Leica 21mm View Finder 12024

[Surge]

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I just got the 12025 which is the current Leica metal 21mm finder. Expensive!

Basic question: is it supposed to match the viewfinder framing, albeit with a wider angle? It doesn’t compensate for parallax, obviously?

I noticed it sits at a bit of an angle to the camera body, which must be by design?

[MarkP]

1 hour ago, Surge said:

I just got the 12025 which is the current Leica metal 21mm finder. Expensive!

Basic question: is it supposed to match the viewfinder framing, albeit with a wider angle? It doesn’t compensate for parallax, obviously?

I noticed it sits at a bit of an angle to the camera body, which must be by design?

Correct on all points.  As mentioned earlier in this post, we discussed this here over a decade ago:

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by MarkP

[Surge]

Can someone explain what the lines represent. The “manual” doesn’t explain them at all:

 

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[pedaes]

1 hour ago, Surge said:

Can someone explain

The inner lines are the field of view you would get on a M8/8.2 camera, with its crop (not full frame) sensor, all at a viewing distance of 2 mtrs. to the inside of the line and a distance of infinity to outside of line..

Edited August 3, 2023 by pedaes

[Surge]

5 hours ago, pedaes said:

The inner lines are the field of view you would get on a M8/8.2 camera, with its crop (not full frame) sensor, all at a viewing distance of 2 mtrs. to the inside of the line and a distance of infinity to outside of line..

Thanks. But why does the bottom line say 24x36mm, shouldn’t it be 21mm? 

And the M8 lines also correspond to 24mm with a full-frame sensor, correct?

[adan]

3 hours ago, Surge said:

Thanks. But why does the bottom line say 24x36mm, shouldn’t it be 21mm? 

And the M8 lines also correspond to 24mm with a full-frame sensor, correct?

The outer frames are for use with a full-frame (i.e. 24x36mm) sensor. It doesn't need to say "21mm" because that is already engraved on the top of the casing.  

The inner lines are for use with a 21mm lens on the cropped M8 sensor - whic BTW equals a "28mm" field of view (not "24mm"), once the camera crops it.

M8 sensor "crop factor" is 1.333, and 21mm x 1.333 = "27.9993mm" effective field of view.

The dashed - - - lines across the top-center labelled "2m" are a reminder that you need to adjust for parallax when shooting closer than 2m, because the finder is seeing the world from about 3 inches/7cm higher than the lens will. And when you are that close, that will crop 3 inches/7cm off the top of what you think your are framing.

(Techincally, it will also crop that much off a building 300m away - but who would notice when the picture height of building plus sky above is thousands of cm tall?)

Easy to cut off people's heads if you forget to use that line, on even a 24x36 camera.

[Surge]

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Thanks! So the inner M8 lines also represent a 28mm FOV for a full frame sensor?

[pedaes]

1 hour ago, Surge said:

Thanks! So the inner M8 lines also represent a 28mm FOV for a full frame sensor?

As Adan explains, on a 1.3 crop camera (M8) a 21mm lens equates to a 28mm full frame lens. This is a key reason Leica introduced the 21mm  Summilux.

If you want to use the inner lines  for something they were never intended for (ie. use on a full frame camera) I would check them against the 35mm frame lines in your camera's viewfinder.

Edited August 4, 2023 by pedaes

[adan]

The M8 lines in the 12024 work superbly for framing with a 28mm lens on FF bodies.

Noticeably more accurate than the built-in 28mm lines in any M I've used that has them (which frame more like 31mm).

Only downside is the lack of the moving parallax correction, but then that is also the case with ANY Leica external finder, and is mostly irrelevant, since the external finders are better centered over the lens (less left-right error).

Just remember to leave a little vertical leeway in horizontal shots closer than 1-2 meters, to avoid cutting off heads and such.