Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/05/20
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From: Edi Weitz <weitz@math.uni-hannover.de>
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 10:00:26 +0200
Hi all!
Some weeks ago I saw a TV documentary about the famous Brazilian
"Magnum" photographer Sebastiao Salgado. He was shown while shooting
for his "Workers" project some years ago. When out on the streets he
sometimes had two M6s hanging around his neck [and used them of
course] but most of the time he was using R6 cameras. While he was
shooting inside of a Chinese bicycle factory I saw that one of the two
little LEDs on the mirror box of his R6 lightened up from time to
time.
You mean "LEDs on the prism housing" rather than "LEDs on the mirror
box," right?
Being merely an M user I have no idea what these LEDs are for but
I'd like to know this of course. Even Leica's R6 brochure couldn't
help me but I'm quite sure that one of you can. I was somewhat amazed
by this because I couldn't figure out why you should have control
signals on your camera that can only be seen by the one who is
photographed but not by the photographer... [My only guess is: One of
the LEDs is for the self-timer and Salgado was using it in order to
have mirror pre-release. But what about the other one?]
One of the LEDs is indeed for the self-timer. It blinks at an
increasing rate as the time to the exposure decreases -- it's useful
to have it visible from the front of the camera, because it lets you
know that the camera is indeed getting ready to take a picture. I'd
guess he wouldn't use it for mirror pre-release because there is a
separate socket for that on the R6 -- although you do have to thread a
plunger or a cable release into it. If the camera wasn't on a tripod,
mirror pre-release would be kind of a dicey proposition anyway...
The other LED is for illumination -- through a little window on the
bottom of the overhanging part of the prism housing, it lights the
lens barrel so that one can see the diaphragm setting in the
viewfinder in low-light conditions. (The diaphragm setting is viewed
through another little window on the bottom of the overhanging part of
the prism housing -- an admirably low-tech solution.) I think the
diaphragm setting illumination LED is visible from the front so that
the user doesn't leave it switched on when not using the camera -- it
could drain the battery. I'd guess that this is what you saw light
up.