Leica M4 min couple distance

film_man · Feb 22, 2019

Hello all,

I'm a bit confused with my new (to me) Leica M4. What is the minimum focus distance that the rangefinder is coupled to? I have a 40/1.4 which focus to 0.7m yet the rangefinder stops at what appears to be 0.9m. Is that correct? I thought the M4 would do 70cm?

Thanks!

guangong · Feb 22, 2019

If I remember correctly, with a 50 mm lens, my M4 near focus is 28”. Check manual.

film_man · Feb 23, 2019

I have the manual for Butkus and there is no mention of focus distance. So just looking at the lenses, I have a Zeiss 50C whih only goes to 0.9m. That works fine. The Voigtlander goes to 0.7m, however looking at the cam mechanism the gold bit on the cam is gone inside the lens by 0.9m. Does anyone know if the 40/1.4 is coupled to 0.9 or 0.7m?

All this Leicaness is doing my head in a bit

ckuwajima · Feb 23, 2019

Super-Angulon 21/3.4 has focus scale down to 0.4m. On my M4 the rangefinder disengages at 0.7m.

film_man · Feb 23, 2019

ckuwajima said:
Super-Angulon 21/3.4 has focus scale down to 0.4m. On my M4 the rangefinder disengages at 0.7m.

Thanks for this info.

Ko.Fe. · Feb 23, 2019

It is adjustable at most of the M. Even some if not all M3 could be set from 0.9 to 0.7.

johnha · Feb 24, 2019

My M4 & Voigtlander 40/1.4 appear to focus down to 0.7 (whether it's accurate is another question).

film_man · Feb 26, 2019

johnha said:
My M4 & Voigtlander 40/1.4 appear to focus down to 0.7 (whether it's accurate is another question).

Ok thanks for confirming that. I'll have to have the camera looked at at some point. I'm pretty sure it did 0.7m when I got it last month, problem is I only did one roll before dropping it, had to send it for rangefinder alignment and now it will only go to 0.9m. Regardless, I now only use the 50/1.5ZM with it which only focuses to 0.9m anyway. I'll probably get it serviced this year so will get that sorted. Probably should take it somewhere else for that service

Thanks all.

guangong · Feb 26, 2019

0.7m= 28inches, which is what the M4 instructor manual states. This 28” with 50mm Summicron close focusing was a big deal when I bought my M4 c. 1969. Back then most rf lenses focused to 3 or 3.5 feet. Scale on Summicron reads 28”. This is when using rf on M4, which does not mean that scale focusing won’t work, but margin of error is very small.

film_man · May 4, 2019

Update on this...I just had the camera checked as I'm getting a bit of shutter bounce at 1/500. The tech that looked at it immediately spotted that the coupling pin is bent. It appears that the "technician" who did the alignment must have bent the pin then adjusted it to focus ok for the rest of the range, or something like that. Honestly some people...

Leica M4 min couple distance

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency