[Leica] RE:24mm finders

[Henning Wulff <henningw@archiphoto.com>]

At 2:18 AM +0200 10/6/01, Félix López de Maturana wrote:
>"My 24mm finder broke in two after the first use. I used super glue to put
>it
>back together and now it seems OK, but I am shocked at how poorly it was
>made."
>
>I use the Leica 21mm and the Voigtländer 12mm finders and, just in my
>opinion, the Voigtländer is better, not speaking about the price.
>

Well, I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record to the long-standing 
members of the list, but add me to the number that like the new Leica 
plastic finders.

I've had Leica 21's and 28's for a long time, and of course used and 
still have some older metal finders. One of each is still in useable 
condition, but many have been lost and many others have been dropped 
at some point. Some of the dropped ones are still slightly useable in 
spite of the cracked elements, so I didn't throw them out. They were 
dropped because they weren't held in tightly enough, and then the 
glass cracked because of the direct metal/glass contact. Both those 
problems have been solved with the plastic finders. I no longer put 
the finders on a tether, which was both a nuisance and didn't 
completely save them, as one of them slipped out of the shoe and 
banged hard enough into the camera back (I think) to crack. I also 
damaged an M4 top plate when I caught a finder on something and it 
didn't slip out. That cost even more than a new finder.

The C-V finders are nice, but they are bigger, which is a drawback. 
The 12mm finder is a lot bigger. I now have 12, 15, 21 and 35 C-V 
finders, and I will probably buy new ones to replace these as they 
wear out or get broken, but only because of price. They are not as 
accurate as the Leica ones, and that is a nuisance. Optically they 
are also not quite as good, showing a little more distortion. The 
12mm, for which there is of course no equivalent in other makes, is 
quite inaccurate due to distortion; side to side it doesn't show 
quite as much as the camera lens sees, but corner to corner it shows 
about 20 degrees more. I can live with that, as there is no 
alternative when using the lens, but it is hardly ideal.

All in all I like the Leica finders better, except for the price. 
Just like with most other things that Leica makes.

- -- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html