[Leica] Steve Barbour was thinking about 3f or 3g.....

[pklein at threshinc.com (Peter Klein)]

What Frank has written is true, however there is an easy way around it. 
You mount the lens on an M body, and unscrew it from the adapter. You 
then remove the adapter from the body using either:

* An old M-mount rear lens cap, which has three little nubs on the 
bottom for just this purpose.
* A rubber glove.

I have one 50mm LTM-M adapter that I use with several 50mm lenses, so I 
do this all the time.

This of course won't work with lenses to which an adapter has been glued.

Steve, if you're still thinking about a IIIf or IIIg, try to borrow and 
screw-mount leica and shoot with it for a bit.  Reality is sometimes 
less satisfying than what you expect.  I really don't miss my IIIf, and 
I shot with it for years. The moment I could afford an M, I upgraded. 
The three major pluses a Barnack camera has over an M are:

* Portability. With a collapsible lens, it fits in a jacket pocket.
* Nostalgia
* RF ease of use and accuracy, due to the 1.5x magnification.

But you also have to deal with separate RF and viewfinder windows, a 
small squinty viewfinder, and the fiddly dual shutter speed dials. They 
are much better to use with a bright-line 50 or 35mm finder, but that 
kind of kills the fits-in-a-coat-pocket thing, and you still focus and 
view through two different windows.  I also found the Barnack viewing 
system somewhat less than ideal for a glasses wearer.

--Peter


 > On the assumption that you wished to swap the LTM Lenses you have 
from an M
 > body to a LTM body...and back again
 >
 > I was wondering Steve if you realized the great degree of difficulty 
it is
 > to remove  a properly seated LTM-M ring from a lens?
 >
 > It is on really tight.. And switching back and forth might be a major
 > problem...
 >
 > For the price of a CLA'd 3g, you could get a M4-2 or early M6 that would
 > accept your M mounted lenses, and allow you to use film...
 >
 > Or a MD type body if it was your intention to use external VF anyway...
 >
 > I also feel that once you get away from the 2 eyepieces ( VF and RF) you
 > NEVER want to go back..
 >
 > If it is a nostalgia thing.. Have fun.. but if you really want to use 
your
 > lenses on a film, and the lenses are already mounted on a adapter, I 
think
 > your expectations might not be met..
 >
 > Frank Filippone
 >
 > Red735i at earthlink.net