Curved Lever

[frame-it]

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What is the Curved lever attached to the lens for?

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[a.noctilux]

😀

prototype M5 !

May it be there for faster focussing sort of more sophisticate than this one of a kind

[250swb]

Adjusting the aperture? The front ring seems to be the focus ring, the back one the shutter speeds, and nothing for the aperture except the lever?

[frame-it]

1 minute ago, 250swb said:

Adjusting the aperture? The front ring seems to be the focus ring, the back one the shutter speeds, and nothing for the aperture except the lever?

looks a bit confusing..

[jankap]

Can you open the bottom of the camera, with that one can see more? If this is a prototype M5, it could be very valuable, I suppose. 

Edited January 17 by jankap

[TomB_tx]

Based on a Leicaflex body - interesting!

[willeica]

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I've emailed Lars. He should know about the camera and lens.

William

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Reini]

I found this:

http://leicaphilia.com/tag/leica-m5-prototype/

[Matlock]

In 2007 one was being offered for sale on ebay for $203,000 plus 19% vat. Come on, own up, who bought it?

Edited January 17 by Matlock

[lars-netopil]

...allright - this is the Otto Weller designed, so called „M5 automatic“. 

 

Published in my „PROTOTYPE LEICA“ book, pages 363; 370-375. 

 

An idea of using the Leicaflex body, for a RF camera. Something from the 1960s, which re-appeared around 1980, when Peter Loseries created the „M6 ELECTRONIC“ on basis of the R4. 

 

From the pictures I think(!), that it is the very same camera, maybe pictures taken at Leitz Wetzlar or Leica Solms Museum, time ago.

 

 

my very best 

 

LARS NETOPIL

 

[willeica]

From Lars:

This is the Otto Weller designed, so called „M5 automatic“. 

 

Published on my „PROTOTYPE LEICA“, pages 363; 370-375. 

 

An idea of using the Leicaflex body, for a RF camera. Spmething 1060s, which around 1980 re-appeared, when Peter Loseries created the „M6 ELECTRONIC“ on basis of the R4. 

 

From the pictures I think(!), that it is the very same camera, maybe pictures taken at Leitz Wetzlar or Leica Solms Museum, time ago.

 

William

[willeica]

To add to the above, the curved lever is almost certainly to aid quick focus.

William

[Matlock]

24 minutes ago, willeica said:

From Lars:

This is the Otto Weller designed, so called „M5 automatic“. 

 

Published on my „PROTOTYPE LEICA“, pages 363; 370-375. 

 

An idea of using the Leicaflex body, for a RF camera. Spmething 1060s, which around 1980 re-appeared, when Peter Loseries created the „M6 ELECTRONIC“ on basis of the R4. 

 

From the pictures I think(!), that it is the very same camera, maybe pictures taken at Leitz Wetzlar or Leica Solms Museum, time ago.

 

William

Correct and, it seems, bought up from Leica by Photo Arsenal along with other items from the Leica Museum and offered for sale on ebay.

 A reply during the debate on this item on this forum:

Luigi,

People from the new management in Leica/Leitz need some fresh money so they open the museum doors and give Boris Jamchtchik the exclusivity for selling this museum pieces

Photo Arsenal

they are in Germany, the Hong Kong place is for attracting collectors from Asia

Leica has a lot of prototype, this one for M5 is not the only one ( I mean in the M5 studies ). I know I have a lot of pictures of them ( in some place)

Cheers

JC

 

 

 

Edited January 17 by Matlock

[zeitz]

44 minutes ago, lars-netopil said:

my very best 

 

LARS NETOPIL

Lars, great to have you on the forum.  The forum administrator needs to change your description from "Newbie" to "World's Foremost Expert".

[luigi bertolotti]

3 hours ago, zeitz said:

Lars, great to have you on the forum.  The forum administrator needs to change your description from "Newbie" to "World's Foremost Expert".

I agree !  Having Netopil as a LUF member is a great plus, expecially for this section !! 😎

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[willeica]

12 minutes ago, luigi bertolotti said:

I agree !  Having Netopil as a LUF member is a great plus, expecially for this section !! 😎

He wasn't when I contacted him this afternoon, but he is now. The 'double post' above arose from the fact that he posted while I was quoting from his email. He is always available to hear about any interesting finds and he is most helpful with information. Jim Lager also follows the forum, but he does not feel up to posting. I am in regular contact with him as well and he too is most generous with information. We are lucky that the two most knowledgeable people on the planet about vintage Leicas are so generous with their time and information.

I know both of these gentlemen through my membership of the LHSA - The International Leica Society. I am the only European currently on the Board of that organisation. Recently in conjunction with Lars I have arranged for the translation of an article from VIDOM, the German Society magazine, from German to English for the LHSA Viewfinder magazine. It will be about the Kochmann Korelle K with Leitz Elmar. I am hoping that this will be the first of many examples of international sharing between the societies. We are also working on a new website for the LHSA which should carry a lot more material of interest to European members. Both Lars and Jim are members of LHSA, of course.

William

[luigi bertolotti]

4 hours ago, willeica said:

To add to the above, the curved lever is almost certainly to aid quick focus.

William

I'm not sure... this prototype is clearly a RF camera... with the focus apparently operated by the outer ring of the lens...  Lars quotes it as "automatic", and indeed apparently one can set manually only the shutter times (to 1/2000 ? for a leaf shutter ? 🙄)  , and in the 2nd picture linked by Reini (post #8) one can see  (inside the body mouth, at left) a small protruding lever, which probably engages in some slot of the lens flange (*), to actuate the diaphragm (it remembers me the mechanism for the Zeiss Contarex lenses, which too don't have f/stop adjustement on the lens).

(*) or "drives" a similar lever inside the lens itself.. there seems to be something like into the lens, indeed...

So... maybe the automatic exposure was based on time priority, with diagraphm servo-actuated... and maybe the lever was made to overtake the auto exposure and allow the shooter to adjust the diaphragm manually : is such a big - articulated lever that looks to me more apt to "release" something that is normally "blocked" , than operate a fine tuning of the focus.

It's just a speculation : I'm cuiros to see if there are more infos on this item and its design : clearly is not simply an unoperative mockup... maybe not at 100%, but the lens mont and lens itself do look completely built... not sure about the RF unit... looks like a small windows reads, by reflection, the shutter time... maybe they studied some way to have it "projected" in the VF... probably adding complication and cost to the classic M VF/RF unit... 🙄  (no surprise it had not commercial development)

Edited January 17 by luigi bertolotti

[willeica]

4 minutes ago, luigi bertolotti said:

I'm not sure... this prototype is clearly a RF camera... with the focus operated by the outer ring of the lens...  Lars quotes it as "automatic", and indeed apparently one can set manually only the shutter times (to 1/2000 ? for a leaf shutter ? 🙄)  , in the 2nd picture linked by Reini at post #8 one can see  (inside the body mouth, at left) a small protruding lever, which probably engages in some slot of the lens flange (*), to actuate the diaphragm (it remembers me the mechanism for the Zeiss Contarex lenses, which too don't have f/stop adjustement on the lens).

(*) or "drives" a similar lever inside the lens itself.. there seems to be something like into the lens, indeed...

So... maybe the automatic exposure was based on time priority, with diagraphm servo-actuated... and maybe the lever was made to overtake the auto exposure and allow the shooter to adjust the diaphragm manually : is such a big - articulated lever that looks to me more apt to "release" something that is normally "blocked" , than operate a fine tuning of the focus.

Just an hipotesis : I'm cuiros to see if there are more infos on this item and its design : clearly is not simply an unoperative item... maybe not at 100%, but the lens mont and lens itself do look completely built... not sure about the RF unit... 

You could be right, but the ring behind the lever seems to contain the depth of field scale and the point of focus indicator. Perhaps the intention was to have the aperture set by cranking the lever and that you could only see the aperture set in the viewfinder. If it is so mysterious to us, it is not surprising that it did not make production status. 

The inner ring is definitely the 'speed dial'.

William 

[jaques]

9 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

😀

prototype M5 !

May it be there for faster focussing sort of more sophisticate than this one of a kind

it's kind of related to my own unidentified Leica (?) m5 safari prototype summicron lens:

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Edited January 17 by jaques

[luigi bertolotti]

It makes me remember also an old Zeiss Contina which belonged to my dad (I have lot of pics of me from 1 to 10 years taken with... 😉) : the diaphragm ring and the times ring were normally coupled-locked one to the other : one could change time+stop together keeping the same EV;  the built-in selenium meter had its scale in EV : after reading the value pointed by meter's needle, the user had to push a small button on the lens' barrel which  de-coupled the rings, and set the corresponding EV value (the "diaphragm" ring didn't bear classic f/stop values... only EV, I seem to remember), then could decide the shutter time moving  the two interlocked rings.  (it was decribed as "semi-automatic" exposure... times to 1/300, iirc... the lens was probably a 45mm 2,8)