M3 framelines with parallax correction?

[Meakin]

I feel really silly asking this but here it goes anyway.

Until I found my M3, I had never, in my life even got closer then 10 meters to an M3, let alone held one in real life.

Therefore I don't really know what to expect - but after reading a downloadable M3 user manual - It seems to say that the frame lines move to compensate for parallax errors(I imagine here something like my Hexar AF does, ie visually moves the frame/bright lines in the viewfinder). Soooo...to my question......." takes big deep breath here".......do they?.........'cause mine don't


Thanks in advance

Cheers,

/Meakin (already starting to wonder where he´s going to get the cash for repair..)

 

[furcafe]

Yes, the framelines on all Leica M cameras are supposed to move to correct for parallax.

 

[jdos2]

They do NOT compensate, however, for the increase in focal length as you get closer to your subject, meaning that if you are close, your picture snapped on the negative will be much closer to your framing than at infinity.

Unless I got that backwards.

 

[Meakin]

Thanks furcafe,jdos2

Now I do feel stupid, as your answers got me thinking - I could hardly see how the focusing patch could function correctly (as it does) without the framelines moving as they are connected to focusing(distance)......so I had a look again....and realized they do move...I just had'nt noticed it before I feel a bit embarrassed now - this whole post for nothing.

Thank you again - I´ll crawl into a hole now.


Cheers,

Meakin

 

[Doug]

It seems to say that the frame lines move to compensate for parallax errors(I imagine here something like my Hexar AF does, ie visually moves the frame/bright lines in the viewfinder). Soooo...to my question......." takes big deep breath here".......do they?.........'cause mine don't

I can sympathize with your concern! Yes, the framelines move to correct framing errors due to parallax effects... at the distance focused upon. You still cannot expect near and distant objects to have the same relationship on film as you saw in the viewfinder, however.

Framing in an RF camera is still a rather casual matter, an approximation. On some fixed-lens RF cameras, the framelines expand and contract to correct for field-size changes at different focusing distances too. But M cameras and others featuring interchangeable lenses don't have that. So the frames show less, usually, than you'll actually get on film to help prevent cutting off stuff you wanted in the pic.

 

[jdos2]

The Mamiya Universal gets around it by simply making very thick frames- and recommending using the "outer edge" when focused within 20 meters, and the inner edge when beyond that.

In other words, they punted.

I never took seriously the idea of 35mm framing anyway- I can't name a system where one gets precisely what they get in a viewer- even my 4x5 doesn't give me exactly on Polaroid what I see on the ground glass.

 

[jdos2]

That's usually best done by claiming to be "in" on threads.

As in:

"Very interesting."

At least, that's how the Internet l337 do it...

 

[Meakin]

Ah, a truely fiendish way to increase your post count.

ManGo

ManGo.....Shhhhhhhhhh!!... your cramping my style......


/Meakin

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The framelines do move to correct parallax up to a point. My M3, thanks to JD, has been modified to focus closer than the standard 3'. It comes into about 2' BUT the framelines stop correcting parallax at about 2.5' or so. The RF patch continues through the entire range of the later Summicron to ~0.7m.