How much of the viewing area is metered area?

-- Phil Kneen (philkneen@manx.net), January 12, 2002

Answers

Approximately 2/3 of the vertical side of the frameline set in use. Another way to easily visualize this is to take off the lens with the shutter cocked and look at the white dot on the curtain.

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), January 12, 2002.

Phil: wind the shutter (cocked), take the lens off, look into the body. See the whitish circle in the middle of the black shutter rectangle in the film gate? That's the metering area in proportion to the total film area. Now, imagine a circle of the same *proportion* in the frame in the viewfinder. There you go. Do that for every frame of any lens you buy in the future. The frame size in the viewfinder changes but the metering area is always in the same *porportion* as that white circle is to the shutter area.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 12, 2002.

flip your frame-line preview lever to the 50mm setting... that is pretty close for the 35mm lens. Imagine a circle the diameter of the short side of the 50mm frame.

The instruction book that came with my M6 has a very good set of diagrams for every metering field for each lens. That is where I got the idea to use the 50mm frame to see the metering pattern for the 35mm lens. Take a look through the book for the other lenses.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), January 12, 2002.

That's great thanks.I have come from a Nikon F5/F100 world of do it all matrix and spot metering.I got sick and tired of taking a huge bag of hardwear out everyday and decided "that's it,1 camera and 1 lens".However,when the little beauties arrived 3 days ago there was no manual with the M6 body,brand new too!!!

-- Phil Kneen (philkneen@manx.net), January 12, 2002.

Ironic surname Simon.

-- Jeff Stuart (jstuart1@tampabay.rr.com), January 12, 2002.

Just out of curiosity, Phil, what agency is that? You can reply off list if you like.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 13, 2002.

Phil,

You asked a question on a forum that has information about what you asked. There is no need to defend your right to ask the question or your right to own any particular camera. Simon's unsolicited opinion, which offered no information towards your first question, is not the norm for this forum.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. You will get a reply with useful information. In time, you will be replying to some new Leica owner, in answer to his new-by questions.

If the users on this forum had to justify our use of Leicas, the forum would get pretty small. Good luck in your endeavors.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), January 13, 2002.