[Leica] Changing eyes, M focusing

[ricc at mindspring.com (Ric Carter)]

Progressives work okay for me with the M so far as acuity goes.

Problems:
--Relief (eye distance from eyepiece) makes it harder to see ALL of  
the viewfinder.
--Glasses get smudgy as the dickens from oily me and viewfinder ring

I've been thinking about contacts. I can't see close things, but  
distance vision isn't too bad. Anybody tried mismatched contacts--one  
lens for reading and one for distant)?

Don't we have a eye-guy on the list?

ric




On Nov 7, 2007, at 3:08 PM, Peter Klein wrote:

> Up until recently, both my glasses and contacts prescriptions were  
> fine for focusing an M camera. When I got the M8, the smaller  
> magnification made focus a little more difficult, but still quite  
> doable.
>
> My latest prescription has changed all that. I can still focus the  
> M8 fine in bright sunlight. But in standard room lighting and  
> dimmer, I'm having difficulty focusing at about 2 meters and  
> closer. The viewfinder image is slightly blurry--just enough to  
> throw me off.  The issue is the same with both glasses and  
> contacts.  All this is after I looked at my optometrist's eye chart  
> through the M8 viewfinder with various corrections, and he adjusted  
> my prescription accordingly.
>
> My optometrist says my eyes are healthy, I'm just near-sighted and  
> middle-aged.  :-)
>
> It seems like a single screw-in diopter correction for the M bodies  
> is not the answer, as the viewfinder itself seems fine for 2 meters  
> and farther, but I need something different as I get closer.  A  
> couple of solutions come to mind:
>
> 1) Progressive lenses in my glasses
> 2) An adjustable diopter correction for the M8
>
> Progressive lenses might work. I guess you just hold the camera  
> lower on your glasses for focusing on nearby objects. Since I do  
> computer work, progressives might mean I could get by with only one  
> pair of glasses.
>
> Now, I tried progressives about 10 years ago. I used them for about  
> a month, but couldn't quite get used to them. I was perceiving  
> varying barrel distortion and other weird effects like the image  
> "following sligthtly behind" as I turned my head from side to side,  
> and it drove me nuts.  I much preferred ordinary bifocals, so I  
> ended up with them, plus a additional single vision pair of glasses  
> for computer work.  Maybe now that I've had the experience of  
> adjusting to monovision contacts, I might be more adaptable(?)
>
> The Megaperls magnifiers have an adjustable diopter correction.  
> Their 1.15x magnifier would bring the M8 image up from .68x to . 
> 78x, and I could probably just leve it on the camera for lenses  
> from 28mm to 90mm. It would give me a diopter adjustment I could  
> tweak between near and far. This would work with contacts as well  
> as glasses.
>
> So, calling all middle-aged dudes and dude-ettes with M cameras!   
> How have you coped with creeping presbyopia? Have you tried  
> progressive lenses, and how do they work for you, both with M  
> cameras, and in real life?  Have you adjusted well to them?  Do you  
> get a stiff neck from pitching your head up and down to "focus," or  
> is it pretty natural after a while?
>
> And does anyone have experience with the Megaperls magnifiers?  How  
> usable are they with glasses, and is the diopter adjustment useful  
> for dealing with near vs. far focusing?
>
> Thanks, all!
> --Peter
>
>
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