I thought this might be of interest to some of you out there: I just read that Tom Abrahamson (of the Rapidwinder fame) has designed a way to convert M-mount 21mm lenses with "goggles" so that the lens can be used directly with a Leica M's built-in viewfinder. Read it here (scroll to the bottom) and here.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), June 19, 2001

Answers

Apparently it won't focus with the RF then, though :-( You give up something to get something.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), June 19, 2001.

Yes right now you lose the ability to use the rangefinder to focus any closer than 3 metres or so. Apparently someone is working on a way to adjust the lens cam to correct the problem.

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), June 19, 2001.

Having never owned a "goggled" lens, I am curious to hear from those that do or have... Which is easier to carry in your camera bag -- the goggles or the auxilary finder?

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), June 19, 2001.

I use a 35 f2.8 Summaron with goggles on my M3. I certainly prefer the goggles on that lens to a seperate finder. Paralax is automatically accounted for with the goggles, and I can focus and compose in the same window. I also still have the flash shoe if needed. The drawback is the lens is bulky, and the view is slightly distorted on the edges..

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), June 19, 2001.

Jack, a lens with goggles is easier to carry in your bag, becuase they are attached to the lens. That way, you don't have to go digging in your bag for an aux. finder if you want to use the lens. And you can focus and compose at the same time while looking in only one veiwfinder.

But having said the above, I will say I once owned a 35mm summaron lens with the goggles (bought it to use on my M3), and I absolutely hated that lens. Actually I didn't hate the lens as much as I hated those damn goggles! The view was very distorted with a lot of curvature to the field of view. I found this distortion to be extremely distracting and annoying, and it didn't help with critical focusing either.

Since the lens itself wasn't all that great a performer anyway, I ended up selling it.

-- Bob Kramer (bobkramer@coopercarry.com), June 19, 2001.

As I just said in another thread, I liked my goggled lens. It looked cool, too, if you're into that kind of thing (Hey--I am--it looked like the "Camera from the Dawn of Time".) The one un-mentioned disadvantage I had was that the extra weight and leverage put quite a twist on the locking button, and eventually the groove in the lens mount for the locking tab lost its sharp edge and didn't quite work-- I had to keep checking to make sure I didn't lose the lens. Essentially, though, I agree with Andrew on the advantages and disadvantages.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), June 19, 2001.

The goggles, though, work in conjuction with the 28mm frame. The trouble with that is you have to use it with a camera that has this frame: either an M6, M4P, or, I think, maybe some late M4-2's. The problem with using it on my M6 would be that I still couldn't use the meter. So I keep it on the M2, with separate finder. If it weren't for this limitation, I might have gone for the goggles. They give you the equivalent of a 22 mm field, but M users should feel right at home with a finder that shows less than the full field . . .

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), June 19, 2001.

When I got my 20, I was shocked to discover that it matched the area framed by my glasses pretty closely. So street photography for me now is simply looking around and shooting if it looks good through my entire field of sharp vision.

Score one for eyeglass wearers against camera manufacturers!

-- John O'Connell (boywonderiloveyou@hotmail.com), June 20, 2001.