Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/01/17

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Need advice on R3
From: MEBerube <MEB@goodphotos.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:47:30 -0500

At 01:17 PM 1/17/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Could anyone tell me which was the Minolta camera that was so much like the
>R3? I'm trying to give a friend a hand who is attempting to resurrect a R3,
>and suggested to him that he might need to cannibalize that Minolta. So...
>if only I knew which one.
>
>And perhaps someone here knows if the electronics of these cameras are also
>compatible; namely the part that leads to the shutter (alright, so now you
>understand that I don't know anything about camera repair :-).
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Bart Haig


I know nothing about camera repair either other than the minolta XE7 
(usually excellent black paint on brass like my beat to Hel but spot-on 
black SRT102) and XE5 (panda: chrome w/black prism) that you are thinking 
of are exceedingly hard to get repaired as no one wants to work on them. 
EurAsia had different designations than the USAs XE7/5 as is minolta's habit.

Supposedly they share the same basic shape and the Copal Leitz Shutter and 
were made around the CL and CLE era.

I have one of each. On my XE5, the film advance sticks at full stroke 80% 
of the time and I have NO metering. (It is virtually useless) on my XE7 
everything works smoothly except the Program mode. (Which I don't see me 
using much anyhow.) Back in the day that I played 'compromise' with my 
camera equipment more than I do now, these were my 'start' in Leica 
equipment. As the days pass and the headaches continue from dealing with 
'pre-experienced' equipment more and more I think that I'm going to follow 
Kyle's lead for 2001 and rule that I will rid myself of all of my cameras 
that aren't in top condition or easily repairable. "No more broken cameras."

Carpe Luminem,
Michael E. Berube
http://GoodPhotos.com