Widest lens on M240 without a aux VF?

[ayewing]

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I appreciate very much this sincere suggestion & recognize it to be very good advice indeed.  However, at age 75 I suffer from arthritis in each of my right & left hand thumb joints that serves both to weaken them substantially, & to have dislocated the actual thumb to wrist joints such that the thumbs are displaced closer to the index fingers.  This is not an uncommon situation my orthopedic doctor tells me & likely can be corrected by surgery.  It is also painful but a series of epidural cortisone injections in my right thumb joint has enabled me to function with hardly any pain.  But the weakness & dislocation is such that I am unable to manage the somewhat heavy M without either using two hands or having the added fulcrum provided by the Thumbs Up.  I found the same to be true for the last four years using both a Fuji X-Pro1 & X-E2, both much lighter than the M.  I needed the Thumbs Up on both Fuji's as well.  But I do thank you for the kind suggestion, & maybe after surgery I can give it a try.  Kind regards.

 

 

A good alternative to the Thumbs up is is the "Thumbie" which provides a thumb grip without accupying the hotshoe.

There is a post about it here:http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/224377-thumbie-for-the-m-with-discount-for-luf-members/

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[Jed Orme]

I'm sorry to hear that Jed, although you seem to be coping handsomely.

 

Have you considered the M hand grip which also comes with a finger loop? I don't know whether it might help or not.

 

As for the 21mm lens, many people are happy to use their judgement and work without an auxiliary finder, and your experience with the focal length should enable you to be perfectly successful with it as it is. Don't forget (I'm sure you haven't) that you can always check the framing in LV mode on the rear screen, but again, using Live View is anathema for some, however useful it may be!

I did consider the M hand grip as I had used the Fuji equivalents on both of my X cameras.  However, with the added weight of the M, I found I needed something that would allow a bit more of a secure handhold.  What I found that works beautifully is the Really Right Stuff hand grip, along with its L bracket that attaches to the other side of the camera.  The latter also helps to solve a problem of my left hand not always being able to get a good grip on the M without sometimes ending up with a finger over the viewfinder.  Added bonuses of the RRS system are:  (1) my used camera had a badly dinged up base plate that Leica wanted $300 to replace, & the RRS system uses their own quite attractive replacement base plate; (2) the RRS base plate & L bracket are grooved to fit into my Swiss Arca tripod & monopod attachments; (3) the RRS base plate uses the M's built in tripod screw-in to release & attach much easier than the original M base plate; & (4) the RRS base plate, hand grip & L bracket actually cost a little less than Leica's replacement base plate.

 

And when using the 21mm on the X-Pro1 camera with its hybrid lens (EVF built in to the OVF), I almost always checked framing with the EVF - the M's LV equivalent.  But on my M, it may not quite be anathema for me, but I haven't really got into that same habit - at least not yet.  The same is true for my Leica 90mm Tele-Elmarit lens which came from my Fuji days - but there the problems are just trying to see all that is in the quite small frame line area within the view finder.  I actually do want to start experimenting with LV some on the M for both of these lenses; who knows, it might be a solution to problems of which I wasn't even aware!