Quote:
Originally Posted by lars_bergquist
The Leica II (the first one with a rangefinder, in 1932) did not have any focusing lever for it. It went in with the III, which had its rangefinder magnification raised from unit to 1.5x, in order to improve focusing of the 13.5cm lenses, in fact! This made focusing for far and near necessary. Note that there is an infinity mark on the lever!
It was NOT for eyesight correction. That would have been fairly useless as the finder is not helped by it. Correction was done with separate lenses screwed into the two eyepieces, and these lenses were sold in pairs! But 'authorities' who have never even tried to use a LTM Leica but only copy each other's errors have perpetuated the 'dioptries' myth.
The old man from the Age of the IIIc
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Lars,
There have been a few threads about diopter correction lenses for the Thread Mount Leicas... Yes, there was an attachment, which slid over the dual eyepiece - check your IIIc or IIIf eyepiece, there are slots in their sides. Those were used for diopter adjustment eyepieces when the one built into the camera was not sufficient enough. There never were screw-in correction lenses for thread mount Leicas; there are no threads on the rear eyepiece to accept them.
I have noticed that, as my eyesight changed over the years, the position of the lever that made the finder easier to focus, changed as well. My wife, who has a pretty bad eyesight, could never focus a IIIc after I used it - she had to move the lever to a different position to adjust for her own eyesight.
The OKARO is a great suggestion, it will increase the contrast somewhat and will make it esier to see the difference between the two rangefinder images.
"The old man who started his photography hobby 45 years ago with his mother's IIIb, progressed to a IIIf, than an M3, M4, M5, M6, M7 and the rest is history"....
All the best,
Jan