I bought it!

[fotmaesron]

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Congratulation, i am shore you will love it,

I got mine only 3 weeks now, i am focusing on everything i see, just to learn focusing rapidly

I got a 18 j old summicron 35 with it,

works real good, even do i used to a 24 mm on my d-lux 4, but you can even do a portrait with it.

Success with yous and don't Waite too long to put a lens on it, time wasted to make good photo's!

 

Ronny

[Gotham Historian]

Thanks to all the warm sentiments! I awoke this morning and I still can't believe that I finally have one of these things. I handled a M7 back in 2005 when I was shopping for my Digilux 2 and wanted a M camera since then. When the M8 came out, it was priced too far above my budget, but since the M8.2 came out, the prices slowly crept towards my limit and when 9/9/09 rolled around, I knew the time was close.

 

I am eagerly awaiting my toy fund to replenish and then hopefully, I'll find a very clean chrome Summicron 28mm to mate to my M8.

 

By all standards, I am a earnest beginner of photography, owning the D1 and D2 before my M8. While I played with the manual functions of the D1 and D2, I am still learning. I have been flipping through the Bower's book Digital M Photography and might order it as I have some gift card credits from amazon. I've also downloaded a few photography podcasts to listen to while reading. I have a few friends who like photography, but their weapon of choice are Nikon DSLRs. Either case, I suspect I won't be able to hold out until this summer, I'll probably dig into my nest egg and pick up a good first Leica lens. I saw the 2010 price list and was stunned at the MSRP of some of these lenses. I'm going to choose a nice preowned example, but living in Chicago, there's lots of choices of stores and hobbyists.

[kiteland]

Congrats - I waited ages to get my M8 also. Enjoy you wont regret it

[Makten]

Could someone get the guy complaining to post an image of his camera, without lens, seen square on from the front? I'm curious whether his cam-tracker is centered. (Or is he the same Makten as here? Then post the shot here.)

Of course it's the same Makten. The cam tracker is centered on both the M8 and the CL that the lens was attached to. This has nothing with infinity focus to do, which I really hope you understand.

 

The 40C is marvelous, but the Makten on rangefinderforum has a list of confusions about the camera and various lenses. I just want to know whether the focusing tracker on his camera is in a place to track the 40C accurately. Many of the comments he got about it are off-kilter. I have no opinion about his other lens problems.

What "confusions" are you thinking about?

[ho_co]

Of course it's the same Makten. The cam tracker is centered on both the M8 and the CL that the lens was attached to. This has nothing with infinity focus to do, which I really hope you understand.

 

What "confusions" are you thinking about?

Well, for example, your contention that the location of the cam tracker has nothing to do with infinity focus with sloped-cam lenses. In addition, your comment (op.cit.):

Focusing and infinity should be possible to fix by grinding off a bit on the bayonet flange.

Grinding the lens mount isn't the way to fix focus. And second--you're probably not a native speaker of English--I think the term "flange" is usually used to refer not to the flat part of the mount, but to the protruding 'teeth' which hold it to the body bayonet. Some folks do modify the flange of the 40C in order to bring up the 35mm instead of the 50mm frames.

 

Thanks, though, for the information. You're confirming my contention above that Leica has apparently made centration of the cam tracker part of the camera specification.

 

So yours is one more camera that would be focusing properly with the CL if the lens were not "garbage," to use your term.

 

 

In regard to the importance of the location of the cam-tracker for sloped-cam lenses, check my post above, or any of several exchanges on the matter previously posted on the forum. To avoid having to explain the issue, Leica simply declared that CL lenses aren't to be used on M cameras. That was only true for 25% of the M production through the M5. You got a lot of bad information about the matter because so few people understand the cause of the problem. Since I worked for Leica during the time of the CL, I got more specific training on the subject. Today there's far less need for people to understand, even at Leica.

 

Again I say to Gotham Historian--from what I've seen to date, including from Mak here, a 40C would be a perfect complement to your camera.

[jaapv]

Howard, I am not doubting your expertise, but the helicoid on the C mount has a throw of just 120 degrees, which makes the tolerance of the link to the camera far too large to make accurate focussing possible. It is not a very suitable lens for an M8 or M9 unless the tolerance of the user for focus error is correspondingly high. These lenses are designed for the short measuring base of the CL rangefinder. That is why Leica does not recommend using these lenses on full-size M cameras, although they did indeed work decently on -less critical- film. Even so, Erwin Puts warns for focussing problems.

[Makten]

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Well, for example, your contention that the location of the cam tracker has nothing to do with infinity focus with sloped-cam lenses. In addition, your comment (op.cit.):

If I set the lens to its infinity stop, the rangefinder, cam, slope or anything related to this, will of course not have anything to do with where focus ends up to be.

 

Grinding the lens mount isn't the way to fix focus.

You could do it that way. I'm so sorry that I wasn't aware of the other ways.

 

Now, if I look at the cam of the Summicron at different distance settings and compare it to the "moving barrel" of the CV 28 Ultron, they line up at the exact same places. I really don't understand why it shouldn't work, if the lens was properly calibrated. Mine obviously isn't.

 

And Jaap, the Ultron also has a 120 degree focus throw.

[ho_co]

Jaap, I only know what I was told when I was selling M5s and CLs. It had nothing to do with focus throw, and had simply to do with centering of the cam tracker in the camera. I've never seen a case where you couldn't tell by looking whether an M camera would focus with a C lens.

 

You're right about Erwin, and that bothers me. I was very surprised when he didn't mention what I was told was the problem.

 

I recently spoke to a person in New Jersey who should know whether the location of the focus tracker has been standardized, but he simply quoted the Leica line, "It's an M camera. C lenses can't be used on it." I can understand that from Leica's viewpoint: Don't tie up our personnel with information about discontinued products.

 

BTW, I don't think the M9 manual forbids use of the C lenses. And that's from a company that is careful enough to explain that a 135 may not work well wide open (though the reason they give is incomplete).

[ho_co]

... if the lens was properly calibrated. Mine obviously isn't. ...

Mak, judging from your description, your lens needs calibration. Send it to Leica for an estimate. If the estimate is too high, just don't have the work done and toss the lens.

 

Or they may say that the lens is fine, in which case there may be a problem with your body. And of course, it's possible that both are out of spec.

 

My guess is that the lens got disassembled at some point, and the person who put it back together didn't know what he was doing. I doubt seriously that it passed Leica's quality control if it's in as bad condition as you describe.