in diameter with something like a
1/4" hole in the center. They're made of three layers of rubber separated by
two layers of reinforcing fabric mesh. By itself, it's too thick to fit
under the softie. If you cut it like a bagel (without the usual flesh wounds
suffered by bagel cutters) along one layer of the fabric so that it's now
2/3s the original thickness, it's thick enough to prevent photos, but too
thin to prevent the meter being activated (actually, you just have to get
the cut started. Once you can get a grip on the two layers, you can tear it
apart). So my final one is a compromise, in which I make two parallel cuts
through the first layer of rubber, one on either side of the center hole. I
then do two bagel cuts, to remove those two nearly-semi-circular pieces,
leaving two funny barrow-like mounds extending sideways from the center
hole. Is this making any sense? Great. You, and this is the final step in
the production, cut a little pie-slice out of the now-thinned portion of one
side of the ring, and slip it (the TBW with barrows, not the little slice)
under your softie. It's going to be a little tight, but it's tough enough to
keep the meter from activating.

A great compromise here is to use that now useless o-ring to make a hanger
for the incomparable Toilet Bowl Washer TTL Battery Saver, so that when you
pull it off, it won't bounce off the walkway and disappear down into Paris.
(It will, in fact, slip quickly onto the X-sync cover on the back of the
camera, if you haven't lost that yet, but won't stay on for long. The other
best option is to pull it off and stick it in your pocket.)

I sent one to Tom Abrahamsson, but he got in trouble with Canadian Customs
for importing an product which Canadians make better in Cananda. Must've
been a Midland Custom's officer. Did you ever get it back, Tom?