Handy.

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The magnifier in place on the M10. 21mm finder atop.

When Ernst Leitz released the 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit lens for the Leica M body in 1963 they concluded that the only way this long and fast lens could be accurately focused using the rangefinder was with auxiliary magnifying ‘goggles’, which came attached to the lens. They even contemplated a 180mm focal length with like goggles for use on the M but common sense prevailed and that lens was never released.

Leitz’s whopper, the 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit, goggles and all.

Some five decades later it finally occurred to the factory that a simple eyepiece magnifier would do the trick with less bulk, weight and cost. Well, less bulk and weight. This is Leica after all. So they released two eyepiece magnifiers in 1.25x and 1.4x strengths. Better fasten your seat belt before checking the prices. And to add insult to injury, you have to pony up an obscene additional $118 for an adapter to allow the magnifier to screw into the larger eyepiece which was fitted to the M10 and later models.

When I published a resolution test for the fine 135mm f/3.5 Canon LTM lens I wrote:

The 135mm focal length, especially used at large apertures and/or close focus distances, is really stretching the rangefinder accuracy of the Leica M to its limit. In such cases I advocate using ‘bracketing focus’ – one image nearer than seems right, one at the best apparent rangefinder setting and one too far if you want assurance of peak resolution. With digital that’s a realistic approach. With film reckon on $45 for 3 snaps with one sharp one …. Alternatively there are both 1.4x Leica aftermarket viewfinder magnifiers ($250 used) or aftermarket variants ($100) which enhance rangefinder resolution, but having to screw one into the eyepiece every time you take a picture seems like a royal pain. Further, you will barely be able to see the 50mm frame lines with the magnifier fitted and the 35mm ones will not be visible. So removal is the order of the day if you mount either focal length.

Well, I stand corrected, having just bought the Light Lens Lab 1.4x eyepiece magnifier from the US distributor, Popflash Photo. You can buy it from China on eBay for less but whether tariffs will allow it to get through is unknown.

The shipping box contains:

• The 1.4x magnifier
• Two identical rubber eyecups
• The thread adapter for use on the M10 and later bodies
• A screw on rear protective cover

My shipped cost was $163 compared with $600 for the Leica version with adapter ring.

The LLL magnifier includes +/- 3 diopter corrections (missing from the Leica version) using a rotating ring to which the eyecup attaches. This is good for users of corrective lenses but bad as the focus motion is far too loose, at least on my sample, but that is easily cured. (Do the makers ever actually use their product?) After dialing in the diopter adjustment for maximum resolution I simply cut a small piece of electrical tape and taped it around the rubber base of the eye cup and the abutting metal ring – they are flush so in practice the fix is invisible, and reversible. It would have been nice if the magnifier offered a flip up feature when not in use, but I suppose that’s too much to ask.

Fit and finish are excellent – all glass and metal, plus the rubber eyecup. I measure the inside eyepiece diameters of the respective cameras as follows:

• Leica M3 and all models through the M262/240 digital bodies – 11.42mm
• Leica M10 and later digital bodies – 13.51mm

That makes the tiny adapter ring just 1mm wide. Don’t lose it!

You have two choices in fitting this adapter ring – tight on the camera, in which case the screw on protective cover will fit on the magnifier when removed, or tight on the magnifier in which case the rear cover is useless. I went for the latter, preferring to keep the camera stock for eventual resale. The adapter ring has notches for a lens tool but I found that a clean handkerchief did the trick just fine.

The rear lens does not protrude so the absence
of a protective cover when removed is not an issue.
The notched adapter ring – arrowed – is installed in this image.

The magnifier with adapter requires 2 1/4 turns to fit on the M10 and is extremely unlikely to unscrew accidentally if snugged up nicely in the first place. I added a white ink index dot to designate the start point for engaging the thread when the adapter is being attached to the camera’s eyepiece. Yes, it’s still a pain to use because the 50mm frame is not fully visible without ‘pan and scan’ action from the user so for any lens shorter than 75mm the magnifier has to be removed if the finder frames are to be fully visible and easily used. With my 21mm lens no removal is needed as I have a 21mm finder fitted in the accessory shoe.

The thread index starting point white ink dot.
This is placed on the electrical tape which locks the diopter setting.
It minimizes risk of dropping when being attached.
The magnifier protrudes in this image as it has not been screwed into the eyepiece.

How is the optical performance? I see no distortion of the view or of the frame lines for the 75, 90 and 135mm lenses. Everything is bright and clear. It’s a quality product. Here are the finder magnifications with the magnifier fitted for the five different Leica M finder designs:

• 0.58x finder (wide finder versions of the M6TTL) appears to be 0.81x
• 0.72x finder (M2, M4, etc.) appears to be 1.01x – life size
• 0.73x finder (M10, M11) appears to be 1.02x – life size
• 0.85x finder (high magnification version of the M6TTL) appears to be 1.19x – very large
• 0.91x finder (M3) appears to be 1.27x – huge!

How well does it work? I used my ‘bookcase at 45 degrees to the camera’ test, with the M10 on a tripod. The focus point is indicated by the red line and the result is bang on. Images are examined in Lightroom using 100% magnification, equivalent to a 72″ wide print using a 32″ monitor. Why not simply examine images on the camera’s LCD display using magnification? Because the resolution of that display is nowhere near that of a large computer monitor using Lightroom. There are no short cuts here if you want perfection.

Focus test with the 135mm Elmar at maximum aperture of f/4.
The red line indicates where I focused. 7.5 feet from the camera.
Click the image for a big version.

As is clearly visible the depth of field at this distance, focal length and aperture is just 1″. I tried the same test without the magnifier fitted and nailed focus just one time out of three. With the magnifier I was spot on every time. The point is that an accurately adjusted rangefinder is more than up to it but sans magnifier my eyes – and maybe yours – are not.

When does this gadget add value? With any super fast lens, regardless of focal length – meaning f/1.4 or faster for 50mm and shorter, or f/2 or faster with a 90mm lens and with any 135mm lens – all when used at or close to maximum aperture and shorter focus distances. In all instances depth of field is very shallow which is when the magnifier comes into its own.

A key prerequisite is that your rangefinder is correctly adjusted in the first place, according to this illustration:

A 2mm Allen wrench is used to adjust the cam follower for optimum focus.

Explanation of which direction to turn the Allen screw adjuster: If the sharpest point in the LR magnified image is further than where you focused, then the focus point must be brought nearer, meaning you turn the Allen screw adjuster away from you, with the camera resting as in the above image. If the sharpest point in the LR magnified image is nearer than where you focused, then the focus point must be set further away, meaning you turn the Allen screw adjuster towards you, with the camera resting as in the above image. Take it easy with those adjustments – just a couple of degrees’ movement will shift the dice point noticeably.

Light Lens Lab is an interesting Chinese company, seemingly catering to the locals’ fascination with 1960s Leitz products. Witness their near perfect knock-off of the 50mm Type 2 Leitz Summicron of that era, albeit at a very high price. Still, that remains one of the most beautiful – and optically alluring – lenses of the past century, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The Light Lens Lab 1.4x magnifier is recommended for those with the special needs it addresses.

Happy, yet troubled.

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Here’s a slideshow of 36 favorites from that opening salvo of 1,000.
36? Why, that’s the length of a roll of Kodachrome ….
Click the image to download the slideshow – it takes a while.

It has been a couple of months since I bought a used Leica M10 digital body, adding a selection of inexpensive and uniformly excellent lenses since. My return to the Leica M fold was after a 20 year hiatus, that in turn was preceded by 35 mostly happy years with the Leica M3 film body.

So what prompted this costly move? And we cannot proceed without admitting that when it comes to digital M ownership the elephant in the room is the price of entry, new or used. While a decent film M2 or M3 can be had for $1,500 reckon on $4,500 for an unmolested M10 and $6,000 or more for an M11. To put that in perspective my near mint Nikon D800 body cost $500 and came with a sensor every bit as good, including autofocus and anti-shake in the two AF-S lenses I favor, the 16-35mm and the 28-300mm. And when it comes to robustness and color rendering, there is little to choose between the marques. Forget all that talk of the ‘Leica look’ in images from an M. That’s just confirmation bias from owners contemplating the reduced status of their pocketbooks.

Well, I suppose the answer was that I wanted to relive the past, in part, for that first 35 years of M use saw me migrate from ingenue kid to seasoned snapper and, until the relatively affordable Canon 5D came along, a snapper more or less happy with film as a recording medium. Published work and prizes galore defined the early years of M3 ownership though once I started making a real living the desire for those faded. And the 5D changed everything. Resolution and the ease of image manipulation both jumped an order of magnitude and, best of all, the seemingly interminable wait for the return of results was no more. Plus there’s something really rather dumb about using an analog medium like film then having to have it scanned to share results. You think you are using ‘film’? How about a Noritsu scanner? Your work still becomes digital, if rather slowly. And as age increases every remaining hour is scarcer, and waiting is not a good thing. I really would prefer to see my snaps before I croak.

However, Leica, late to the game and having lost the professional market to Nikon, Canon and the upstart Sony (née Minolta), decided to reposition the M as an aspirational, luxury Veblen good and the wisdom of that decision is reflected in its recent record financial results. Realistically, the digital Leica M has no competition when it comes to design and function. But the realization dawns that once upon a time the film rangefinder Leica was the fastest way of focusing a lens. Now in the digital age, it is the slowest. But it still works for me.

And aesthetics and design integrity cannot be denied here. I have always maintained that a good tool makes you a better operator, be it a Starrett T square or caliper which make you a better carpenter, a Porsche which makes you a better driver or a Leica which makes you a better photographer. Each is beautiful in its own way. The happy result is that you feel duty bound to try and do justice to these long-evolved machines and, let’s face it, the Leica M is a thing of quite special beauty. The severe Bauhaus lines owe nothing to the mess of the Barnack Leica era with its plethora of knobs, buttons and protrusions and the Nikon F’s brutal lines certainly copied nothing from the M3. Today the amorphous blobs from the Japanese all start looking alike, all are immensely capable, are invariably tremendous value at their many price points and …. lack character.

Now there’s character and there’s character. In a British sports car character is defined by a reluctance to start and often a greater one to proceed. That’s not good character. That’s schlocky engineering. But Leica has been refining the M body since the M3 of 1954 and, while their first stumbles into digital were disappointing, with the M10 they finally got the size and shape back to M3 and M2 dimensions and, goodness, absent the film winding lever, the camera feels and almost sounds like that M3 of yore. And that inspires me mightily to try and do it justice for in the history of twentieth century cameras three defined the medium – the original Leica I, the M3 and the Nikon F. The M3 poses a mighty legacy to aspire to.

Today exposure automation in the M10, first seen in the film M7, is greatly welcomed. Sure IBIS would be nice but technology must shrink further before the M body can accommodate it. It’s a good bet it will eventually. As for auto-focus, forget it. Have you seen the size of lenses which have it? (Contax made a magnificent effort decades ago by moving the film plane instead of the lens to achieve AF, but again the question remains whether the svelte M body can accommodate that technology. One can but dream.) And there’s a special pleasure to using the M rangefinder which is, if anything, further improved over the already stellar design in the M3 and M2. A switchable internal auxiliary magnifier, in lieu of the clunky screw in separate eyepiece, would be welcome for use with fast 90mm and any 135mm lens, but again that body is already so tightly packed it may be asking too much.

But there’s no denying there’s an undeniable tactile and aural pleasure to using the M10 and I confess to a frisson every time I release the shutter. That alone (almost) makes the high cost of entry (almost) bearable. Almost.

In the opening I stated “Happy, yet troubled”, for the simple reason that there’s something rather obscene about spending almost $5,000 on a used camera body when competent alternatives can be had for a fraction of that amount. However, I console myself that with the cost of a 36 exposure roll of film, processed and scanned, now approaching $50, with 1,000 exposures under my belt I have recovered almost 50% of the $3,000 cost premium over the film body. Another 1,000 exposures or so and I’m ahead of the game ….