Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Tina: I have found that the overhead compartments of Air Planes have too much vibration for cameras. About a year ago, I put my camera bag in a well stuffed overhead and I think the steward had shifted the bag onto its side so that the unpadded top was in contact with the bin. The next day when I put a flash on my Leica R4 I noticed the flash shoe was loose on the camera. The vibrations must have loosened the screws up. Of course, the screws are under the top cover, so it had to go to Leica to have the top cover taken off and the shoe tightened up again. This vibration in the planes, trains, and automobiles may be your problem. I now make a concious effort to never place the camera or bag against any non padded surface in these vehicles. In other words, it goes under my seat in the plane and on the carpet of the trunk or the floor of a car. For example, if you has a camera bag that did not have good padding and placed it in the back of a jeep, a lot of the vibrations would make it through to the gear. When I took my M6 and some lenses on a long trip with my motorcycle, I had them in an Billingham Alice bag which I placed on top of a pice of foam padding I put in the luggage that strapped to my gas tank. This way I was shure the foam between the Alice and the tank would absorb the vibrations. In Washinton D.C. photo on my web page you can see part of the Alice bag sticking out of the tank bag. http://home.istar.ca/~robsteve/photography/trip.htm Regards, Robert Stevens At 03:18 PM 12/8/98 -0500, Tina Manley wrote: >> > >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: > >Tina Manley, ASMP > >http://members.tripod.com/~Tina_Manley/index.html > > > >