I recently took delivery on a (very slightly) used M7 – yes there are already some on the used market! (Thanks Anam!) Anyway, I thought I would share my initial impressions with the group. Nothing earth-shattering here, and I’ll try to avoid harping on all of the obvious that has already been said...

What I like:

*For some reason, the VF window in my sample does not seem to flare out at all, even when I try to make it do so. I do not recall anyone else sharing this observation, so perhaps I have missed it in earlier posts? I understand the internal mirrors and lenses are now multi-coated, and this seems to have eliminated the flare problem.

*The shutter is quieter. I had heard this, but had no idea how significant a difference it was from the M6TTL’s – a completely different soft sound. Perhaps the fact that the top and bottom plates are now supposedly brass also comes into play here. In fact it is more reminiscent of the sound an M3 or M4 makes.

*The shutter button is much smoother on release. Obviously this is due to a switch rather than the mechanical release in the prior models, but nonetheless it is a trait I noticed. And yes, it gets notably “notchier” with a Softie attached, but this is still the way I prefer using it.

*The real “OFF” switch – it’s about time! Nothing more needs to be said here.

* The metering diode triangles seem to have a slightly broader range of relative brightness from dim to bright as you close in on the proper exposure in manual mode – perhaps the meter is a bit more sensitive than that in the M6TTL.

*Lastly, I appreciated the fact that all of the controls are right where I expected them to be and are comfortable to use. In this respect it is a conventional M in every way.

*Oh yeah, almost forgot – The AE appears to very accurate as evidenced by the very consistent exposures I obtained on transparency film. It also surprised me in situations I thought would “fool” it, like a close up of my Black Lab and my black car – but it didn’t get fooled by more than 1/3 stop or so. For most situations I found I could simply “point and shoot” and not worry too much about what specifically was being metered. I also found the AE spiffy when used in conjunction with the motor!

What I don’t like:

*The way the two batteries load up into their compartment. I understand why they did it this way, it’s just that it seems, well... not very refined for a Leica. And I’ll go ahead and repeat a complaint about the flimsy little plastic twist-lock cap that holds the batteries in the camera. I think Leica should include a spare one of these as a standard accessory for the M7. Why they could not have made this a simple hinged trap-door type assembly on the camera, I do not understand. Anyway, I am sure I will lose my cap on a trip and be required to rig a duct-tape replacement for it. At least the cap is not required for electrical contact...

*The combo lockable compensation dial with the non-lockable ISO adjustment wheel inside. IMO this is a ridiculous design. The outer compensation wheel itself is fine, as it has a secure lock with a button release required to change its setting. However, the film speed is set with the inner wheel which has no provision to be locked! It is simply held in place by conventional detents ala aperture rings, and IMO these detents are not very positive. While it hasn’t happened yet, I feel it will be easy to accidentally turn this dial a notch or two, and since each notch represents a 1/3-stop change in film speed, it thus alters your exposure by same. Why didn’t they keep the M6 system of having to at least press in and turn to adjust film speed? Sounds like another place for some duct-tape... This problem is compounded by my next complaint – the little red blinking dot.

*This light is supposed to warn you that something is NOT set normally. But it blinks a lot. For example, it blinks whenever you are using a setting other than DX on the ISO wheel and/or have a non-DX film can loaded in the camera. So, if you bulk load Tri-X into your own non-DX canisters and set the ISO to 400, the little warning light will blink. If you now dial compensation in, it will still be blinking. Alternatively, if you set the non-lockable ISO dial to DX and you load a factory can of Tri-X it will default to 400 and not blink. BUT, if you now dial in compensation or manually adjust the ISO because you prefer to shoot your Tri-X at 250, the warning light blinks. Or if the DX contacts fail for some reason, the camera defaults to ISO 100 and the light blinks. In short, this light blinks unless a DX canister is loaded, AND the ISO wheel is set to DX, AND the exposure compensation is set to zero. Any other combo, it blinks. Just like the cursor on your computer. All the time. Fortunately I shoot my E100S at 100. But I shoot my Tri-X at 320...

*Lastly, the DX pins tend to “hold” the film canister in the camera, so I can’t simply tip it out into my hand like I did with the prior models. I must either reach up and grab the little spool end with my thumb and middle finger and pull it out, or shake it like a bottle of ketchup to get the canister out. I find the former a bit inconvenient as I have thick fingers, and the latter, well... not very refined for a Leica. Again. I would have preferred they kept the old ISO wheel as it was, and let me simply manually set a lockable ISO and exposure compensation the old way, and then passed on the DX option altogether. But I’m probably in a minority here. I wonder if a back door from an M6TTL will fit on the M7...

Weirdness:

*Here’s one I had not heard. The first night I had the body, I was getting my gear organized for a test-shoot the next day. One of my habits is to check the meters in all my cameras before the next day’s shoot. I have a neutral-toned cabinet that serves as my metering standard. So I point the M7 at the cabinet with the pre-set exposure in manual mode, and notice that while the center dot is solidly lit, the triangles on either side are cycling madly! Weird... So I turn it to AE, and try the same thing. Now I have the shutter speeds cycling madly over about a 1&1/3 stop range! I can “freeze” it with the AE lock, but the settings are also locking randomly anywhere between “plus” or “minus” 2/3 stop from center! I remove and re-insert the batteries – no help. $@#T!!! I have a sudden sinking feeling in my gut. I turn to bed for a restless night’s sleep… The next morning, I decide to re-check it – same thing. I then open my garage door, and point it outside – now it works perfectly! I point it at my target again – cycling. I turn off the lights in my garage, plunging me into relative dim – steady meter in AE at 1.5 sec at f1.4… So, being the mental giant I am, I figure out the M7 does not seem to like the fluorescent lights in my garage. I bring it into my kitchen which also has fluorescent lights – no problems. The lights in my garage are cheap fluorescents, but the ones in the house are not. Hmmmm... My aging cerebral synapses are now firing as rapidly as the cycling meter LED’s were, and I have a theory to test out. I decide to look closely at a meter readout from my Canon 1V under the same lights. In matrix mode I note it cycles very slowly within 1/3 stop – but barely notable. But, the 1V also has a "Partial" metering mode that is very similar to the wide spot-metering pattern on the M. I set it to that mode and now the readings are cycling more rapidly over about a 2/3-stop range! My theory seems to hold, and I can now only assume the meter in the M7, and to a lesser degree the meter in the 1V, are so sensitive they are picking up on the flickering in the cheap fluorescents that I cannot sense with my naked eye. I make a call to Leica NJ – without suggesting my theory to the tech in advance – and I describe my problem. He puts me on hold for about five minutes. I assume he is dialing the hot-line to Solms. He comes back on the line and informs that the new metering circuit in the M7 is indeed so sensitive it is likely registering flickering we cannot see while under certain types of fluorescent lights!

Conclusions:

*So, the $64,000 question – or in this case the $2300 question: Do I think everybody should run out and buy one? The simple answer is “No.” While I think AE is a nicety, it is certainly not a necessity. And if you remove the AE feature, this camera is nothing more than an expensive M6TTL that is about 90% battery dependant and can do rear-curtain and HS flash synch... Will I buy another? Probably – just as soon as the .58’s come out. Do I miss my M6TTL’s? Ask me in 6 months!

*One last point. I had come to “trust” my M6’s – I knew I could count on them in adverse situations. But the verdict is still out for me on this M7; it has too much in the way of new electronics in it and is too battery dependant for me to trust it completely until it proves itself. Time will tell.

Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), June 05, 2002

Answers

Jack
Do you know why Anam decided to sell it in the first place?? I am curious as to why he has decided to sell up so quickly?
cheers

-- Karl Yik (karl.yik@dk.com), June 05, 2002.

Very nice and interestin review. Now add the new M motor and you are indeed ready for almost every occasion. But your brilliant EOS aleady covers 99% of all occasion...

Betwen getting a new .85vd $2,300 M7 or a used .85 M6TTL for ~ $1,200, I think I'll go with the latter...

cheers,

pat

-- pat (modlabs@yahoo.com), June 05, 2002.

nicely done JF!! i have noticed the same "flicker" phenom you note with a number of other cameras when pointing same at a tv set. i also have seen the problem with my f100 set to spot, but only with certain lenses (i guess the size of the spot matters). i think this actually may be evidence of a good thing. as for weird quirks in the m7, an engineer friend of mine told me it is hard to build a mostly metal electro-mechanical device (there are still a lot of mechanicals in the m7) that does not have trouble with static electricity. he opined that unless leica was very careful with the design, weird stuff could happen off and on as a result of random discharges in or near various parts of the circuitry. anyway, i think the camera is great. if it proves itself to be as reliable as my nikkormat EL2, i think it will be the best in-board meter m ever. and by the way, my friend suggested that the on/off switch and battery cover were made of a non-conductive material by design. before i sign off, a quick question. do you use the meter the same way in the 7 as the 6 when you are going manual. with the 7, i find it very convenient to get a shutter speed for a scene using the AUTO mode, and then selecting a speed manually that incorporates whatever adjustment i want to make. i find this is MUCH quicker than finding the rite exposure using the arrows, and THEN applying an adjustment. i hope that makes sense. this technique makes the camera a real pleasure to use.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), June 05, 2002.

This is why I bought the M6TTL instead of the M7. I did not need AE function for the kind of pictures that I take. Beside I always like the mechanical shutter of the M6TTL. Thanks for the post.

-- Phillip (pp12302@nospamyahoo.com), June 05, 2002.

metering on fast fluctuating light is not a positive design goal. it's a poor design, but generally innocuous and not worth the effort of a longer integration interval. after all, it prevented you from determining an accurate and useful metering, though the intensity does modulate at 120 hertz. I used to design frequency synthesizers and our diodes would react to fluorescents. I suppose at fast shutter speeds with this lighting you might experience slight exposure errors with any metering method.

-- daniel taylor (lightsmythe@agalis.net), June 05, 2002.

Jack, your assessment of the M7 is nearly 100% indentical to my own, except that I did mine in the store and walked out empty-handed. Probably the reason I did was I have and love the Hexar RF which to me still runs rings around the M7 functionally.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

Well, I tried our M7 metering, a la Jack Fleshe, in our garage, which is lit by three Home Depot "el cheapo" flourescent shop lights. I got similar results; however, when I tried it in our kitchen, which has a four-flourescent GE ceiling light, there were no flickers. I don't completely understand the ignition and ballast systems used in flourescents, but there must be a difference. I also tried the meter, using the new 100 watt flourescent bulbs that replace incandescents in table lamps as a light source. No flicker. Go figure.

Oh well, as long as the sun and incandescents don't exhibit a distinctive 120 cps sine wave, I ain't gonna' worry.

-- George C. Berger (gberger@his.com), June 05, 2002.

per jay's response: sure the hexar "runs circles around the m7," except for the unacceptibly long shutter lag, the shutter/winder noise, the complete dependence on batteries (1/60 and 1/125 will take you a lot of places if you have 100 and 400 film), the questionable compatability with leica lenses, the very low VF mag (especially as compared to a .85 or a .85 with a mag), the prospects for long term mfr support, the quality of construction, the battery drain for B exposures, the inability to rewind film if your batteries go mid roll, the inability to install diopters, and does it even have ttl flash -- i forget?

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), June 05, 2002.

it's probably just the phosphor type and its decay. my only comment regarding the M7, is its comparison with the EOS-1v. the Canon implements exposure metering and compensation the way it should be. choice of metering mode, and easily controlled, essentially transparent, adjustment of exposure offset. the M7 implementation is a hack, a compromise, and a poor one at that, considering the broad metering and offset method. my thinking, is you really have to treat it as center-weighted, broad metering, and frame something integrates to mid-gray and then recompose. to integrate the compensation into the methodology seems to defeat what Leica is all about. just my thoughts.

-- daniel taylor (lightsmythe@agalis.net), June 05, 2002.

Jack, my friend, lemmee put it this way, this posting of yours is the best of the dozens of postings on ther M7 I've read here so far.

Nonetheless, I myself am not going to buy any M7 (I only have an M6TTL at present) but when I get my second body, it'll be either a second M6 TTL or an M3 or an M2.... To make a long story short, the M7 is the first example -- by Leica -- of a camera that has nothing I need, and lots of stuff I don't need.

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), June 05, 2002.

roger, you forgot the fact that one cannot safely use fast lenses like Nocitlux or 'lux 75/1.4 due to small viewfinder and short rangefinder base.

if it had better magnification and longer base, I could live with the rest.

-- pat (modlabs@yahoo.com), June 05, 2002.

roger: none of the things you mention have affected me a bit in the 2 years and thousands of images I've shot with the Hexar RF. And aside from some simple-to-adjust rangefinder misalignment in the very first batch, I have *never* read of anyone's RF freezing up, flickering, misreading DX coding or any of the list of glitches people have reported in the first couple months of the M7. The Hexar's ISO and compensation settings are easily set and never get disturbed, the *metal* battery cover screws down tight and is sealed against moisture; it is not noisier than an M7+winder, it syncs at 1/125 and the shutter goes to 4000 making daylight fill with an autoflash possible and shooting at wide apertures in daylight practical. It *does* accept diopters, and it is as good a finder as the 0.58 M *plus* it has a 135mm frameline and I use that lens a lot. The 60 and 125 "backup" speeds in the M7 are of little consolation if the meter and flash circuit are dead. Carry spare batteries, end of story. I would not argue with someone who says the M6 has substantive advantages worth considering in comparison to the Hexar, but I don't feel that way about the M7. To me the M7 has everything that was wrong with the M6 and less of what was right.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

I have observed the 'flickering' in AE mode occasionally (only every once in a while) when test metering off the ceiling or wall. I thought it might be because the camera couldn't 'decide' waht shutter speed of two adjacent settings (eg., 30 vs 33), since the shutter speeds are not actually continuous. It could also be that the light levels are changing subtly but by so little that my eyes don't perceive a difference. If I press the shutter further to lock in a reading, it chooses one of the two shutter speeds and the flickering stops. I can't imagine that this would afect the ultimate exposure.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), June 05, 2002.

And if Leica had rebadged the Hexar RF, as they should have, all the M7 cheerleaders would be shaking their pom pons for that camera instead. Why put black tape over the red dot? Because it hypnotizes some people so that they can't think straight. Jay's right, the Hexar has everything the AE Leica should have, but doesn't. Last time I looked, it's 2002 not 1982.

-- Keith Davis (leica4ever@yahoo.com), June 05, 2002.

sorry jay -- i couldn't resist. i like the hexar too (so much that i bought a beautiful kameraleder case for it). however, i just can't get used to the lag.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), June 05, 2002.

Jay,

Don't worry about roger. He obviously has used and owned a Hexar RF a very long time and knows everything he knows based on firsthand use.

-- David Smith (dssmith3@rmci.net), June 05, 2002.

Re flourescents and photography and metering.

Flourescents flicker at 60 hertz or so (as do TVs) - if you have a meter that responds to chaning light 'faster' than 1/60 it will register the flickering as chnaging light levels.

I've even take exposures at high shutter speeds where neon signs looked 'turned off' in the picture because the 1/500th or 1/1000th 'fell' into the gap when the currect was changing direction.

I've noticed this with various meters post- 1980 or so - I don't know if it's just silicon blue cells or faster response in the circuitry itself.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), June 05, 2002.

> I can't imagine that this would afect the ultimate exposure.

Eliot,

it isn't a real issue other than academically. it is much like taking a picture of your television screen or at the movie theaters. in reality, what you see is a huge abstraction from what is really happening per measured light. your eyes don't see the multiple frames obviously, but anyone who has taken a picture at a fast enough shutter speed captures something that their eyes told them didn't exist. you could even take a picture at the right moment and find there was no light there at all.

from where I am standing, an M3 and Noctilux is the real deal. oh yeah, and a film with lots of latitude.

-- daniel taylor (lightsmythe@agalis.net), June 05, 2002.

the flourescents flicker at 120 hz. it is a sin^2 function. pulses twice per cycle.

-- daniel taylor (lightsmythe@agalis.net), June 05, 2002.

Daniel:

That is true with a magnetic ballist. Varies with other types.

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

Good comments, Jack, thankyou. You know the first thing I did after trading in my M6 for an M7? I ordered a spare battery cover. I got it after a month, for CAN $10.00 I will probably have to use it one of these days, or I'll sell it on eBay for $250.00 in a year or so. Anyway, after reading all the comments here, am I the only person in the universe who actually LIKES his M7? (I know, I know, I've had thoughts of trading it back for a M6 TTL, but that was purely a matter of money.) I don't get this. Whent they introduced the M6 "classic" they only added metering to the great M4, right? I'm sure hundreds of Leica users went: "Yuk, I don't need this!", yet it sold in the tens of thousands. Then, they introduced the M6 TTL, which added TTL flash. The same reaction probably happened. It also sold in the tens of thousands. And, before that, what about going from the M3 to the M2? And so on... I bet you, in a couple of years, everybody will have made the switch (no pun intended) to the M7, including most of the regulars of this forum. And, BTW, didn't I read somewhere that Leica had tested the M7 at minus 40 degrees C. without any ill effects? Cheers, you got a heck of a camera. Enjoy it. Me too, I hate the blinking red dot, but "c'est la vie". You and your M7 will make an odd couple. They last the longest.

-- Olivier (olreiche@videotron.ca), June 05, 2002.

Many people are asking what benefit is there to getting an M7 if they don't need or want AE (and don't care about the special flash provisions). There is still a benefit. The shutter speeds are intrinsically more accurately timed, and the AE mode allows a much finer gradation of shutter speeds. This provides for greater exposure accuracy, which may not be important with B & W or color prints, but is important if you reguarly shoot color slides.

More accurate than the M6/M6TTL or the Leicameter MR-4. Also, over the years, I have noticed significant variations in TTL meter readings with on-board SLR meters, which often do not match my Gossen Luna pro analog meter. I don't know whether this is a deliberate bias on the part of Japanese manufacturers or whether the meters are just off. But I do know that if you read PP tests, you will find that Contax regularly biases there exposures to underexposure (expecting users to shoot slide film?) and entry level AF SLRs are typically biased to over-exposure (? expecting users to shoot color print film).

Leica M6-7 camera meters are unbiased, which is what I prefer, since I like to make any exposure adjustments according to my own experience starting from a reading that I know is unbiased.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), June 05, 2002.

Roger, it is possible to get different diopter viewfinder eye-pieces for the Hexar (eg. through B&H) and they are cheaper than Leica diopter correction lenses.

-- sait (akkirman@clear.net.nz), June 05, 2002.

Jack, Thanks for the thoughtful contribution of your experiences with the M7 to date. The "blinking light" and a some hesitation over the security of the battery cover and ISO wheel are helpful coment for those contemplating a move to M7. This forum at its old fashioned best. Cheers,

-- Tim Gee (twg@optushome.com.au), June 05, 2002.

Eliot, a mechanical M shutter can be adjusted to within 1/6-stop at all shutter speeds. The 500/1000 speeds tend to drift a little but with the M6/M6TTL it is easy for anyone with an $80 Calumet shutter tester, a jeweller's screwdriver and a pair of pliers to "tune" them up periodically without removing anything more than the little black plastic plug behind the shutter dial (with the earlier models you need to remove the top plate). 1/6 stop is 50% below the threshhold for visible effect on slide film. So the accuracy thing is fine and dandy but it's not a night-and-day difference and certainly not worth the $600 difference between an M7, and an M6TTL minus rebate and Leica Day discount.

As to the added exposure precision of the stepless shutter in AE, I agree that is a tangible benefit. But here Leica did not even take a page from their own history: an oft-cited advantage of the R7 and R8 is the ability to set the shutter in 1/2-stops in manual mode. Had Leica done this with the M7, even those people who don't want or care about AE would have had a good reason to buy one.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

Jack- GREAT report! When you run into someone who has the shutter speed tester, it would be nice to run a check and see just how much accuracy has improved with the M7. Jay- My M4-P came back from a Leica CLA with all lower speeds spot on, but 1/250= 1/200, 1/500= 1/350 & 1/1000= 1/555. The fastest speeds are the ones I use most. Does tampering with the fast speeds change the accuracy of the slow speeds?

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), June 05, 2002.

I don't think the shutter in AE mode is stepless (as Leica's own literature suggests). The automatic shutter speeds simply include all the half stops, e.g. 1/3, 1/6...1/90...1/360, 1/750, and so forth. At least the readout doesn't seem to indicate anything other than these speeds.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), June 05, 2002.

jay -- i also have the calumet tester; it's a great item. however, one thing it will show you is that not only are the speeds of ANY mechanical camera always a bit off, especially at the low and high ends, but that the speed varies from exposure to exposure. if i fire my m6ttl several times in a row after a long rest, each successive shot will be faster. temperature also has a big effect on speeds. the more reliable speeds of the m7 is a big plus (as is the stepless speed capability in auto). however, i'm with you all the way on the idea that leica missed the boat in failing to include accurate intermediate settings. also annoying is the lack of a 1/2000th speed. however, on balance, i much prefer my m7 to my rf. i use the leica for one thing only: candid street photos (there are better tools for virtually every other type of photography). for this purpose, the fact that it is much quieter than the rf, has no shutter lag, and is not totally battery dependent are decisive factors. to me, the m7 is just about the perfect street shooting machine. i wanted (and in some ways still want) the rf to be that camera. for me, it just isn't. p.s. i'm not sure if david was being sarcastic, but i actually was one of the first to get an rf in the usa -- quite by chance. for some reason, hunt's photo in melrose got one of the first usa batches, and i bought one the day they came in. i also am the one who convinced george to make the cases for them. in short, i'm not anti-rf by any means.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), June 05, 2002.

tony, needless to say, the speeds are not truly stepless, but almost. if you read erwin's report, as well as several others, you will see that the increments are very tiny: 1/500, 1/510, 1/520th, etc. i.e. much smaller steps that 1/6th stops (or whatever) as indicated by the speed readouts in the VF. this variation between displayed speed and actual speed is very common in electronic shutter cameras.

-- roger mchel (michel@tcn.org), June 05, 2002.

quick question. do you use the meter the same way in the 7 as the 6 when you are going manual. with the 7
Actually, I initially used it just like I did the M6. Now I find I leave it on AE and simply meter a medium-toned object, lock on and then re-compose and shoot.

RE Stepless shutter: I read somewhere that the new M7 shutter is indeed stepless -- and my results on the chromes would tend to support same.

Re Hexar: I know MANY of you love this Leica alternative. Me, I fall right in line with roger -- I hated the shutter lag and I did not like the viewfinder relative to Leica. And it doesn't feel like a Leica in my hand. But I did like the AE, higher flash sync and higher top speed. BTW I also hated the out of tolerance back focus on the Hexar ;-)

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), June 05, 2002.

Daniel and Andy: Being an electrician I will weigh in on the ballasts. Core and Coil ballasts (cheapo) pulse at 60 cycles with the electricity, or 120 high and low pulses. The newer electronic ballasts pulse the power from the ballast to the lamp at up to 10,000 cycles. This allows the phosphors to be "excited" more of the time, hence the lower energy draw. In Canada at 50 cycle power, the flourescents flicker more than here. The television is a good analogy on what is happening with the meters, I believe. FWIW.

-- Mark Johnson (logical1@catholic.org), June 05, 2002.

I've been using the Hexar RF since it came out, with Leica, Konica and Voigtlander lenses.

The only measure I have ever been able to apply is what kind of photographs I can get. If I can't see other people's photographs, I have no idea what kind of standards they have. As far as I can remember, the Hexar RF bashers don't even show photographs, let alone photographs that aren't very good.

Crossed, Hexar RF, Copyright 2002 Jeff Spirer

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), June 05, 2002.

Mark,

Regarding the electricity supply in Canada, it is exactly the same as the U.S.A.! In fact we supply electricty to the States, and probably also buy some.

-- Ian MacEachern (iwmac@sympatico.ca), June 05, 2002.

Frank: The 1/200@250 is 20% slow, between 1/6 and 1/3 stop. I wouldn't worry about it even if your number is the average of 5-10 firings...and if it's just one firing it doesn't really mean much with a Leica. The 500 and 1000 numbers are too slow, but it's common for them to come back from CLA's like that. Most repairpeople assume the customer will be using print film and does not own a shutter tester, so why bother spending time fine-tuning as the customer will never know the difference. The good news is, 500 and 1000 are adjustable with the same adjustment eccentric. The bad news is, unlike the M6, the M4-2 needs the top plate removed to do it. If the camera was CLA's within the year, I would send it back to Leica with a note telling them you have a shutter tester, shoot slide film, and will keep sending it back as long as the speeds are more than 15% off. I did this with an R6 and it came back dead-bang-on. Roger: The Calumet tester, as they mention in the instructions, is very sensitive to how far it's placed from the light bulb with higher speeds (at slower speeds the distance isn't very critical). Here's a tip : *ignore* how the instructions say to determine the distance from the light bulb by using the formula. With my tester, using a fresh 100W frosted bulb with a dark non-reflective backdrop behind it, I set the camera so the film plane is 37.5 inches from the front of the bulb (at the thickest part, the "equator"). That is totally not the distance I got using the instructions, but it is the distance that gave me spot-on readings with a Nikon F5, the most accurate shutter there is (it's self-calibrating). I don't know if the testers vary from sample to sample, you might want to make your own test using a very accurate modern SLR. You might need to hold in a pin somewhere to fool the camera into thinking the back is closed, or some of them won't fire.

Jay

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), June 05, 2002.

jay -- you are rite about the tester. what works best is to put a piece of white paper in front (or behind) the shutter and lite it from behind the tester. this yields very good results. and by the way, the results i obtained -- variable speeds upon multiple firings close in time -- is very typical for any kind of mechanical shutter. and JEFF -- i am very sure that you are an infinitely better photographer than i (indeed, as you point out, i don't even take photos, just dry-fire my cameras). however, that does not prevent me from seeing objective shortcomings in the mechanical devices others use to make the kind of breathtaking art that you so graciously post here for our entertainment and edification.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), June 06, 2002.