Leica LTM- or Leica-M Camera And Shutter Priority? — IMPOSSIBLE? — No, It’s Easy As Pie :)

radi(c)al_cam

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Alexander
I guess many of you have experience that it's quite awkward when you have an SLR-lens to LTM/Leica-M body adapter where both the lens and the adapter are LACKING an aperture-stopdown device.

My example are the ZEISS West lenses for the Icarex TM (or Zeiss Ikon SL706) — one cannot lock the stopdown thingy in place, the spring forces you to have your finger on it permanently unless you want to shoot wide open.

My method:

Choose the f-number 16, choose your shutter speed, activate your TTL-exposure meter, and then move your finger on the stopdown thingy until the exposure meter says «OK», and instantly then press the shutter release!

Thus I invented the LTM- or Leica-M Camera And Shutter Priority! Sort of at least ;)
 
On the Pentax M42 mounts for the SMC lenses (wide-open metering) the adapter I use has a build in piece to stop down the lens via the stop down pin. Same with my Kodak Retina lenses, even has an aperture ring on it.

Without those: good system for using the lenses, which have a great reputation.
 
[…] Without those: good system for using the lenses, which have a great reputation.

I'd say, these scarce ZEISS West for M42 lenses of the early 1970s are a weird mixture of highest standard regarding the glasses and the extraordinary heavy barrels on the one hand, but on the other hand they’ve simplified the aperture ring (no clickstops!) and: they've used an annoyingly fragile (and at least after some 40 years probably not particularly reliable) way for their open-aperture metering; I guess I did the right thing that I have removed the parts in question. The reason was: Unfortunately, in that open-aperture metering device there is some metal part and a plastic part glued together with a meanwhile very brittle glue — and if one has to open the lens, the glue breaks and since such remnants are quite difficult to remove, I also removed the spring of the metering device and I decided to leave it alone …
 
I will keep that in mind if coming across these lenses-

Thankyou

My pleasure :)

The full-aperture metering tab (terminology?) in question is the shiny thing at 3 o'clock:

carl_zeiss_oberkochen_tessar_50mm_f2_8-16_m42_04.jpg
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cf.:
Carl Zeiss (Oberkochen) Tessar 50mm f/2.8-16 - M42 Lens Database
… and some of the other lenses:
Carl Zeiss Ultron 50mm f/1.8-16 - M42 Lens Database
Carl Zeiss Skoparex 35mm f/3.4-16 - M42 Lens Database
Carl Zeiss Super-Dynarex 135mm f/4-22 - M42 Lens Database

The next one is already in ROLLEI/VOIGTLÄNDER guise:
Carl Zeiss Distagon HFT 25mm f/2.8-22 - M42 Lens Database
 
Here my two copies of the lens in question:

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This one has an adapter that depresses the aperture pin — but otherwise I'm uncertain whether or not it somehow botches the TTL-metering; the slit moves the camera's aperture-metering lever a tiny bit, I'll have to test that:

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And here as mentioned above, my «shutter priority» version:

dscn7071ljl3d.jpg
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Eugene Zaikonnikov did not only adapt some of these particular so called Carl Zeiss (in fact: Voigtländer, see my Mr. Otto thread [soon I hope!]) lenses for the Icarex/SL706, he also managed to convert them, as I found meanwhile; here he shows the Tessar (which is factually a Skopar), and the famous 50/1.8 Ultron:

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