Re: Viso?

[Thomas Kachadurian <kach@freeway.net>]

Tom:

Thanks for you help with the viso. I carry a EOS and a 300 f4 with my Ms. I
would greatly preffer a Leica 280 and Viso to the canon. Since I'm not
shooting anything fast, and always use a tripod with lenses longer than
135, the Viso might work for me.

Tom


At 07:13 PM 11/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Thomas, The Viso was the Leitz answer to that newfangled device called a
>Single Lens Reflex Camera, they were very early with it, pre-war they made
>the PLOOT ( it somewhat looks like it sounds,) later they made the Viso 1 for
>screw mount cameras, the Viso 2 followed in several incarnations (screw
>mount, bayonet and some in special fittings.) The Viso 3 is the one to go
>for. Viso 2 and earlier had a non return mirror, on the Viso 3 you can select
>the return mirror, slow rising mirror (no shake) and the mirror lock up. It
>is not only a close up device but also allows you to use longer lenses 200/4
>/280/4,8/400/560/6,8 on your M. It is a bit of a lump to use, and metering
>with the M6 is clumsy to say the least ( frame,pop the mirror up and read the
>exposure, mirror down for exposure ). There are 2 different finders for the
>Viso, one is a 90 degree prism finder and the other is a "chimney" type
>finder.
> There are adapters galore  for adapting different lensheads and close up
>devices. There were some lenses made in what is known as " short mount"
>versions, 65/3,5,
> the 90/2 and the 125/2,5 that were dedicated Viso lenses.
> If you can get a good Viso 3 with the 90 degree finder and/or the chimney
>finder it is not a bad accessory. It does thake some time to get used to and
>it is not for fast shooting, although at the Le Mans 24 hour race in France I
>once saw a guy shooting the race with 5 M cameras, all with Viso's on them (
>lenses from 65 to 280), I first thought that he was quite old and bent over,
>but he was in fact only stooped because of the weight of the cameras!
> For close up work it is a good system and with the bellows  for the M you
>can do stuff like using enlarging lenses for makrowork. Mind you, the Viso,
>Bellows and adapters need a good solid tripod to hold it.
> If you are using the Viso for close up work, remember that the math for
>exposure compensation on a non-M6 gets rather hairy at times!
>Tom A
>
>