I have recently purchased a 9cm Elmar C in excellent condition for use on my M cameras. Does it focus accurately on an M3 and an M6 TTL. Please advise asap.

Thanx

MCG

-- Michael C. Goldman (mgoldman12@home.com), July 09, 2001

Answers

Quite well and easily in my two M3s, one SS and one DS. Congratulations, Michael. Enjoy it. Beatiful portraits :-) - Iván

-- Ivan Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), July 09, 2001.

Copy of an old posting:

Yes, there may be a problem. It is a great lens but was designed for the Leitz/Minolta CL. The CL lenses have a different, steeper lens focusing cam than normal M lenses. The CL camera, which does not have to focus f1.0 lenses, has a simpler, shorter based rangefinder mechanism. The M cameras' rangefinder is fine tuned by adjusting the length of the roller arm which means that it can be in a slightly different position horizontally from one camera to another. The short ending to the long story is that quite often the M camera's rangefinder will not couple to a CL lens correctly. Point the combination at a point at least two miles away and, if everything lines up OK at infinity, it should be fine. If it does couple correctly, bear in mind that it may not work with your next/other body(ies).

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), July 10, 2001.

Yes, I remember I saw that posting, John. However in my case problems haven't shown up. The DS M3 was the one I bought first, used. It came with the 90 mm we are dealing with along with more stuff after many years of work for his former owner who imported the whole set. The second M3, a slightly newer one SS, was bought independently some time later but the same lens didn't have any problems working with it either. In order to shorten my previous message I didn't mention this additional story and only said that my experience included two M3 bodies of different personalities. But the fact still holds: no problems. I couldn't say whether the focusing problem is less frequent than suspected or I'm a really such a lucky guy but maybe you could test the focusing conditions in your case, Michael. It wouldn't be much of a problem to mount the lens on your cameras and try it on a convenient subject at several different distances and focused to infinity too. I think that using a tripod would be in order so as to take any eventual unwanted influences away from your analysis. Posting your findings could be helpful for somebody else too. Best regards and best of luck !

- Iván

-- Ivan Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), July 10, 2001.

I have checked accuracy of Elmar C against known distances and there seems to be no problem with either my SS M3 or my M6. However I will wait for a trial film to be processed to see the results. A comparison against the 90mm f/2 Summicron(Midland) will be interesting. Also the 90mm LSM F/4 Elmar.I am intersted in portrait capability.

MCG

-- Michael C. Goldman (mgoldman12@home.com), July 10, 2001.