Minolta CLE + Tri-Elmar: mysterious frameline observations

[sleepyhead]

I was playing around last night with a bunch of bodies and lenses and I noticed something pretty strange about my Minolta CLE frameline selection with a Tri-Elmar (TE) mounted:

CLE + Leica 28mm lens --> 28 + 90 lines
CLE + 35mm lens --> 28 lines
CLE+ 40mm lens --> 28 + 40 lines
CLE + 50mm lens --> 28 + 40 lines

So far, all is as expected.


CLE + TE at 28mm --> 28 + 90 lines
CLE + TE at 35mm --> 28 + 40 lines
CLE + TE at 50mm --> 28 lines

The 35mm and 50mm settings on the CLE do not act as expected.

The same TE mounted on two different M4-P bodies and a Leica CL bring up the expected framelines at each of the 28-35-50 settings, so it's something with the interaction between the TE and the CLE.

Strange huh?

Regards, sleepyhead

[Joe Brugger]

Not so strange. The CLE was designed by Minolta as a three-lens system: 28/40/90, so those are the only frame lines they provided. 28 is the default frame; it appears on the CLE when no lens is mounted.
Because the CLE doesn't recognize the 35-135 frame -- not part of the design parameters -- a 35/135 LTM to M adapter (on a Voigtlander 28/3.5 screwmount, for example) sends it into default, just bringing up the 28 frame. The 28/90 adapter brings up both frames.
What's actually going on with your Tri-Elmar, I have no idea, except that several reports suggest the frameline keying with these is pretty finicky, especially on the early models.