In an M7 thread Eliot Rosen wrote:

"John. Can you tell us what you are referring to? I thought Leica had addressed the VF flare issue (a problem that I have never experienced myself) in the M7 by multi-coating the VF window. Are they planning on another change to further address the problem beyond that?"

I'm not John, but here's what I know. In his newsletter review of the new M7, Leica enthusiast Erwin Puts wrote: "Everything can always be improved. The finder windows have an anti-reflection coating that diminishes clearly the flare of the rangefinder patch that occurs in some situations when strong light sources are shining obliquely into the finder."

The flare that "occurs in some situations" occurs on every M6 of every flavor (.58, .72, .85) that I have ever owned or handled. High-angle light sources (someone went so far as to peg it at 110 degrees) in a normal to dimly lit room (wedding receptions are classic environments for this) will cause the rangefinder patch to flare or "white out" unless your eye is situated perfectly at the eyepiece. I wear eyeglasses, so I guess I never get my eye in that "sweet spot." My M6's flare easily. Moving my eye can sometimes clear the flare enough to focus, but at a great time expense when working quickly. When shooting weddings, I slap a strip of 3M Durapore surgical tape over the frameline illuminator window and go to work. Looks bad, works fine.

Rich Pinto, a reputable Leica dealer in NYC, said that in the brief time he had an M7 in hand, he could not make the rangefinder flare in a situation that caused an M6 to flare readily. I have to assume that the multicoating of the windows helps a great deal, but it's not THE solution. Why?

Here's where the story gets interesting. In a post that appeared, perhaps mistakenly, on the Leica Users Group and has yet to be challenged as inauthentic, Erwin Puts revealed to a correspondent: "But while I know the problem, the causes and the solution, I was forbidden to mention it. But now Leica is telling all of us that we have to upgrade our M7 in a few months for a substantial amount of money, because they lacked the drive and the time to add this solution to the current M7."

Fascinating, but inconclusive. For one, neither Erwin Puts nor anyone else has clarified "the causes and the solution." Two, the nature, price ("a substantial amount of money" !) and time frame for this "upgrade" (nice spin on "correction of a 20-year problem of our creation") is unclear, as is whether Leica will offer a similar "upgrade" to M6 owners.

Knowing that a solution may be down the road is somewhat reassuring. Being kept in the dark on the details is rather annoying, but not really surprising.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002

Answers

The "details" you seek appear to be the claimed use of a parabolic mirror in the rangefinder mechanism. See the topic on this in the FAQ at nemeng.com/leica/ 020b.shtml

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), March 15, 2002.

Actually the "details" I seek relate to time and expense. It's nice to know that after two decades an answer may be at hand. But how much will it cost and how long will it take? BTW, the Leica comment about the partial solution being in the M6TTL and the M7 is ambiguous. I have two M6TTL's, they both flare. My .58 is a fairly late number, 272-something, and it flares as badly as my 1995 M6 and my 248-series .85 TTL.

We'll see. . . .

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

Flare handling improved on late M6 TTLs?

Yeah, I've been wondering about this as my M6 TTL can be made to flare reasonably easily too. Maybe the Leica tech is refering to M6TTLs made since the M7 started manufacture?

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), March 16, 2002.