Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/02/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]OK, I asked if the 4/3 lens mount was similar to that on the Olympus Pen F. While I have not been able to come up with a definitive answer, half an hour surfing Google came up with the following: 1. The 4/3 mount surely looks like the Pen F mount, at least judging from the pictures of the adapters offered by Cameraquest and others. Without exact dimensions, however, I cannot be sure. 2. The 4/3 system is covered by US Patent 6,910,814 issued June 28, 2005. The actual patent covers the camera and 4/3 standard. Unfortunately I was not able to download the drawings with the relevant mount specifications on my laptop browser (IE 5.1). I'll try again tomorrow with Safari. If anyone has access to the patent literature, they may be able to get the actual drawings. 3. The flange to sensor distance of the 4/3 system is 38.67 mm. The distance for the Oly Pen is 28.95 mm. That for the Olympus OM series is 46.0 mm. And of course the distance for the Leica M is 27.8 mm and the Leica s crew is 28.8 mm. This means that an adapter can be constructed for the 4/3 system for any lens with a flange to film distance od 40 mm or greater. This includes the OM series lenses and most others built for full frame SLR cameras but obviously not the Leica or Pen lenses. So all of us who fantasized about using our Leica RF lenses on a 4/3 system, whether made by Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji, Kodak, or Leica, are out of luck. Larry Z