Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/20

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Subject: [Leica] Hexar RF-Leica incompatibility
From: Robert Schneider <rolopix@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 13:39:13 -0700 (PDT)

On the LUG, Erwin Puts, or someone else, wrote:

> Having established in previous newsletters that
there is more to
> Konica/Leica lens compatibility than the simple
measurement of the
> distance from flange to pressure plate, I did some
further research, now
> testing in real life with 100 ISO slide film all
leica lenses from 24 to
> 135mm on a calibrated M6 and a factory provided
Hexar, which had the
> distance from pressure plate to flange of 27.95mm,
thus identical to
> Leica but differing from the Konica specs.
> As you recall, the Lug was very quick to some simple
checks, which in my
> view were done not to find the truth, but to 'prove'
that nothing is
> wrong. This view has been canonized in Nemeng's FAQ.
> My results are different.

etc.

My lingering curiousity is why a manufacturer (Konica)
would commit the time and effort to knock off the
functionality of the Leica M, duplicate the Leica M
lens mount and then make the camera incompatible with
Leica M lenses.  If the Hexar RF was not intended to
be used effectively with Leica M lenses (I don't care
what the CYA language says in the manual), why bother
to use the Leica M mount at all?  Why not some
proprietary Hexar RF mount?

Aren't the Bessa cameras compatible with Leica
screwmount lenses? It's not as if other manufacturers
(Konica, for instance) lack the technological
sophistication to get the tolerances correct.

Rob Schneider
  

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