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Re the video: At 14:45 he makes a point about the (smaller) shutter speed selector and why it's there instead of the larger one.  Interesting...  Whether folks agree is a different issue but it shows it wasn't done just because they had a bunch of smaller shutter knobs laying around that they needed to use! ;)

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9 hours ago, stephen.w said:

There can't be very many 4xxxxxx M7s out there - Mine is a late 3xxxxxx and was ordered shortly before the a la carte program ended.

I have yet to find one either, jim

Edited by lmans
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16 hours ago, UliWer said:

I think part of the present hype about a "new" M6 is the misrepresentation of different M models. If you look at the M-A and the M3 you'll perhaps find out, that the M-A has no features which are special for the M3 - neither the outward design, not the rangefinder. You might call the M-A an updated M2 if you look at outward design, or of an M4-P if you look through the viewfinder. Closer to the facts would be to call it a downgraded MP, since it has all features of an MP minus lightmetering. 

Same with the "new" M6. It has the outward design of the original M6, but the viewfinder and the material for the top plate of the MP. So the "new" M6 is just a sidekick of the MP. 

I wonder about the discussions in this forum when Leica will present an "upgrade" of the "new" M6: a camera with no red dots, with no rewind lever, but just a rewind knob ("reduction to the essential..."), in silver chrome or black paint, but all the technical features of the ... MP, eh sorry, I got mixed up: the "new" M6. 

I think you are wrong in your assessment. To me, the MA is the pinnacle while all else is a downgrade, not the other way around. When you go from pure photography with a design like the MA that forces the photographer to think, understand light.... be totally cognizant of the aspects that are needed to take a good photo, that is what I believe is an upgrade. Toss in the features of the MP, M7, M6 etc...and you give the photographer a crutch and most of us are going to use that crutch. Sure, one can turn 'it off'...but in most cases, most don't, thus....they take the crutch and don't force themselves to do without. My thoughts.... 

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6 hours ago, Mikep996 said:

Re the video: At 14:45 he makes a point about the (smaller) shutter speed selector and why it's there instead of the larger one.  Interesting...  Whether folks agree is a different issue but it shows it wasn't done just because they had a bunch of smaller shutter knobs laying around that they needed to use! ;)

Would you mind letting us non German speakers know what he said?

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I speak a BIT of German though not enough to actually understand much of a technical nature.  But the first part of his explanation is pretty clear - He is explaining that the advantage of the smaller selector is that the index finger can actually rotate it more easily than the larger one because the finger won't slide downward off the selector, the body of the camera supports the finger.  🤔

He also is questioned about the direction of rotation, which he answers but I am not able to follow the explanation.  Hopefully some genuine German-speakers will translate that!  🧐

Of course, the whole decision could have simply been that it was not practical to tool up to make small, reversed-numbered shutter buttons just for M6 cameras.  So the marketing folks came up with good "reasons" why we shouldn't want them! ;)

FWIW, when I bought my M6 back in the day, I had no conception that the LEDs meant anything as far as which way to turn something; they just indicated exposure.  They were a pair of red LEDs that happened to be triangular instead of round or square.  and were "high tech" compared to match-needle meters on my early SLRs.  Those also indicated exposure only, not which way to turn something.  It wasn't until the M7 came out that I "discovered" that the LEDs were now "direction indicators."  But I agree it's a handy thing.

 

 

Edited by Mikep996
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1 hour ago, Al Brown said:

He says the smaller wheel is better because you can rest your index finger on the body, unlike the TTL's big wheel where the finger falls off. The Germans are funny.
AND he says that now ALTHOUGH we have THE SMALL WHEEL, THE ROTATION IS IN SYNC with the arrows on the new M6, in the good old Leica M6 TTL and MP manner.
There will be fun, frustration and fury for the users of both new M6 and old M6 simultaneously.

According to Leica's photos, the direction is the same as the original M6.

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50 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

He says the smaller wheel is better because you can rest your index finger on the body, unlike the TTL's big wheel where the finger falls off. The Germans are funny.
AND he says that now ALTHOUGH we have THE SMALL WHEEL, THE ROTATION IS IN SYNC with the arrows on the new M6, in the good old Leica M6 TTL manner.
There will be fun, frustration and fury for the users of both new M6 and old M6 simultaneously.

What, really? From the pictures, the shutter speed dial of the new M6 is the same as the one on the M6 Classic and the MP (rotating it clockwise gives you faster shutter speeds), which is opposite to how the TTL dial works. So to make it sync this way they'd have to 'reverse' the metering arrows - the arrow that indicated underexposure on the Classic and the MP and the TTL would now have to indicate overexposure, which for owners of the other metered film cameras is about the most confusing thing they could have done. Can anyone with hands-on experience confirm this is how the new M6 works?

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If they rewired the metering arrows, wouldn't it then be wrong for the F-stops?  Seems to me they would have had to change the shutter wheel itself so the numbers are reversed AND the actual shutter mechanism.  No? 🤔

Edited by Mikep996
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6 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

Quote:
"Before, one had rotated the dial in one direction, but the arrow went the other way. Today, the turn is synchronized, if I rotate (left), the arrow goes (left), if I rotate the other way it goes the other way, just like it is with Leica MP, the recent ones".
Am I getting something wrong here?

Well someone is but I don't think it is you. 

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The new M6 user manual is available for download on this page:

https://leica-camera.com/en-US/photography/cameras/m/m6/technical-specs

Page 35 describes the operation of the meter:

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but this seems backwards given that clockwise rotation of the shutter speed dial results in higher shutter speeds. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by logan2z
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55 minutes ago, Mikep996 said:

If they rewired the metering arrows, wouldn't it then be wrong for the F-stops?  Seems to me they would have had to change the shutter wheel itself so the numbers are reversed AND the actual shutter mechanism.  No? 🤔

In the TTL, they didn't have to change the shutter mechanism because they added a reversing gear under the 'reversed' shutter speed dial. And in the new M6, they wouldn't have to do anything relative to the MP and the M6 Classic mechanism, because the dial rotates the same way (if the pictures are correct), regardless of how the meter works. But if they wired the exposure LEDs the other way around, adjusting the aperture ring would be confusing - you'd have to visualise the direction the bottom of the dial is moving in as you rotate it, rather than the top. Surely they wouldn't do that, would they?

Edited by Anbaric
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17 minutes ago, logan2z said:

The new M6 user manual is available for download on this page:

https://leica-camera.com/en-US/photography/cameras/m/m6/technical-specs

Page 25 describes the operation of the meter:

Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but this seems backwards given that clockwise rotation of the shutter speed dial results in higher shutter speeds.

That's how the M6 Classic meter works. I think of how the 'back' of the shutter speed dial is moving (the part nearest to my eye, as if the dial were a thumbwheel), so an arrow pointing to the right means rotate anticlockwise. So my guess is that the new M6 in fact works just like the M6 Classic and MP.

Edited by Anbaric
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13 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

That's how the M6 Classic meter works. I think of how the 'back' of the shutter speed dial is moving (the part nearest to my eye), so an arrow pointing to the right means rotate anticlockwise. So my guess is that the new M6 in fact works just like the M6 Classic and MP.

That seems really unintuitive to me because I tend to use my index finger placed towards the front of the camera to rotate the shutter speed dial.  So rotating in the direction of the left arrow would result in even more underexposure.  I guess if you use your thumb to rotate the part of the dial closest to your eye then it makes sense.  

I only have unmetered M cameras so this whole meter arrow thing is foreign to me 🙃

Edited by logan2z
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14 minutes ago, logan2z said:

That seems really unintuitive to me because I tend to use my index finger placed towards the front of the camera to rotate the shutter speed dial.  So rotating in the direction of the left arrow would result in even more underexposure.  I guess if you use your thumb to rotate the part of the dial closest to your eye then it makes sense.  

My guess is that this is the reason they reversed the dial on the M6 TTL and M7 - the larger dials invite you to spin them with just your index finger. But with the MP (and now it seems the new M6) they reverted to the tradition of previous Leicas. With the Classic, I find I use both my thumb and index finger, so it's just as easy to think of the dial as a thumbwheel.

Not sure if there's quite enough space for a reversing gear under the lower M6 Classic / new M6 top plate either. And as Mikep996 points out, simply reversing the LED wiring would mess with how we think about the aperture ring.

Edited by Anbaric
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