I've just about tried all the combinations of screw to M adapters on my M6 and thought I'd relay my comments.

My new LEICA adapter is beautiful and works perfectly. Yes, there are new ones available, but at a cost. The generic Japanese adapters seem to work find, but I worry about the sharper edges as compared with LEICA or Leitz adapters. And, and people have commented on, screw mount lenses wind up turning about 10 degrees past vertical, placing the built-in hood of the Voigtlander 15mm lens somewhat off vertical and horizontal alignment with respect to the film plane.

My 35/135 used Leitz adapter works perfectly and seems very much like the new LEICA adapter I have, except that the Leitz adapter has a slot cut in the bayonet, opposite the focusing cam cutout. Obviously this slot is to aid in removal of the adapter from the lens. (Japanese adapters have two slots, oriented differently than on the Leitz adapter.)

I have a old Leitz 9 cm. adapter. To my eye, it looks almost identical to the used 35/135 adapter. Again it is a beautiful piece of work. But, it doesn't fit on my M6TTL. It won't seat down flat on the lens mount. I haven't tried it on an M3, but my suspicion is that it would fit perfectly.

My overall assessment is that I'd use any adapter marked LEICA or Leitz in preference to the Japanese adapters, with the EXCEPTION of those Leitz adapters marked in cm, probably indicating a very early model only designed to work on M3's?

-- Tom (therbert@miami.edu), February 18, 2002

Answers

today i tried a used adapter on my m6 in a camerastore here in london. it had no marking of the make or the framelines and had somehow smoother edges than my voigtländer adapter. strangely enough it brought up the 50/70 lines AND a bit of the 35/135 line. this is what i call a cluttered viewfinder! they only wanted 12 pounds for it, but unles leica comes out with a quatro-elmar 35/50/70/135 it is not much use. this showed me that you have to be careful when buying one of these used!

-- stefan randlkofer (geesbert@yahoo.com), February 18, 2002.

I have two adaptors, an old M2/3 28/50 marked one which works perfectly and one marked 'Made in Germany' which is also very nice, but not as nice as the Leitz one and only allows coupling down to 2m.
Stefan, did you buy that adaptor ? Otherwise I'd be interested in that one, esp. for the price you mentioned. If it is still available, could you tell me how I could get it ?

-- Kai Blanke (kai.blanke@iname.com), February 18, 2002.

I few strokes with a file will fix that multi frame thingy

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), February 18, 2002.

That slot is to allow the focusing knob on older 50mm Elmars and 35mm Summarons and such to be released so the lens can be focused. The knob cannot be released otherwise as the adaptor is in the way.

-- Harry Soletsky (hbsmd@rcn.com), February 18, 2002.