Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Here is one that gave me a good laugh, came across it last night in one of the online fourms. There was a discussion of brightness and crispness or lack of in old rangefinders. Someone piped in with the following advise, and remarkably no one responded to the poster, perhaps everyone decided to be kind. It went something like this.....

Take a small piece of black electrical tape, about 3/16 of an inch square, just enough to cover the rangefinder focus box in the viewfinder and stick it in the middle of the viewfinder window. The focus box will become brighter.

The poster then went on to say "I really don't understand the optics of this.

That actually works.

http://nemeng.com/leica/020b.shtml

Scroll down to 'Black Rectangular Mask' section

That only works on RFs where the frameline illumination window and the rangefinder window are separate. This guy was giving advice for a Hi-matic 7s where the frame line illumination window and the rf window are combined. Put the tape in the middle of that window and the rf focus patch dissappears. Any way the poster said to put the tape in the middle of the viewfinder window not the illumination window, another case of internet advice form someone who just does not have a clue.

I will keep your link in mind if the day ever comes when I can get my hands on a Leica or a Zeiss Ikon or a Voigtl

Does the QL17 III have a similar design to the Hi Matic 7s? If so, from my own experience, the tape on the illumination window trick works. If not then maybe the Hi Matic 7s has a special rangefinder system.

So tell me exactly where to put this piece of tape on my ql17 iii

As I see it the illumination window as well as providing light, for the framelines and the meter, casts some extra light over the entire viewfinder window thus lowering the viewfinder contract. When trying to focus in the shadows that extra light can overwhelm focus patch and cause white out in the leica. Masking that extra illumination window light from the focus patch increases the contrast in the focus patch. Reading the link you provided indicates that different leica designs manage the way extraneous illumination window light enters the the viewfinder in different ways, and one of those ways was detrimental when focusing in the shadows.

I tried it with my ql17. For me it made the patch brighter but I found that in normal light it was more difficult to line up objects because the centre of the viewfinder is obscured except for the rangefinder patch.