Re: [Leica] Re: affordable finders

[Guy Bennett <guy.bennett@wanadoo.fr>]

hey doug,

i wuz juss joshin!

i personally feel the current leica finders are fine, operationally
speaking. i have and use the 24, and assume the 21 is pretty much
identical: it's relative bright and clear, no problem for 4-eyed folk like
myself, stays in the shoe and - though i hate to contradict b.d. - doesn't
suffer from nose grease absorption or saharan dust storms, at least mine
doesn't.

that said, it's f****** expensive! if i recall (i've been trying to
forget), i seem to have spent upwards to $200 for the thing. well made or
not, i personally find that excessive. especially now that we have
available the finders by cosina, which are brighter (to my eye) and every
bit as 'precise' as their leica counterparts, for a fraction of the cost. i
recently paid $120 for the 35/28 finder, and also use the 25 finder which
came 'free' with the cosina lens of the same focal length.

if i had to do it all over again, fool that i am, i would probably buy the
leica 24 finder again. unlike some luggers, i have little success shooting
without the finder when using that focal length, and prefer using the leica
brightlines over the cosina, which has none.

hmm.

guy

>B. D, wrote that:
>
>>the current, black plastic, 21 finder is a piece of grossly
>overpriced crap for which
>>Leica should be eternally embarrassed
>
>while Guy Bennett <guy.bennett@wanadoo.fr> says it is
>
>>the apogee of 21 finders made of the finest materials available at a
>price everyone can afford, something for which the m user should be
>eternally grateful.
>
>
>Wow - I'd never thought of *any* Leica finder as being "at a price
>everyone can afford"
>
>I must admit that my metal 20mm finder was slightly more expensive
>than the Leica plastic one, but it did come complete with a 20mm f5.6
>Russar lens. (In Venice last year I took a pic of St Mark's Square
>using the Russar; this year I'll repeat the shot with the
>Super-Angulon-R and see how they compare when projected.)
>
>The highest price I've ever paid for a finder (sans lens) was 140 UK
>pounds for a Carl Zeiss turret finder. At first I thought that was
>expensive, but it was buying me 28mm coverage whose whole frame I
>could see while wearing glasses, an 85mm frame for my f2 Jupiter, a
>better 135mm frame than that on my M6, plus a 35mm frame for my IIIg,
>so that worked out at a modest 35 UK pounds per focal length.
>
>Regards,
>
>Doug Richardson