pico Posted August 23, 2011 Share #1 Posted August 23, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) The M1 has the viewfinder window but no rangefinder. Correct? What was the anticipated application for it? I understand the rationale for the Ms with no windows at all, but the M1? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 23, 2011 Posted August 23, 2011 Hi pico, Take a look here M1 - Why was it made?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
adan Posted August 23, 2011 Share #2 Posted August 23, 2011 Per historian Dennis Laney, it was basically the first (1959) M converted for pure scientific use (microscopes, Viso, telescopes - remember Leitz was a full-range optical company back then). As such, it was cheaper (and faster) to leave out the RF but not go to the expense of machining special top plates with no windows. Additionally, the M1 design was used as the basis for the "Post Cameras" - sold to the German Post Office with fixed-focus 35mm lenses for recording telephone meter readings, thus the viewfinder had some function. (EDIT - an aside: interesting that telephone use was "metered" like electricity back then. And that it was a government operation - presumably because the Post Office had authority over all means of long-range communications) In 1964, Leitz took the "sensible step" (in Laney's words) of going the whole way and leaving out the windows as well, with the MD. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted August 23, 2011 Author Share #3 Posted August 23, 2011 Thank you, Andy. I heard of Post cameras and no idea what they were. Excellent! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted August 23, 2011 Share #4 Posted August 23, 2011 As an aside, our telephones In the UK are metered and the phone company send us a bill every quarter depending on how much we have used it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twotone Posted August 23, 2011 Share #5 Posted August 23, 2011 Slightly off topic here guys but it was my birthday on Saturday:D and my daughter bought me a copy of Gúnter Osterloch's LeicaM (apologies for the lack of the proper umlaut). A fantastic book that details every film M camera made up to the MP. Well worth buying a copy IMO. Tony http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105872 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted August 23, 2011 Share #6 Posted August 23, 2011 As an aside, our telephones In the UK are metered and the phone company send us a bill every quarter depending on how much we have used it. Yes, but a bloke doesn't go to each house and read the meter which I think is what Andy was alluding to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted August 23, 2011 Share #7 Posted August 23, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) True. No one bothers to read any meters any more. I have to send Britsh Gas a meter reading very month, if I dont want an estimated bill... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twotone Posted August 23, 2011 Share #8 Posted August 23, 2011 My gas and electric meters are read regularly BTW by Scottish Power and I read them too for my energy provider (EON) who rewards me with tesco points:) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted August 23, 2011 Author Share #9 Posted August 23, 2011 As an aside, our telephones In the UK are metered and the phone company send us a bill every quarter depending on how much we have used it. That seems quite likely. When I lived in England we had a pay phone in our home, and shilling meters for heat and hot water. Today in the USA they beam our energy and water use to ... somewhere I don't trust. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ho_co Posted August 24, 2011 Share #10 Posted August 24, 2011 Andy, don't forget the Reprovit and the BEOON (I think?), from the camera side of Leitz. A camera to be used exclusively as a copy camera didn't need a finder. Of course, it was reasonable for the dealer to "sell up" to a full-function body, just in case the purchaser wanted to take the camera home for the weekend. The finderless Zeiss Ikon SW was only recently discontinued. There must have been a perceived market for it to have been introduced at all. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Geschlecht Posted August 24, 2011 Share #11 Posted August 24, 2011 Hello Everybody, I would say the M1 has windows for a different & purposeful reason: Leica M's 3, 2 & 1 embody in bayonet cameras a more modern form of the relationship found among the preceding screwmount Leica Cameras III, II, & I whether they were IIIa's, IIc's, Ig's or whatever. M3's have all the doo-dads just like a IIIa all the way thru IIIg. Early M2's have most things an M3 does except they came w/ no self timer, had a button rewind & a manual reset frame counter, etc. Leicas II thru IIg have no slow speeds, etc but otherwise have most of what the III series has including separate rangefinders & viewfinders. M1's are pretty much M2's w/ viewfinders lacking rangefinders & changable frames. They have parallax corrected 35mm & 50mm frames both of which are visible @ the same time. Ic's & If's are pretty much II's lacking rangefinders & viewfinders. Ig's are pretty much the same as Ic's & If's except Ig's have the slow shutter speeds the Ic's & If 's do not. Why does an M1 have a viewfinder w/ parallax corrected 35mm & 50mm framelines both visible @ the same time? The Ic, If & Ig all have 2 cold shoes. presumably 1 for an add on rangefinder & 1 for the viewfinder for the lens being used. The M1 has only 1. Leitz knew by simply having the viewfinder w/ what are probably the 2 most commonly used guess focussable lenses they would not only be providing for people who wanted a camera for bellows, microscope, etc but also for those who might guess focus an M1 w/ 1 or both of those lenses until they could afford to upgrade it to a rangefinder coupled M2. A sevice Leitz offered for M1's for many years. Leitz also upgraded screw mount models. Anyhow, for whatever the reason, an M1 was pretty much an M2 w/o quite the options of a standard M2 just like a Ic or If was not quite a IIc or IIf. The +'s & -'s of the M3 as opposed to the M2 range/viewfinder are not specifically relevant to the direction of thought I am developing here. As such I am leaving this topic out of this Post. Anyone who has read much of what I have written elsewhere over time concerning the topic of M3 & M2 range/viewfinders knows where I stand. The M2 range/viewfinder is the basis of all subsequent M range/viewfinders. The M4 was presented in 1967 as a camera which has the best of an M3 & the best of an M2. An M4 also added: 4th frame within 1 range/viewfinder, built in quick load, auto reset internal frame counter, canted higher speed rewind, etc. Therefore the increase in # to M4. The M5 added a BTL meter, shutter speeds visible in the viewfinder, hot shoe, more variable shutter, etc. Justification to raise its # to M5. Sometimes a small step back: M4-2. & so on. Just a thought. Best Regards, Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pecole Posted August 24, 2011 Share #12 Posted August 24, 2011 Per historian Dennis Laney, it was basically the first (1959) M converted for pure scientific use (microscopes, Viso, telescopes - remember Leitz was a full-range optical company back then). As such, it was cheaper (and faster) to leave out the RF but not go to the expense of machining special top plates with no windows. Additionally, the M1 design was used as the basis for the "Post Cameras" - sold to the German Post Office with fixed-focus 35mm lenses for recording telephone meter readings, thus the viewfinder had some function. (EDIT - an aside: interesting that telephone use was "metered" like electricity back then. And that it was a government operation - presumably because the Post Office had authority over all means of long-range communications) In 1964, Leitz took the "sensible step" (in Laney's words) of going the whole way and leaving out the windows as well, with the MD. Wrong as for the origin of the "Post" cameras : they were originally based on M3, not M1 and they were designed (or at least specified) by the Swiss firm Alos, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted August 24, 2011 Share #13 Posted August 24, 2011 Two contributions... 1. Your energy supplier (who is not the same as your meter reader since deregulation) has a statutory obligation to collect an AMR (Actual Meter Read) at least once every two years. EMRs are actually more trouble than they are worth because they piss people off and are one of the key factors in encouraging switching. The only industry in the UK that has a higher customer churn than utilities is motor insurance. Companies monitor COA (Cost of Acquisition) and CTS (Cost to Serve) as KPIs that in turn are of interest to OFGEM.* 2. As to the M1, I shall apply Billy of Ockhams sharp thing and suggest that it was cheaper and easier to ship 'em out with windows than to produce blank ones if they already had the parts in stock and more importantly the production line set up in that way. *too many acronyms, sorry. Regards, Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted August 24, 2011 Share #14 Posted August 24, 2011 Pecole - I simply quoted a source. "A batch of 32 Post M1 cameras were modified by the Swiss company Alos AG for the German Post Office to record telephone meter readings. These were modified to 24 x 27 format and fitted with a stand-off front plate that allowed the camera to be snapped in and out of the apparatus." - Leica Collectors Guide, Dennis Laney, p. 85, Hove Books, 1992 It appears several Leica camera body types were modified for this use, including MD, 1f and 1g, so it is possible M3s were also part of the mix. Are you saying the M1 was not among them? http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa318/kirkwoodpix/postcameras002-1.jpg Leitz: Leica If Swedish POST Price Guide: estimate a camera value Leitz: Leica Ig Post Price Guide: estimate a camera value ____________ An aside - does the UK still use direction-finder trucks to track down "unlicensed" televisions, or is that a thing of the past in the age of cable, satellite and AppleTV? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted August 24, 2011 Share #15 Posted August 24, 2011 An aside - does the UK still use direction-finder trucks to track down "unlicensed" televisions, or is that a thing of the past in the age of cable, satellite and AppleTV? I believe so - but not to the same extent. The main approach now is to maintain a database of all dwellings, assume that anyone who doesn't have a TV licence is watching TV without a license, and set about getting them to pay or prove they don't have to. As I understand it, you need a licence even to watch online via a computer or smartphone or whatever - if you watch or record a programme at the same time it's being broadcast on air. If later you stream it from the broadcaster's website you don't need a license. This must make it quitehard for the licensing authority to prove its case, so they depend partly on bluff and bullying to get people to pay up. And partly on seeing or hearing televisions in use where there's no licence. And partly on detectors. Here's the offical version, which is of course part of the bluff: TV Licensing - Detection and penalties Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pecole Posted August 25, 2011 Share #16 Posted August 25, 2011 Pecole - I simply quoted a source. "A batch of 32 Post M1 cameras were modified by the Swiss company Alos AG for the German Post Office to record telephone meter readings. These were modified to 24 x 27 format and fitted with a stand-off front plate that allowed the camera to be snapped in and out of the apparatus." - Leica Collectors Guide, Dennis Laney, p. 85, Hove Books, 1992 It appears several Leica camera body types were modified for this use, including MD, 1f and 1g, so it is possible M3s were also part of the mix. Are you saying the M1 was not among them? http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa318/kirkwoodpix/postcameras002-1.jpg Leitz: Leica If Swedish POST Price Guide: estimate a camera value Leitz: Leica Ig Post Price Guide: estimate a camera value ____________ An aside - does the UK still use direction-finder trucks to track down "unlicensed" televisions, or is that a thing of the past in the age of cable, satellite and AppleTV? Let's be clear : the very first Leica M Post cameras were based on M3 and wrongly called "MD Post" since they looked like MD; in fact, they appeared long before the MD was designed, manufactured and marketed, and they differ quite a lot internally. Later, MDa and M1 were also modified by - or at the request of Alos for "Post" use, but no MD was ever used as Post. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted August 25, 2011 Share #17 Posted August 25, 2011 An aside - does the UK still use direction-finder trucks to track down "unlicensed" televisions, or is that a thing of the past in the age of cable, satellite and AppleTV? They do. They also use hand-held devices that work in, for example, blocks of flats. John is right, though, they rely upon a database and bullying tactics far more these days. I had a period of a month, a few years ago, where I was moving house and my TV licence was expiring 3 weeks before. I deliberately disconnected my TV from any receiver - not hard to do because it was a flat and only cable TV worked, and I had already had that terminated - and for a few weeks listened to the radio. Over that period I had letters literally every 3 days threatening dire retribution. I ignored every one. Some retailers in the UK will demand your name and address before they will sell you a TV receiver; that includes PVRS and freeview boxes, let alone TV sets. I had a big row in Sainsburys once for that reason. I refused to provide that information and they in turn said that they had to have it in order to prove to "the ministry" (their words not mine) that they had sold the receiver in good faith to someone who had a licence. This was arrant bollocks and I pointed it out, threatening to walk out without completing the purchase. It was fascinating to watch them try to "prove" their case, before resorting to "it's an instruction from head office" before giving up. All the while, two twitchy security guards hovered in the background, presumably in case I turned "violent". What a world we live in... Regards, Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyoung Posted August 25, 2011 Share #18 Posted August 25, 2011 [quote=bill;1811614 snip .... Over that period I had letters literally every 3 days threatening dire retribution. I ignored every one. When I worked for the School of Art & Design my office was in a building which had umpteen TVs, VCRs etc, and a studio with cameras, recorders and edit suites. We used to get one of these letters every few months and we sent a standard reply that the building was covered by the Universiy's central licensing, they didn't seem to record this response and sent an inspector once! Gerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
UliWer Posted August 25, 2011 Share #19 Posted August 25, 2011 ...2. As to the M1, I shall apply Billy of Ockhams sharp thing and suggest that it was cheaper and easier to ship 'em out with windows than to produce blank ones if they already had the parts in stock and more importantly the production line set up in that way. .... I think that's reasonable. Perhaps one other reason Leitz left out the rangefinder was the fact that the M1 was sold to the army. As the enemy was always at infinity, they didn't have any need for exact focussing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted August 25, 2011 Share #20 Posted August 25, 2011 I always thought the M1 was made for old-style PJs who felt rangefinders were for wimps. Grandads of the guys who don't want LCDs on their M9s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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