[Leica] M6 HM - rangefinder flare

[Alexey Merz <alexey@webcom.com>]

Hello, all!

I have an M6 0.85. I'm absolutely in love with this camera,
but as some have pointed out on this group, the rangefinder
patch can tend to be obscured by flare, especially when the 
camera (and the frameline illuminator window) is in full 
light and I'm shooting into the shadows. I've recently tried 
placing a thin stripe of black tape placed horizontally over 
the frameline illumination window, sized so that it leaves 
about 50% of the window open (25% on top, 25% on bottom). I 
find that this *greatly* increases the contrast of the range-
finder patch but doesn't reduce the brightness of the frame
lines to enough to matter. Some improvement occurs even under
normal lighting conditions. 

Questions:

1. Have others had similar experience?

2. Can a good Leica service person "hot rod" such a 
modification into the camera the next time I send it in 
for CLA? Any idea what this would cost?

Thanks, 

Alexey

ps, welcome back Eric!