M6 and wearing glasses..

[dave lackey]

Maybe some of you can relate...🙄 ..but like most of you, I am getting older than I think I am and it becomes obvious when I use a camera...I need reading glasses to see the viewfinder unless I have a diopter adjustment like on my Nikon SLR's. The F3Titanium has no diopter but I can see the viewfinder and focus quite well with my reading glasses.

So...here's the question. I have the M6 on hold at KEH but it just occurred to me that I don't know about the viewfinder. What should I expect when I go visit the M6 at the dealer? Will I need to wear reading glasses or not?

Seems like a simple fundamental, dumb question...but it is rather early and I was wondering.😛

Thanks in advance...

 

[traveller]

Is there someting like a dumb question.....?

Depends on your glasses. When you write reading glasses I assume that they are not very thick.
With my -4.5 glasses I have been able to see the 35 mm frame at the edges (that has been the reason I got a ZI), so with reading glasses you should be on the safe side. But I would always take them with me when visiting a dealer.

 

[markinlondon]

Leica make diopter adjustment lenses for M bodies, the only drawback is the typically Leica price.

 

[papasnap]

I'm interested in this too, for when I get a second body to my Hexar AF in a couple of months time!

I wear glasses (shortsighted) and plan to use mostly a 35mm lens, the voightlander nokton 35mm f1.2. Viewfinder aside, my preference would be a M6 TTL .72, but if it's too hard to work with the 35mm brightlines while wearing glasses, I'd have to go with a Zeiss Ikon instead (which is meant to be very good fit for glasses wearers).

The M6 .58 viewfinder is meant to be good for glasses wearers, but it sounds like it's probably not going to be accurate enough for shooting the nokton wide open at f1.2 (as the lower magnification gives a shorter effective rangefinder base length).

Would also love to hear the opinions of glasses-wearing M6 owners!

 

[john_nyc]

I have astigmatism and I'm farsighted, so this is something that's always bugged me. I either had the choice of flipping my specs up or not seeing the entire finder. Neither was ideal.

Now that they've come out with contacts for astigmatism, I'm going to try that route. My appointment to be fitted is tomorrow morning. The optometrist told me that the quality of astigmatic correction isn't as good as with glasses, so I'll see how they work out.

I'm curious how many other RF'ers may have switched to contacts for the sole purpose of getting their eyeball closer to the viewfinder...

John

 

[Bike Tourist]

I use + diopters on all RFs with good results. You will be told a Leica diopter costs about $65. You should be able to find used ones from $0 to $40, depending on your good fortune.

 

[dave lackey]

I use + diopters on all RFs with good results. You will be told a Leica diopter costs about $65. You should be able to find used ones from $0 to $40, depending on your good fortune.

Hooray! Found bhphotovideo.com with a list of diopters for the M series. Now, if I wear 1.75 reading glasses, will a diopter of about 1.75 work for me?

(With my Nikon F3, I start out with a -1 lens which gives me -1 + 1.75 = 0.75 diopter. Not sure why the standard is -1 instead of 0.)

Gettin complicated. 🙄

 

[Ben Z]

Leica M starts out at -0.5. That said, there's a different and more serious issue for those of us who can't see from .7m to infinity with single-vision eyeglasses. In an SLR the focusing occurs on a ground-glass screen set at a fixed "virtual distance" so once you correct to see sharply on the screen, you're done, it doesn't matter whether the subject is near or far. Not true with a Leica. You're looking through a little scope, so you need different correction for a subject at close range than one at long range. I wear progressive bifocals and find that altering the part of the lens I look through against the viewfinder depending on subject distance, works better than a diopter. On an SLR the diopter works fine for me, for the reason stated.

 

[maitrestanley]

I wear glasses (shortsighted -4.0) and can see the 35 framelines. If I really look, I can just see the 28mm framelines.

I've been thinking about getting diopters but then I would have to go through the trouble of taking my glasses off every time I bring the camera to my eye.

Wearing contacts helps. You can place your eye closer to the viewfinder and see more of it.

 

[aizan]

i wear glasses and with a .72 leica, the 35mm framelines have a little bit of space around them, while the 28mm framelines are barely visible on the top and bottom, and out of reach left and right. the same goes for the zeiss ikon, though you can see a little more space on the top and bottom.

erwin puts recommends the .58 viewfinder if you're only going to have one body. this will more than cover you for all 28, 35, and 50mm lenses, regardless of speed. a long ebl is only required for long, fast lenses.

 

[maitrestanley]

I agree with the 0.58 body. You can always add a 1.25x magnifier to get 0.725 if you needed

 

[ChrisN]

Useful article on eyepiece correction:

http://www.nemeng.com/leica/038b.shtml

 

[dave lackey]

Chris,
Great article!!

😎

Thanks,

 

[georgefspencer]

Hooray! Found bhphotovideo.com with a list of diopters for the M series. Now, if I wear 1.75 reading glasses, will a diopter of about 1.75 work for me?

I wear +1.5 reading glasses. I just bought a 1.5 diopter. I can't see a thing. I'm better off without the diopter. :bang:

The whole diopter thing has me confused. When I bought the camera seven years ago I bought a -2 diopter with it. I have no idea why I did that. I must have a reason at the time. However, now it's useless as well.

Right now my best bet is to wear my glasses and use the standard diopter. I can get by if I "scan" the frame for the 35 mm lens.

 

[mike_j]

When you get to my age and wear varifocals you just pick the best part of the lens to look through. For wide angle the Voigtlander finders are wonderful.

 

[maddoc]

wearing glasses ...

wearing glasses ...

... and can see the 35mm frame lines (M6 0.72) but hardly the 28mm lines. I have the 25mm Zeiss Biogon and use it with external viewfinder. I thought about diopter correction but then have to take of my glasses for every photo ... So, I am considering to give contact lens a try ...