Re: [Leica] How often CLA

[Tina Manley <images@InfoAve.Net>]

At 06:52 AM 12/8/98 +0100, you wrote:
>All this talk about misaligned rangefinders and maintenance makes me
>wonder...how often do you guys send your Ms to CLA? Does Leica have a
>recommendation, like every X years or every Y rolls of film?
>
>Nathan
>

Well, this guy sends them in every time I come back from weird places!  I
guess I'm really hard on cameras.  I got back from Honduras last week and
sent 4 M6's and 2 lenses to Leica for repair and CLA.  One of the M6's I
dropped into muddy water.  The other three were completely drenched when
the boat I was in was swamped.  Coming back, I put the cameras in my rubber
boots but by then they were already wet.  My Noctilux fell off of the
camera and into the mud!!  I had noticed that it seemed a little loose, but
was too busy to pay attention.  Thank goodness the mud was soft, but all of
the tiny little screws were lost forever.  This was on my third day there
so I was without my Noctilux for the rest of the trip!  :-(    I used the
75 1.4 but, to me, that is harder to focus accurately than the Noctilux.  I
can't tell you what it was like in Honduras but here is part of an e-mail I
sent home from there:

 Yesterday Gloria and I 
went to try to find one of the communities that had not been heard 
from. We took a four-wheel drive jeep for over an hour until we came 
to a river we couldn't ford. We took off our boots and socks and 
started wading. I slipped in a hole and one of my Leicas ended up 
underwater. We finally made it across the river only to have to 
cross acres of mud flats. Ablsolutely nothing but mud as far as you 
could see. It looked solid but several times we sank in above our 
knees. There were four of us - two CCD workers, too - and we took 
turns pulling each other out. Then came the sand - for miles around 
it looked like a desert. The sand came to the top wire of the barbed 
wire fences. When we finally got to the community, the people were 
so glad to see us. They shouted, "We are alive!" They had fled to 
higher ground when the flood came. Two men stayed to take care of 
the animals and they ended up on the roof of a house. Most of the 
animals died. All of the houses were destroyed. When we got there 
they were cleaning the mud out of their well. They had not had any 
contact with the outside world since the hurricane. Their crops were 
all destroyed and they had no food. Their comment was "Well, we have 
plenty of sand now.  Maybe we'll build our houses of cement next time!"
I washed out my Leica and it is drying. One other lens came apart so 
I'm working with less equipment. Save these e-mails because I'm not
taking many notes this time. I guess the kids will be home today or 
tomorrow. I'm going to try to call on Thanksgiving. 
LOL
Tina









Tina Manley, ASMP

http://members.tripod.com/~Tina_Manley/index.html