Chinese LTM to M bayoned adapter recommendation

[Spyderman]

Hi,

I've got a couple simple questions for those of you who have and use some cheap no-name chinese LTM to M adapters:

• How is the adapter quality-wise ? Any focus issues ?
  
• From which ebay seller have you bought it ?

I'm looking for a couple of adapters so that I could change lenses faster. So far I have only 2: 1 is permanently on 35mm Skopar and the other one I move between my other lenses...

Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

[veraikon]

Chinese LTM to M bayoned adapter recommendation

none. I tried 2 (chinese no name from a german importer) and send it back . At the first the "zero" of the lens was at 2 o´clock - the second didn´t put the right frame in the viewer.
To avoid further hassle I bought Voigtländer adapters - no probs but more than 2.5 more expensive.
You can´t generalise my experience. But the lack of a "brand" which guarantee a steady Q.C. is obvious.

 

[BillP]

Don't.

The one I bought was badly made, complete with burrs. There is no marking on the ring, so if you own more than one, you have no idea what it is until you mount it.

Avoid. They are truly false economy.

Regards.

Bill

 

[veraikon]

PS:I see you use a bessa - so you don´t have the possible frame problem.

 

[Spyderman]

veraikon: yes, you're right, I want it for my Bessa R2.

I'm mostly concerned with the correct 1mm thickness of the flange, and that the lens will "park" correctly with the focussing index between 11 and 1 o'clock.

Anyone else ?

 

[rxmd]

Well there were some RFFers who apparently have good experience with theirs. I thought of getting one but then I got lucky with an eBay auction for two Leitz adapters for 12 EUR plus shipping from France. 🙂

So if you don't need the adapter tomorrow, just lurk around a couple of weeks.

Philipp

 

[polaski]

I've found that brand name lens adapters are more reliable than knock-offs. You get what you pay for.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Ondrej

I am using one right now on my Epson R-D1s. The camera is really a Bessa body with digital innards. No focus issues. Works as well as the Leitz 9cm adapter I used to have on it (it's back on the M3 now). It was bought from Shanghai for about US$7.00. The person who bought it got two, one he is using himself, and apparently works well too.

Some may be badly made- many here have said so from the experience they got. But these two Chinese adapters, seem to work good. I know of two other users here who have non-Leitz or non-CV adapters on their Leicas as well. These may or not be Chinese-made, but they all work well too.

Jay

 

[M. Valdemar]

I have about 10. Bought from a few different eBay sellers.

I just leave them on the lenses I use with my R-D1.

All are fine, no different then the various Leitz adapters I also use.

 

[Spyderman]

M.Valdemar, Jay: do you happen to remember from which particular sellers are theses adapters ?

 

[M. Valdemar]

http://www.kawamall.com/search1.cfm?Search_Term=leica

They also sell on eBay.

 

[M. Valdemar]

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZkawaphoto

 

[jlw]

Hi,

I've got a couple simple questions for those of you who have and use some cheap no-name chinese LTM to M adapters:

As long as you're supporting the Chinese economy anyway, spend $20 at Harbor Freight Tool on a Chinese-made digital caliper. Then you can check the thicknesses of the adapters you buy and reject ones that are off.

Correct thickness, measured at the "step" of the mounting flange, should be 0.98-0.99mm. (I came up with this figure by measuring a known-good Leitz adapter. The difference between this and the 1.00mm nominal spec is to allow for mounting clearance.)

If your adapter is too thick, you can thin it down by rubbing the front face against fine abrasive paper on a flat surface. This is a tedious process, so it's not worth doing if you need to remove more than a couple of hundredths of a mm.

PS -- At this point you might be thinking that by the time you've bought the caliper so you can do your own QC, and allowed for having to discard a certain percentage of defective adapters, you'd have been money ahead buying a name-brand adapter in the first place. Well... you're right!

PPS -- I am not saying anything here against China's industry. There are Chinese manufacturers who produce precise, beautifully-made equipment, and others that produce cheap goods to be sold at low prices. When you're buying from an eBay vendor, you may not know which you're getting! (the vendor himself may not know) so you have to be prepared to be your own QC department.

 

[Limpovitj]

If your adapter is too thick, you can thin it down by rubbing the front face against fine abrasive paper on a flat surface. This is a tedious process, so it's not worth doing if you need to remove more than a couple of hundredths of a mm.

Just a thought (with no experience of actually doing this): if the adapter is to thin, and as long as it's permanently mounted on it's lens, I suppose you could shim it (between lens and adapter) to correct focus, much as the lens mount on many pre-war Leicas are shimmed to correct focus (this I actually have done).

I find it somewhat annoying that most (of those I've looked at anyway) chinese made adapters only seem to bring up the 35/135 framelines. That's only an issue with the M-Leicas (and the ZI?), and not Bessas, of course. If they were made to bring up the 90/28 framelines, the could have been filed to bring up the 50/75 or the 35/135 sets instead. Ah, well.