First time M2 user questions.

[Suse]

Hi

My M2 and 50 cron arrived this morning. 🙂 Not bad considering I only ordered them yesterday. I've got a couple of newbie questions, I hope people could help me with?


(1) Loading. I've had experience with SLRS and 120 toy cams, but this is something else! I've found the flat lip on the take-up spool, which I presume I slide the film under to hold it. My query is to how the film feeds across the camera. When I load the Tri-X - when it gets to the right, take up side, should it feed downwards, anti-clockwise to the take up spool, ie down and round the bottom of the spool or clockwise across the top. At the moment the Tri-X is sitting with the grey shiny side of the film to the back of the camera and the paler matt side facing the shutter. Is that right? - I can't find anything on the net to guide me about loading.

(2) I read about the focusing rectangle on the cameraquest site. The author mentioned that as well as having the superimposed image in the rectangle you could use split screen by looking at the edges of it. Does he mean the two tabs to the top and bottom of the rectangle?

Can't wait to get out and shoot!

 

[like2fiddle]

Congratulations on your new acquisition!

I'm sure there are many techniques to loading film on a spool. Mine is to hold the empty spool in my right hand with the end that ends up at the bottom of the camera pointing up, and the film similarly held in my left hand. The film leader will then feed onto the empty spool in the only direction it can feed. There's a perferated arrow on the spool that becomes visible when the film is behind it. Push the film onto the spool until you see the arrow. Then flip the whole thing over, pull out enough film to slide film and spool into the openings and you've got it. The emulsion side should face the curtain side/lens side of the camera.

Hope this helps.

Roger

 

[like2fiddle]

Sorry, I forgot to answer your second question. Find something vertical to focus on and move the focus ring around until the vertical object is in line top to bottom along the edge of the focusing rectangle. That's all that is meant by focusing with the rectangle as a guide.

 

[markinlondon]

Suse,

you can find a pdf manual for your M2 at http://www.butkus.org/chinon/leica_m2/leica_m2.htm

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

The two tabs at top and bottom of the focussing area are there to show you the depth of field (f5.6 and f16 with a 50mm lens). Nice feature imho

 

[Suse]

Thanks guys.

Robert - how does that [the dof tabs] work? One tab on the top is bigger than the one on the bottom. But I'm having trouble seeing how it might work.

 

[Flyfisher Tom]

on focusing ...

as mentioned, the easiest way is to find a vertical line or feature and line that up in complete overlap. My experience is that the best focus is offered by going one direction or the other and stopping when things line up (as opposed to going back and forth both ways)

good luck

 

[Suse]

Yes, I understand the focusing bit in practice. Its similar to an SLR Olympus I had. I just don't see technically how the rectangle is both an image overlay and a split screen focus, as mentioned on camera quest.

 

[Pherdinand]

You have two images overlapping within the rectangle. Outside of it oyu have only one image. If tyhe thing is not in focus, one of the images within the rectangle will be lined up with the one on the outside, but the other one will be not. This is where the split screen comes in.
If you have a lamp pole out of focus, e.g., you will see two poles inside the rectangle, and only one of them is lined-up as contiuation of the part that is out of the rectangle. When you focus, the second inner image will overlap with the first one, thus you'll have no "nbreaking" of the pole at the edge.

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

Thanks guys.

Robert - how does that [the dof tabs] work? One tab on the top is bigger than the one on the bottom. But I'm having trouble seeing how it might work.

When you focus, the horizontal distance between the two images changes. If the two images are horitontally apart by the distance of the upper tab, you will need to stop down the 50 lens to f16 so depth of focus covers for your defocussing. Or the other way around: if your lens is at f16, the two images should be not farther apart than the width of the upper tab. The width of the lower tab corresponds to the dof at f5.6. Don't know if this was understandable?

Keep in mind that dof is just an estimation - if you enlarge big enough, you'll see that the in-focus-range is narrower than what's written on any lens (or in the finder in this case).