Hello,

My SLR's are motor driven. Occasionally, (rarely) this is a handy feature. Are there motor drives for the M6? How many fps? Are they reliable? How much to they cost? How do they install and work?

My SLR's are Konica's and I must say, the Hexar RF looks like a very handy RF camera.

Thanks, David S Smith

-- David S Smith (dssmith3@rmci.net), April 29, 2001

Answers

There are four film-advance solutions for M-mount cameras (not counting the regular thumb advance).

The Hexar RF has a fairly modern, quiet, built-in motor drive that works in single-shot or continuous mode (around 2.5 or 3 fps, IIRC). The motor adds little to the bulk of the camera, but you have to use it - there's no manual advance.

For M cameras there are:

The original Winder-M (in two versions for different bodies) - available only second-hand, it's bulky and cantankerous.

The new Motor-M. Reasonably light, two-speed motor. No rewind, and a bit louder than the Hexar. The battery compartment is in a post that comes up the right front of the camera body, providing a grip.

The Abrahamsson RapidWinder. Not a motor per se, but a remake of the old Leicavit trigger winder. It replaces the baseplate and allows you to wind with your left hand without jostling the camera too much.

I've used all except the Winder-M. Everyone will have their won favourites - mine are the Motor-M (especially with long lenses on a .85 body) and the Hexar RF.

-- Paul Chefurka (paul_chefurka@pmc-sierra.com), April 30, 2001.

I have both a Winder M4-2 (late model that works on M6) and Winder-M (different battery holder, and tripod socket, a nice addition). I overhauled my M4-2 winder from some instructions a great fellow posted on the internet and now it is as quiet and smooth as the Winder M. Both winders are heavy and almost as big as the body itself, which is contrary to the reason I use the M in the first place: compactness. The latest winder is smaller on the bottom but adds the front grip, which I do not like at all, and it still doesn't rewind the film and I can't see how that would have been a difficult feat of engineering. The Rapidwinder, to me, is a gimmick...I can wind just as quickly with the thumb lever, and that spike sticking out the bottom would sooner or later end up jabbed into some part of my anatomy. And all those devices are too heavy for me to hold in my teeth, which is where the baseplate ends up when I'm changing film quickly. My winders have sat in the cupboard for a long time, it's probably time to e-bay them. The Hexar RF, with motorized wind and rewind built in to the same size body as the M6, plus auto-loading and auto-exposure, is definitely "built for speed", and though I've never put a decibel meter to it, to my ear the Hexar's winder is not louder than the swoosh-click sound of manually advancing the M6, just higher-pitched. By comparison, the Leica winders (I never heard the latest one) sound like those power tools they use to drive roofing nails.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 30, 2001.

If Leica did not include a rewind mechanism to the new M motor, I guess there must be a good reason. Leica is not very good at marketing, but they are not total idiots. My guess is that there is no easy way to unlock the film advance. This is a mechanical process which probably cannot be triggered directly by the motor without redesigning part of the camera. I guess it could be disastrous to try to rewind the film while the advance is locked.

I use a Rapidwinder. It avoids left eye shooter to have to move the camera when they advance the film. It's definitely faster than using the built-in rewind lever. It's great to do street/candid shootings. You rewind when you want. There are cases where after taking a stealthy shot, I don't want people to hear an engine buzz... It also helps me a lot when I shoot from the hip (the rewind lever helps me to balance the camera - especially for vertical shots). At first, I was very skeptical about this device, but after borrowing it for a few days, I found it very useful and bought one. Currently I do mostly street shooting. I would recommend people doing this kind of photograph to give the rapidwinder a try.

Xavier

-- Xavier Colmant (xcolmant@powerir.com), April 30, 2001.

Oops, in the 2nd paragraph of my above message, I used twice the word rewind instead of advance...

-- Xavier Colmant (xcolmant@powerir.com), April 30, 2001.

Well, if Leica doesn't always have a good reason for doing (or not doing) something, it's been my observation that they can always depend on their loyal followers to make one up. Hard to design a motor-rewind because of the manual lock lever? High-tech: tension sensor that prevents the rewind from engaging if it feels resistance on the film from locked advance. Low-tech: drag mechanism like a fishing reel, that slips if the tension is greater than a pre-set magnitude. I'm sure the brilliant engineers at Leica could've figured it out if they'd wanted to, or if the beancounters didn't put the kybosh on it.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 30, 2001.

Yeah, it's not as if they haven't a couple of decades to think up a solution to the problem. OTOH, look at the R8 motor fiasco - you have to wonder what it is about motors that seems to cause Leica such grief.

To address some or the original questions that haven't been answered yet:

The Motor-M is about $650 USD (I paid $1000 CAD) and they're too new for any reliability estimates to be made yet.

Leica M film-advance mechanisms work by replacing the bottom plate of the camera with a lump full of gizmos of one sort or another.

The motors are tripped by a plunger that is attached to the mechanical shutter button, and there's no real way of synchronizing the start of the motor cycle with the closing of the shutter, as far as I know.

-- Paul Chefurka (paul_chefurka@pmc-sierra.com), April 30, 2001.