Well I'm almost there. I wear glasses and have had the chance to check out an M6 with a .58 view finder with a 35mm lens. This seems to work well with me but I have not had the chance to look through a .72. For those of you that have a .72 and wear glasses do you have any problems.

-- Wayne Warren (Littlefish172@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001

Answers

Wayne,

I agonized over the same decision before buying the M6 with the 0.58 viewfinder. I wear glasses, too (progressive tri-focals).

The following article at Erwin Puts website, http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/mseries/choosem.html, trying the 0.58 and 0.72 viewfinders while actuating the frame preselector lever, and that I planned to use no lens longer than 90mm, convinced me to get the 0.58 viewfinder.

Good luck.

-Nick

-- Nicholas Wybolt (nwybolt@earthlink.net), November 28, 2001.

I wear glasses and had a .72 M6. I had real difficulty seeing the framelines for the 35 mm lens with my glasses on. To get around this problem I bought the relevant correction diopter to screw into the eyepiece. However, this was not the ideal solution for me, as I had to keep taking my glasses on and off.

As I particularly like the longer lenses on the M, my solution to this problem is to go with the .85 M6 and use a hotshoe-mounted bright finder for shorter focal lengths. Leica does not make a bright finder for the 35 mm focal length, but I understand that Voigtlander does, and that it works quite well on the M6.

-- David Mark (dbmark@ix.netcom.com), November 28, 2001.

If you plan to use a 35mm as your usual lens, and wear glasses, the .58 is the clear winner, IMO. I wear bifocals, and can just see the 35mm frame on the .72 - the 35mm frame on the .58 is much more comfortable to use. It has one additional advantage: the lack of the 135 frame cluttering up the 35mm view. For my situation, the 35mm frame on the .58 provides the best viewing "gestalt" of any lens/body combo.

-- Paul Chefurka (paul@chefurka.com), November 28, 2001.

Wayne, an old story. I wear glasses, and FWIW i'm like L = +4.0, R = +7.0. I bought the 0.72 because after looking at all three, 0.72 seemed best for me. For me means I prefer (after 35 and 50 mm lenses) 21 mm. 21 needs it's own viewfinder, so that a 0.58 won't help much here. The way I see it, a 0.58 might help when using a 28 mm, but seeing as I'd prefer 90 to 28 mm, I'd stick to the 0.72, and, if all that useful, get a 1.25x in addition. That is, I have a 0.72, I wear glasses, and have no problems. Hope that helps somewhat. Mike

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), November 28, 2001.

I wear bifocals and use .72x viewfinders. No problem for 35mm and up frames, and I don't use a 28mm lens.

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), November 28, 2001.

With me the 35mm frame in the 0.72 is just barely see-able with glasses, and I bought frames with small lenses and flexible frames so I could smush them closer to my face. For the 28mm I prefer an accessory finder in any case because it gives more of a realistic "look" of a 28. I keep the 1.25x magnifier on my second 0.72 which gets the 90 or 135. I've got the 0.6x in the Konica RF and the finder image is a little small and distant for me.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), November 28, 2001.

Wayne:

1) I wear glasses

2) I use and like the .72 finder. I mostly use the 35 frame, but get by with the 28 frame when I need it. It's a psychological trick of using my peripheral vision. Personally I find that I get more interesting compositions by stetching my vision with the superwide view rather than with a smaller but easier to see frame. E.G.

. .

. .

3) The 28 frame in the .58 is essentially the same size visually as the 35 frame in the .72. If you are (un)comfortable with the .58s 28 frame, you will (un)comfortable with the 35 frame in the .72.

4) My standard warning for .58x questions. I've noticed the double image wiggles around a bit in the .58 if your eye moves behind the eyepiece - caused by the wide-angle optics, no doubt, since the .6 Hexar does it even more. I, personally, wouldn't trust the .58x beyond a 50mm lens, but many people do and it works for them.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), November 28, 2001.

I wear progressive bifocal specs, which I found were a disaster with an SLR but work OK with the M6 TTL. My M6 is a 0.72 and it's fine with all focal lengths I own except the 28 setting on my Tri-Elmar. For that, I usually take off my specs so I can see the 28 framelines. Doesn't seem to make any difference to my ability to focus, so maybe I should just take them off all the time!

I can't understand why Leica doesn't include a variable diopter correction in the M6, such as in the R8.

For that matter, why not have switchable magnification too? Then you could select .58, .72 or .85 as necessary. Just my humble opinion.

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), November 28, 2001.

I love the Andy Piper shot - fabulous. Re: the 0.58 etc. I went with the Putts suggestion (28, 35 on 0.58 and 90 etc on 0.85) and it's certainly true that the 35 frame line is more comfortable for us glasses wearers on the 0.58, but it does mean that you're a bit unprotected as far as e.g. backups are concerned - using the 35 on the 0.85 is really very problematic (you could of course use a separate v/f but watch your depth of field and focussing...) and using the 90 at f2 on the 0.58, even at quite a distance, has been problematic for me focus-wise (and I've checked the focus calibration...) - I suppose the magnifier could be a work round here. In the end, I reckon the standard .72 gives the best compromise if you can bear to live with that slightly squashed up feeling - you never know in 5 years time they might of made laser surgery reliable...

-- stephen jones (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), November 29, 2001.