[Leica] R8 Winder Report

[MyersPete@aol.com]

Dear LUGnuts:

My R8 Winder report:

First, no one seemed to get my joke about the instruction sheet. I played that
I only received a single sheet of instructions for the installation of the
Winder saying in German the equivalent of; " Its obvious, dumb head!".

The instructions did come with the Winder and were quite complete, but in
truth, "its obvious, dumb head!" was probably all the instuctions that they
needed to include. Hence the joke. Its easy to install once you line the
winder tabs up with the camera tabs.

The Winder works! I was pleased to find out that the Winder batteries take
over the function of the camera batteries - powering both. The Winder is thin,
fits to the camera like a glove and is quite elegant. You do feel the weight
increase a bit. The camera now has some "heft" and it makes me a bit more
envious of you M'ers.

The film advance is smooth and silent. I actually like the relatively slow
speed of the Winder in that the film seems to move forward with grace, rather
then jerking it. I am not using this camera for action shots, so the smoother,
the better in my book as it keeps the film from scratching.

I took great exception to where they put the 1/4-20 mounting hole in the
Winder base. It is offset to the right a fair distance, when viewed from the
rear. But, I learned something. Perhaps it just coincidence, but, I think it
was designed for this purpose - let me explain.

I use a Gitzo Carbon Fiber Monopod when I shoot. I have a Velborn magnesium
quick mount plate system on it. The combined monopod and plate is extremely
light and very rigid. (also ideal for beating off camera stealers)

When I installed the plate on the bottom of the Winder, I was cursing the
engineers for offsetting the hole. But, once it was installed and I snapped
the camera and plate on top of the monopod, I began to see their logic!

First, the cam release arm on the monopod goes off to the right and is at a
perfect fit under the camera. It is very easy to get it to release and looks
like the two systems were meant to work together.

Further, the offset of the hole is towards the shutter button. This means that
when you push down on the shutter, you are almost pushing directly down on to
the monopod. Its at least half of the offset between the shutter release and
the center of support that you normally would have. This obviously means that
the push down will not move the camera as much when the shutter is released.

So, the stupidity of the offset hole, at least for me, looks like an asset. I
do believe that it may have been designed for a monopod and a quick release
like the Velborn.

I have not field tested it yet, as I am waiting for it to stop raining.

Pete Myers