Which leica m6

Altough they were up to special number as Schmidt was omitting all numbers containing a 4. The Austrian Leica distributor ordered cameras with Elmar-M 2. To celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the Jaguar XK. Only 50 sets made. To celebrate the one hundred fifty years of the foundation of Carl Kellner's Optical Institute in July , Leica Cameras issued cameras. Each camera is engraved with one of the years from — together with the name and optical diagram of the matching lens.

Each 30 years group of cameras was supplied with a different lens. The Japanese repair shop ordered cameras with 0. After Leica announced their black paint Millenium M6, a special order was placed by a Hong Kong dealer for green paint cameras.

Swiss demonstration camera with 0. Only 40 pieces have been made. The camera is engraved with an outline map of Switzerland. An edition of cameras with 0. The Japanese buying organization commissioned cameras with 0.

With orange leather covering, engraved topplate with 'Sheikh Saud Bin Mohd. In January , 18 years after the first introduction, Leica announced the end of their production line of the Leica M6 by making a last series of cameras. Don't show this popup again. I purchased it recently and i am still unsure if I like the camera or if I like my old M4 and m3 much better.

I like that it has the 75mm frame lines and have been thinking of purchasing a 75mm lens. But I thought the light meter would be more like the meter in my Nikon fm2 and In many ways it is. Some how the meter does not seem as intuitive as the fm2 meter though. I am unsure its worth having over even a nikon FM2. Hell I am even unsure the leica m6 is better to have than just using one of those leica mr4 meters on an unmetered body.

Yes the m6 is much better made than the fm2 and the m6 is a dream camera. For me the m6 has been getting harder and harder to justify owning. Lately my eyes have been falling upon a nikon sp with a 35mm f1. I recently decided to leave the camera home on a kayak trip. I know it sounds snobby to be nitpick about the m6 but if I am going to own somthing so valuable I gotta really mesh with it. Hummmm who knows what I will do with my m6ttl.

I hate to be critical about this article but I think that it paints a little too rosy a picture. First off, I am not a Leica hater, I shoot with a bunch of Ms but I feel that camera reviews need balance. This statement applies to pretty much any camera of the era. The M6 has serious issues with RF flare. The MA always had the condenser. This was a cost cutting move, that could be retrofitted later. Both illuminated meant correct exposure. The M6TTL improved on that by adding a dot between them, when that dot illuminated the exposure was correct.

Dear Huss I am thankful for any feedback on my articles and yours is especially detailed. I appreciate it. There are many other cameras that work without batteries. I did not say the M6 was the only one. I just thought it would be worth mentioning since the M6 does have a light meter which could lead people to think the camera needed batteries to function.

Maybe the comparison to other Leica viewfinders is something I could have included but I simply chose not to. As I stated in the end, this article was meant to halt the euphoria inside of me. Maybe, I just could not. I mainly use Sunny 16 to work out my exposures and the arrows offer me a great way to check my estimates without making the experience too technical. That is an issue I always face when shooting digital.

Thanks again Huss and please do not hesitate to let us in on your knowledge in future articles! Have a great one Dario. Hi, great article about a great camera. The M3 just works. It is in need of some work on the RF window with some balsam separation but other than that is has been reliable for many years. I got the M6 largely for the 35mm frameline.

And for metering in a pinch. With the M6 my issues have been as follows: The winding lever is for me and larger hands very flimsy and fidgety. Mine wore out probably from my troubles with it. I am probably an outlier, but I like the spool wind on system in the M3 much better than the split spool system in the M6. I had the pleasure of sitting with Youxin while he performed the CLA — his home is about 45 minutes from mine.

It was amazing to see him dismantle the camera. I had lunch with him and his wife, and we talked Leica all day. It was a great day. If there is interest, pictures from my day with Youxin are in a post on my blog. It is my most viewed blog post, getting at least 3 — 4 views per day — my blog is otherwise not often viewed. The camera worked fine for about 6 months after which the meter stopped working. I sent the camera to DAG camera and it was promptly repaired and returned.

I am sure that for a good amount of time, given the camera has been restored, I will have many years of trouble free performance.

I did get a good deal on the camera with a Zeiss 35mm lens attached, but obviously this was a bad investment dollar wise. This the risk of owning film cameras, especially expensive ones. Oh, and to that end—you can also expect that red dot. This along with the film plate are very important.

You open it up here to load film and unload it. However, the engineers and product managers often tell me that the cameras and lenses were designed with that already built into the cameras. It was awesome. It was fun. My camera is still fine. And you should know that even if someone spills some jungle juice on the precious extension of your eye, it should still work. If you wear glasses like me, the 28mm and 35mm framelines can be a challenge to see all in one go on the 0.

As with all Leica M cameras, the viewfinder is fully parallax corrected by way of the rangefinder cam you see circled in the image below. The main purpose of the rangefinder cam is to move the rangefinder focusing patch for focus see next section.

If you have a Leica M camera on hand you can see an exaggerated version of this effect by removing your lens, looking through the viewfinder and lightly pressing on the rangefinder cam. With the lens off, the cam sets your framelines and focusing patch for closest focus.

Pushed in, it moves up and to the left, where it would normally be with your lens at infinity. However, the closer your subjects are, the more pronounced the difference between what the two see becomes. The Leica M6 provides parallax correction by automatically compensating for the difference in position of the viewfinder and lens by moving the framelines down and to the right as you focus the lens closer.

The movement is hardly noticeable in use and ensures that what you see is what ends up on film. You could say that Leica cameras and lenses play second fiddle to their rangefinder mechanisms. Covering the center window 3 will obscure your frameline illumination and covering the rightmost window 2 will give you a blurry image of your finger or thumb.

Viewfinder magnification is one aspect of a rangefinder that helps you focus, the other is rangefinder base length. Rangefinder base length is the distance between the rangefinder window and the viewfinder number 4 and 2 respectively in the image above. The longer the rangefinder base length and the higher the viewfinder magnification, the easier it is to obtain critical focus, especially with wide aperture lenses shot wide open.

When comparing the potential accuracy of rangefinders, we need a common ground. The Leica M3 has the accolade of being the standard by which all Leica M cameras are measured. It has a 0. Multiply these together and you get What they tell us that the 0.

The higher the viewfinder magnification is obviously helpful for shooting longer lenses as I do. One thing to note is that the 0. This a technique where you keep both eyes open, with your right eye looking through the viewfinder while you frame and focus.

You might also be using a split-image fresnel which splits the center of your focus screen into two halves of a circle. Rangefinder focusing is quite similar to the latter.

It can be quite confusing when you first use a rangefinder. You might not even notice the rangefinder patch to begin with! With a little practice and a bit of experience, using a rangefinder will quickly become second nature for both snapshots and critical focus. One of the advantages of a rangefinder camera is that the viewfinder does not show the lenses actual depth of field. This makes zone focusing incredibly easy.

The meter guides you via a pair of triangular LEDs at the bottom of the viewfinder. To use the light meter, first make sure the desired film speed has been set using the dial on the cameras rear plate. Next, lightly press the shutter button down until the LED s light up. The same low-light warning will also be triggered if a lens cap is still on your lens, thus saving you the embarrassment of a roll of film with nothing but blank frames.

As I said, half-truth but a truth nonetheless. You can see it with the shutter advanced and with the lens off. These diagrams from the M6 manual put that into perspective:.

There is no DX Coding support. The meter is also disabled if the shutter has been fired but the film has not been wound on. When set to any other shutter speed with the shutter ready to fire , the meter will be activated by a light press of the shutter button and will remain on for approximately 10 seconds. If your camera is in a bag, be careful to make sure the shutter button is free of anything that can push down on it or you might find yourself with a dead meter the next time you take it out.

The M6 features a horizontal focal plane shutter made of rubberized cloth both first and second curtain. As with all cloth shutters, it is inadvisable to leave the camera pointed at the sun without a lens cap on, as you can burn a hole through the shutter in mere seconds under the right conditions.

The M6 can be used with the vast majority of Leica flash units, as well as those from third parties such as Metz and Sunpack. The Leica M6 only requires batteries for its light meter. The meter is powered by a single 3v or two 1. Based on approximately 15 seconds of metering per frame, Leica tells us that a fresh set of batteries will last for 4, exposures — about rolls of 36 exposure 35mm film — or 20 hours with the shutter button pressed down continuously. The M6 features the quick loading system first introduced with the Leica M2R and brought to the mass market by the M4 range.

The basic film feeding instructions are helpfully present on the underside of the camera, in case you forget.