Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/08/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ben W. Holmes writes: > As a weird aside, the F3 which is built as a MF body, can be upgraded > to AF > by the addition of the AF prism. I've never seen or held one, but I've > read > about it in several places and have seen the prisms offered for sale > (very > pricey). I'm not sure this is quite true. The F3AF was a separate model, and was available with two AF lenses, an 80mm and a 200mm. The body looks the same, but the prism housing is much bigger. While the AF prism can be removed from the body like any other F series prism, it's my understanding that there are electrical contacts between the prism and the body which are not found on a non-AF F3 body, so you can't 'upgrade' an ordinary F3 to an F3AF. The same applies to the F3P: superficially it looks as if you could add a hotshoe to an F3 by putting on an F3P finder, but the body lacks the electrical contacts. > I missed the beginning of this thread, is the prism on the R8 > fixed? Yes, sadly. > If Leica were to engineer AF for the 8, it would have to be in the > lenses. Or in the body, like the Contax AX, although Dr Johnson's comment about the dog applies to that little nightmare...