–Actually unbelievable: Got the 3 M9’s and the M-E all squared away, decided to keep the Black Paint (!) M9. Put the Biotar lens on it to get a bokeh shot, then realized–for literally the 8th time–you can’t focus a non-M lens on an M9. Put the Leica 35mm on it (King of Bokeh), then discovered I couldn’t focus on an abutilon flower that was in the shade–you really need a contrasty vertical thing to focus on. So: (a) wait for the Paul Smith CL to return and try to overcome the metering issue, or (b) buy another Olympus VF-2 viewfinder (tossed the first one) and see if it is an improvement over the rangefinder. Grrrrr…… [edit] Okay okay okay: read a little in Leica Forum and revived the CL, I believe. We know the right thumb wheel does two levels of focus magnification. Turns out the left wheel does ISO. I put the Leica 50 lens on and went out on the front patio to take a pic of the abutilon. With Auto ISO, it defaults to making the scene way too bright (overexposed) for me, anyway. I thumbed the ISO down and the picture in the view finder got darker and darker as ISO decreased. I took a couple pics at more than -1 EV (CL thinks it’s way under-exposed). Pics came out great–for me, anyway. So: looking forward to the Paul Smith. Keep an M9? I don’t know. I just bought an Olympus viewfinder on eBay, so we’ll see how it works, but I’m guessing the CL will outrun the M9 in every way. We’ll see. [edit 2] Took a couple of night shots with the CL They came out nice, but the exposure meter was pretty much maxed out at -3 EV. I really wonder if there’s a way of resetting the meter so I don’t have to abuse it so much. Doubtful.
–Made pizza for dinner.