Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/31

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Subject: Re: [Leica] lens adaptor question M to OM ?
From: "Bill Larsen" <ohlen@lightspeed.net>
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 12:38:08 -0700

Jacques writes:

>I would like to fit my Leica M lenses on the Olympus body. Would that be
>possible?
>I mean technically. Can you fit a rangefinder lens (without the automatic
>diaphragm) on a reflex camera?


The answer is probably no.  To simplify the reason, you can mount a lens from
a thick bodied camera to a thin bodied camera.  The distance between the film
plane and the lens mount is called to lens registration.  For example, I can
mount and M lens on my R camera with a suitable adapter.  I can (think) mount
the M lens to my Olympus Pen F which is thinner than the M cameras.  I have
recently mounted my Summilux 75/1.4 to my R body.  The results are macro
photography with a very close and very limited focus range.  No infinity ...
in fact no one foot distance.

You can mount visoflex lenses to the Olympus body because the registration is
quite large including the M body plus the visoflex body plus any additional
adapters required depending upon which visoflex body you are using.

Hope this is somewhat helpful.  There are web pages (which you can find with a
search) that list the registration of various cameras.  Unfortunately, I
currently have the computer with these lists bookmarked down and am uploading
from an old 286 portable to someone else's computer.

Regards, Bill Larsen