Myth: Leicaflex SL & the bright viewfinder

[SteveYork]

The word on the street is that the Leicaflex SL and SL2 has the brightest and best viewfinder -- ever. Period. End of story.

I've now had the opportunity to compare a 1991 R6.2 (that had been sitting on a dealer's shelf all that time), to a 1973 Leicaflex SL (that had been sitting on a collector's shelf since the late 1970's), a 1972 Leicaflex SL Mot (w/ a 'resilvered' prism) and a 1975 Leicaflex SL2. The three latter cameras had the famed micro-prism viewfinder screen.

It is very clear that the R6.2 has the brighter viewfinder. It is more grainy however. This graininess becomes much more noticeable as the magnification of the lens increases. The Leicaflex are near perfect with telephoto or macro lenses, or outside in well lit situations, but involve a guessing game in low light.

With adequate light, the image just pops into focus, with the Leicaflex, in a way that the R6.2 does not, because of the graininess of the screen. But with standard lenses (comparing a 50mm ROM to a 2 cam) the difference is negligible.

I'm suggesting that the beauty of the Leicaflex SL is the smoothness of the image inside the viewfinder, not the brightness. As stated above, my experience has been that they are not brighter then the R6.2, just much less grainy. And I'm also suggesting that this special quality only comes into play (as a practical matter) with telephoto or macro lenses.

I know this is hardly a controlled study, given the age of the cameras and limited sampling, but if anyone has any imput let me know, because I'm trying to decide whether to replace the prisms on the two Leicaflex I now have.

[ismon]

While probably not a direct answer to your initial question, The Leicaflex Standard remains the brightness champ. In their first foray into the SLR market, Leitz wanted a reflex finder as bright as an M. They put 13,000 triangular 0.04mm microprisms in a 7mm focusing circle, surrounded by a super-bright but non-focusing field. M-camera people could adapt to this concept as they had their rangefinders. The SLR world went a little nuts. With the introduction of the SL and all the reflex cameras since, Leica focusing screens have a coarser 0.12mm central square microprism circle, but retained the tiny triangular prisms (from the Standard) outside the 7mm focusing circle across the rest of the screen. Great for composition, but a compromise on brightness. Whether SL or R6.2, the microprisms are the same. The interchanceable screens can be exchanged/modified by Brightscreen to boost the brightness. It helps, but doesn't work miracles. In the end, there are no perfect cameras. Leicas are just the best.

[JBA]

My SL2 has a much brighter screen than my R8. I haven't checked out an R6 for comparison. A Nikon F or F2 with a clean H2 screen (full-field microprism) defintely rivals the Leicaflex for brightness and ease of focusing.

[michiel_fokkema]

My SL2 vf is brighter then the ones on my R6 and R8. In bright weather it is sometimes too bright.

Cheers,

Michiel Fokkema

[thrid]

I have an R8, R6.2 and SL (re-silvered with SL2 screen). The SL viewfinder has the most contrast, probably because it has the coarsest screen. Brightness is similar across the board.