Sorry. Maybe someone else can figure out how to post it here! It's VERY interesting!

-- Steve Hoffman (shoffman2@socal.rr.com), February 24, 2002

Answers

http://www.imx.nl/index.html

This should get people there. Copy and paste. :0) scott

-- Scott Evans (scottevans@attbi.com), February 24, 2002.

I don't see anything there re the M7. Did I miss something?

-- MikeP (mike996@optonline.net), February 24, 2002.

I can't find it either.

-- Chris Lutz (mesheca@yahoo.com), February 24, 2002.

It will not be there before one or two days.

-- Lucien (lucien_vd@yahoo.fr), February 24, 2002.

I just received the Puts Leica M7 Newsletter where Erwin tells it all. Some interesting things:

1) Brass top plate 2) Magnets replace gears, etc. to control the time between shutter curtains. 3) Manufactured in Portugal. 4) Shutter speeds faster than 1/1000 would have increased noise. 5) Shutter more accurate than M6. 6) Time parallax from shutter release to firing is 12ms. M6 is 12 to 18ms. Hexar RF is 100ms and SLR's are 125ms plus. 7) Shutter release travel is same as M6. 8) DX coding. 9) .58, .72 and .85 viewfinders. 10) Finder windows have anti-reflection coating to reduce flare. 11) Total weight 10gr. more than M6. 12) 1,300 parts. 350 new and improved parts. M3 had about 860 parts.

To get newletter send e-mail to majordomo@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us and specify subscribe APEMC in the body of the message.

-- Bud (budcook@attglobal.net), February 24, 2002.

Thanks for the info Bud. I thought you just need Erwin's site Steve, sorry for the confusion. Should of had my coffee first before look for info on the M7. :0) Scott

-- Scott Evans (scottevans@attbi.com), February 24, 2002.

Thanks for the info Bud - a rather mixed bag of specifications. Some good, some bad - and an awful lot of parts to go wrong!

Made in Portugal? Hmmmmm....will it be marked as such I wonder?

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), February 24, 2002.

Was it marked on the M6 and M6TTL ?

The M7, like them, is partially 'Made in Portugal' and then finished in Solms.

-- Lucien (lucien_vd@yahoo.fr), February 24, 2002.

I couldn't follow Erwin's discussion of the TTL flash/High Speed sync circuitry. He implies (I suspect incorrectly) that the M7 will only do TTL flash with the SF-20 at 1/50 sec. It's also unclear whether High Speed is TTL controlled or manual. The new flash circuitry is the ONLY thing of interest TO ME on this new camera, so I'm really curious about it's function and usefulness.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), February 24, 2002.

Interesting report. Thanks Steve!

I found his comments about how AE allows you to concentrate on composition somewhat amusing. It's exactly the same point they make about auto-SLRs, like my F100, that all of us badmouth! It's also completely contrary to his earlier Leica-pronouncements about how the totally manual M-whatever gives you complete control of your photography. Jeez, make up your mind! Sure, you can turn off the auto - I have no problem with the concept, just with the rhetoric on what a huge advance this is. I would have called the camera an M6A or maybe an M5/2. :)

Frankly, all of Puts' stuff sounds more Leica (sorry!) marketing add- writing than anything else. When an autofocus M comes out, I'm sure he'll comment on how it revolutionizes photography by allowing the user to concentrate EVEN MORE on composition.

I'll probably buy one anyway...

-- MikeP (mike996@optonline.net), February 24, 2002.

Mike, the same point about Erwin's objectivity has ben raised on the LUG. He got an M7 for revaluation a full year before it was announced, back when Leica was saying such a camera would never be made. Ho also got extensive factory tours during M7 production. while Erwin's reviews are very valuable, and I generally don't have too many bones to pick over their substance. However the breathless boosterism of his recent efforts coupled with his unparalleled access to the inner sanctum makes me very inclined to get out the salt shaker when reading stuff like this.

I'll wait for the user reviews of the early adopters before I make up my mind.

PS - has anyone heard any word about new M lenses, or is the M7 the sum total of Leica's M-series efforts for this year?

-- Paul Chefurka (paul@chefurka.com), February 24, 2002.

My reading of Erwin's review is that the high speed sync (HSS) capability applies to shutter speeds from 1/250 - 1/1000 and requires the Metz 54 MZ flash unit (HSS will not work with the SF20 unit). He says HSS is not available for 1/125 and 1/60 sec because these are mechanical speeds. He also says that HSS is available only in manual (not AUTO) modes and will not work with the TTL circuitry. Thus, you can do fill flash @ hi sync speeds from 1/250-1/1000 sec but you need the Metz unit and there is no TTL measurement. On the other hand, the TTL feature works the same way it does in the M6TTL.

But Erwin's measurements do indicate that the M7 shutter is measurably more accurate than the M6, and you get essentially "stepless" (not quite but nearly so) shutter speeds in the AUTO mode. He also mentions half step shutter speeds now available and accurate. Overall, there appear to be significant improvements in addition to AE.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), February 24, 2002.

"He also says that HSS is available only in manual (not AUTO) modes and will not work with the TTL circuitry. Thus, you can do fill flash @ hi sync speeds from 1/250-1/1000 sec but you need the Metz unit and there is no TTL measurement."

This is what I suspect to be accurate. If so, then the HSS is significantly LESS useful and attractive than a boost of the on-camera sync speed would have been. This becomes a fiddly stop-gap feature that will not be particularly convenient to use on the fly. Just as the 54MZ3 is not particularly convenient to use on the M6TTL. Wonderful flash that works great, but it is large, heavy and cumbersome on the camera and it can torque the top plate enough to cause the rangefinder vertical alignment to shift.

BTW, Erwin's assertion that rangefinder flare has been diminished with new optical coatings sounds like pure public relations bushwa. The viewfinder/rangefinder optics of the M6/M6TTL are already coated (compare 'em to an earlier camera, even an M4-2 if you don't believe it). If Leica has remedied the flare, then they are acknowledging that problem did in fact exist on earlier cameras (something, to my knowledge, that both Leica and it's most devout followers have NEVER acknowledged). To my mind this would make the RF flare of the M6/M6TTL an uncorrected manufacturing defect. When can I send in my cameras for the free retrofit?

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), February 24, 2002.

My point being, BTW, that I would bet that the M7 rangefinder patch flares like an SOB, same as the M6/M6TTL. They didn't change/fix anything.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), February 24, 2002.

My point being, BTW, that I would bet that the M7 rangefinder patch flares like an SOB, same as the M6/M6TTL

Probably. I think the boys at Solms should dust off the blueprints for the M3 rangefinder mechanism and market this as a useful anachronism. I think it would be recieved very well by the user and collector markets.

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), February 25, 2002.

RE finder flare and the M7. (FWIW)

"Everything can always be improved. The finder windows have an anti- reflection coating that diminishes clearly the flare of the rangefinder patch that occurs in some situations when strong lightsources are shining obliquely into the finder."

Erwin Putz @ http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/leicahome.html

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), February 25, 2002.

"Everything can always be improved. The finder windows have an anti- reflection coating that diminishes clearly the flare of the rangefinder patch that occurs in some situations when strong lightsources are shining obliquely into the finder."

Erwin Putz @ http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/leicahome.html

Right, got it. That's what I was referring to when I said: "BTW, Erwin's assertion that rangefinder flare has been diminished with new optical coatings sounds like pure public relations bushwa. The viewfinder/rangefinder optics of the M6/M6TTL are already coated (compare 'em to an earlier camera, even an M4-2 if you don't believe it)."

I won't know till I handle one, but my solid wager is that the M7 still flares as badly as the M6 because there has been no change. Erwin just forgot to mention over the last 18 years that the viewfinder/rangefinder windows of the M6 were coated.

If this problem truly has been corrected, then my M6's need to get fixed. . . .

How likely is that?

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), February 25, 2002.

Look at the end of the "LEICA M7 and LEICA M6 TTL in comparison" page on Leica website.

It wasn't on the M6TTL.

-- Lucien (lucien_vd@yahoo.fr), February 25, 2002.

Then these must be NEW coatings as the windows on my M6 and M6TTL's are all coated (lights don't typically reflect in shades of purple and green otherwise). I'll have to get my hands on an M7 to check it out, but I would bet you a rear lens cap right now that the M7 rangefinder flares and probably to almost the same degree as the M6/M6TTL. The problem is internal, which is why it can be abated somewhat by taping over the illuminator panel. The flare isn't coming through the viewfinder window.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), February 25, 2002.

I guess I'm cross posting, but this topic is playing out in at least two locations. Erwin informed me that there in fact is no coating on the M6/M6TTL finder windows. The coatings that visible are on the *internal* finder elements.

I have no confirmation that the new coatings actually alleviate/eliminate the rangefinder flare that is painfully common on the M6/M6TTL. I get rid of the flare on my cameras by slapping a piece of surgical tape over the illuminator panel, so I suspect that light passing through the illuminator is a major source of the flare. If the new coatings actually do reduce or eliminate the flare, my next question will be, how much to replace the window panes on M6's?

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), February 26, 2002.