jip Posted January 20, 2014 Share #1 Posted January 20, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) Was wondering since allot of people say the M240 rangefinder is the best to be found in digital M's what have they changed compared to the M9 for example. More accurate? Brighter? Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 20, 2014 Posted January 20, 2014 Hi jip, Take a look here View- rangefinder differences between M9 and M240. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
marknorton Posted January 20, 2014 Share #2 Posted January 20, 2014 I had put it down to the rangefinder patch being more contrasty making it easier to see when the images are coincident, but I may be wrong. It is certainly easier and more accurate to use and, with Live View, allows you to assess accuracy of your lenses except that of course if the rangefinder is not coincident when Live View is in focus, you still don't know if its camera or lens other than by a form of majority voting point the finger of suspicion in one direction or the other. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 20, 2014 Share #3 Posted January 20, 2014 Smaller manufacturing tolerances too. There is no discernible difference any more in coming from infinity or coming from closeup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
acordes Posted January 20, 2014 Share #4 Posted January 20, 2014 May be the reason is that the frame lines are now self illuminated and not by the light from outside, that may be does enhance the contrast of the focus-patch and though helps to focus. For me the contrast looks stronger, but 'am coming from a 8.2 so I don't know the 9.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted January 20, 2014 Share #5 Posted January 20, 2014 May be the reason is that the frame lines are now self illuminated and not by the light from outside, that may be does enhance the contrast of the focus-patch and though helps to focus. For me the contrast looks stronger, but 'am coming from a 8.2 so I don't know the 9.... Me too think that the elimination of the good old "intermediate window" for frames illumination has made better the overall contrast within the RF light paths: after all, when thinking at how a RF works and is made, is clear that any other "hole" which makes light entering into, can be source of collateral annoying effects. That window was an element historically present in the styling of Ms... and in a certain sense I miss it... ; but so better if changing has been for a right goal. Fact is that the M240 RF has given me from the start the feel to have something better in operation.... I wonder if, together with tolerancing, they have changed also some of the materials used, achieving a better two-way smothness which is evident. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brusby Posted January 20, 2014 Share #6 Posted January 20, 2014 Smaller manufacturing tolerances too. There is no discernible difference any more in coming from infinity or coming from closeup. I just got through checking focus of several of my most used lenses on the M240 so I'd know which were spot on and which had front or rear focus issues. I also checked to see which ones exhibited problematic focus shift. With most of the lenses I was able to measure small but significant differences in the actual point of focus depending on the last direction the lens was turned. It was most noticeable with longer lenses like the 75mm - 135mm. I'm talking about an amount that might result in a person's eye being just slightly out of focus in a close head shot. But, I can't be sure of the cause. I suspect it's a result of minor slack or play in the lenses rather than the rangefinder, or possibly just my eyesight being a limiting factor, even though I used a 1.35x magnifier and focused as carefully as I could with the camera on a tripod. While I think and hope your statement above is correct, I have no way to rule out either the lens or camera or my eyesight as the culprit. In fairness to the M240, I love it's rangefinder as it does seem noticeably more accurate than my M9 was. I just get more keepers. Not that the M9 was bad, it's just the M240 is a welcome improvement. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 20, 2014 Share #7 Posted January 20, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) There is gear lash, but it has been reduced to the point of irrelevance on the M. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoppyman Posted January 20, 2014 Share #8 Posted January 20, 2014 I had put it down to the rangefinder patch being more contrasty making it easier to see when the images are coincident, but I may be wrong. It is certainly easier and more accurate to use and, with Live View, allows you to assess accuracy of your lenses except that of course if the rangefinder is not coincident when Live View is in focus, you still don't know if its camera or lens other than by a form of majority voting point the finger of suspicion in one direction or the other. I just had my camera and my Summilux 50 ASPH serviced following impact. The approach was that they serviced and adjusted the camera first before the lens. Reportedly the technicians are finding that the new camera is more sensitive to lens calibration. So I have benchmarked examples if you like. With my best testing at home the RF puts the sharpest plane wide open or nearly so with a couple of millimetres at one and two metres. Using the Liveview and focus peaking as part of that testing illustrated that it is less precise even in my ideal test condition than the RF. Not to say that it may not be perfectly OK, just that I can discriminate more finely with the RF. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff S Posted January 20, 2014 Share #9 Posted January 20, 2014 I've posted this before, but Stefan Daniel says in this interview with Thorsten [near top of page, at about the 10:40 mark] that almost every part is changed from the M9, except the structure of the RF, although the RF accuracy has been improved. It's hard to hear the exact words, but this seems to be the essence. As Jaap says, it's likely improved manufacturing tolerances. And I suspect that the change to internally illuminated frame lines helps as well. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bocaburger Posted January 24, 2014 Share #10 Posted January 24, 2014 Since I adjusted my M9's rangefinder (it was off at infinity and the arm sweep adjustment) it is spot-on with all my lenses including the 135s. I can't imagine how the M240 could be any more accurate, but perhaps it could be that the contrast would make focusing easier. Frankly I didn't notice any significant-to-me difference with the several M240s I tried. If Leica's manufacturing tolerances are tighter now, that's great. Hopefully their final assembly/adjustment QC is tighter too, which would make a big difference. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sclemmons Posted January 25, 2014 Share #11 Posted January 25, 2014 Sean Reid says the framelines on the 240 are optimized for accuracy at a 2m distance. The M9 was a different distance, but I don't recall which distance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 25, 2014 Share #12 Posted January 25, 2014 That is correct, but it goes for all rangefinders. Framelines can only be accurate at one distance. You will find on the M240 that they are too wide at one meter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted January 25, 2014 Share #13 Posted January 25, 2014 That is correct, but it goes for all rangefinders. Framelines can only be accurate at one distance. You will find on the M240 that they are too wide at one meter. Some rangefinder cameras had framelines whose size changed with the focused distance (e.g. Koni Omega series). They were still only accurate at one distance, but at least that was the distance you focused on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted January 25, 2014 Share #14 Posted January 25, 2014 That is true - but those are huge press cameras. I must admit I did not think of them when writing the post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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