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Occasionally rangefinder patch is bizarrely misaligned?


onasj

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It's happened twice now (out of many hours of shooting): I put a rangefinder-coupled lens on my M10, everything works normally, I put the camera in my bag, then take it out a while later, bring it to my eye, and now no matter where I turn the focusing ring, the rangefinder's center patch will not align with the rest of the image.  Frustrating to say the least!

 

In at least the second case, I did note that I neglected to turn off the camera after the first use.  I definitely did NOT remove the lens from the M10 between the rangefinder functioning perfectly and being misaligned.

 

In both cases, power cycling the M10 did not address the problem and the only remedy was to unmount and remount the lens.

 

Any insights into what might be happening?

 

Thank you!

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Hi

 

Sadly this has been happening to my M240 quite often in recent months (no M10 yet), and what you described perfectly matches what I occasionally face, so the cause is probably the same.

 

In my case, the rangefinder "arm" with the roller somehow got stuck inside the camera body - you will notice the little wheel does not extend near the edge of the lens mount, and therefore, wasn't engaged by the lens no matter how you turn the focus ring. Hence the rangefinder patch will not move.

 

My simple solution now when it happens is to press the roller inward gently and the arm will pop right back into the correct position, and the rangefinder will once again engage with the lens.

 

The next time it happens, try it! I'm going to send in my M240 for a fix once I get my M10, but meanwhile this simple step solves the problem.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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This is quite a common complaint for all kinds of Leica cameras.

 

It's usually caused by something obstructing the rangefinder window in front of the camera, usually a finger, but it also could be a garment or the camera strap.

 

Most photographers who experience this for the first time tend to disbelieve that it's something so simple. It most often is.

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I once had a small piece of fluff (paper?) stuck in the roller arm pivot doing just this. It took me a while to figure it out.

BTW, switching on and off, and fiddling with batteries, won't do much for a purely mechanical system.

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Thanks, everyone. To be clear, when this problem happens the focus ring still shifts the image inside the patch, but it will never coincide with the rest of the image and of course does not reflect proper focus.

 

I'm mildly relieved that the problem is not a defect with my M10, but also mildly alarmed that this appears to be a common issue with Leica Ms! While it's very rare (twice in 5,000 frames), it's problematic when it happens and spoils the whole agility of the otherwise very nimble M system.

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If you can see the patch moving, then the RF window is not occluded and it's not a common issue at all.

 

Does the problem always occur with the same lens? Do you happen to have other M bodies, and does the problem occur with those bodies as well?

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Thanks, everyone. To be clear, when this problem happens the focus ring still shifts the image inside the patch, but it will never coincide with the rest of the image and of course does not reflect proper focus.

 

I'm mildly relieved that the problem is not a defect with my M10, but also mildly alarmed that this appears to be a common issue with Leica Ms! While it’s very rare (twice in 5,000 frames), it’s problematic when it happens and spoils the whole agility of the otherwise very nimble M system.

It is not a common issue. Philipp meant finger in front of window.
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A couple of ideas, given that the problem is intermittent, and you can see the images moving, but never aligning:

 

1. Subjects or parts of subjects with repetitive vertical patterns/objects - such as a railing with vertical balusters.

________________________

|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

           a            b

 

At an intermediate distance, and given the small area you are seeing "double" (the central patch), it is possible to be trying to align two different vertical lines (say, a and b ) You can perhaps get the two lines to align, but nothing else is correctly aligned (and the picture will be out of focus, naturally.)

 

I've even found myself sometimes trying to align the left and right eyes of a portrait subject, if the camera comes out of the bag at a focus setting that makes them look nearly aligned to begin with. :blink:

 

2. Parallax and the lenses starting position. Occasionally, I've tried to focus and can't align things, and realize I am so far off (starting from infinity focus with a close subject, or focused at the close limit with a distant subject) that I can't even SEE a double image of any one thing to align - the two images in the RF patch are aimed at completely different parts of the scene. And I hit the stops trying to align them because I start turning the focus ring the wrong direction in the first place.

 

One of the tricks to unmask such situations is to use the "other" focus method of the rangefinder - the split image. Look at the top or bottom of the RF patch, and don't look for the double image, but for the alignment of vertical cues along the edge

 

Or just move the lens by scale to be sure you are approximately focused in the right range: 3 feet or 10 feet or infinity, and then fine-tune by aligning the double image.

 

I really cannot think of a mechanical fault with the RF that would be intermittent - fine for one picture, won't work for the next, then fine again. If something was really loose, it would be flopping all over the place all the time, and unable (except by wildest chance) to fix itself between pictures.

Edited by adan
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I think you nailed it, Andy.

 

To elaborate on Andy's answer I add a quote from our FAQ, which one can find at the top of the M240 forum. It has quite a few useful tips for M10 users as well..

 

 

 

Question: I come from an autofocus camera background. What is the best way to get good focus on the M9?

The M9 works the same way as any rangefinder camera, the central patch in the viewfinder is your focusing tool.
It is important to look through the viewfinder in the optical axis. Looking into the camera skewed will result in inaccurate focus.

The first thing to do is to ascertain that you can see the rangefinder patch properly. A correct match between the rangefinder and your eye is even more important than it is using an SLR.
Leica sells corrective diopter lenses. Determining which one you need - if any- can be done by going to your optician and holding his try-out lenses between your eye and the viewfinder. The one that allows you to see the rangefinder patch and framelines sharply is the correct one. Order the nearest value from Leica. In a pinch you can use over-the-counter reading glasses for this test. If your eyes need special corrections, you can use your spectacles, provided you can see clearly at 2 metres distance ( the virtual distance of the rangefinder patch). Note that the background will be at background distance,so your eye should ideally be able to accomodate over the distance differential. However, there is some tolerance here.

For special cases there are viewfinder magnifiers. They can help, especially with longer and fast lenses and they can give confidence, but they can also be not very useful; they cannot correct errors in the focusing mechanism or your eye, in fact they magnify them.
Also, one loses contrast and brightness.
Leica offers a 1.25x one and a 1.4x. These need diopter correction like the camera, but often of a different value than the camera viewfinder.

There are also third-party magnifiers, sold by Japan Exposures, that include a variable diopter correction. 1.15x and 1.35x. For patent reasons they cannot be sold in the USA and Germany for use on a Leica camera, but they can be purchased for use on for instance a rifle scope.
Basically, for an experienced user, magnifiers are not needed and will only lower contrast and brightness, but many users do like and use them.

Once the viewfinder is corrected optimally, there are three methods of focusing, in ascending order of difficulty aka training.

1. The broken line method. Look for a vertical line in the image and bring it together in the rangefinder patch to be continuous.

2. The coincidence method. Look for a pattern in the image and bring it together to coincide. This may lead to errors with repeating patterns.

3. The contrast method. Once you have focus by method 1. or 2. a small adjustment will cause the rangefinder patch to "jump" into optimum contrast. At that point you have the most precise focussing adjustment.

Side remarks:

If you try focusing on a subject emitting polarized light like a reflection it may happen that the polarizing effect of the prism system in the rangefinder will blot out the contrast in the rangefinder patch, making focusing difficult. In that case rotate the camera 90 degrees to focus.

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Hello Onasj, Redawn & Mdemeyer,

 

Welcome to the Forum all.

 

I find that when I am having complexities while focusing: Sometimes it helps to rotate the camera & lens 45 degrees clockwise or 45 degrees counter clockwise before focusing again.

 

This way the image moves diagonally instead of horizontally.

 

It sometimes makes it easier to determine correct focus when the image moves both up & down as well as left & right at the same time.

 

By the way, this is an old rangefinder focusing trick from the 1930's.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

Edited by Michael Geschlecht
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In at least the second case, I did note that I neglected to turn off the camera after the first use. 

 

In both cases, power cycling the M10 did not address the problem and the only remedy was to unmount and remount the lens.

 

 

 

 

Just a note on your comments above. The rangefinder is purely mechanical, so turning the camera on or off will have zero affect on the issue you are experiencing.

 

Most likely either the lens was not completely locked into position, or you had a large finger print on the rangefinder window. The latter has happened to me on a few occasions, and simply wiping the window resolved the issue.

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