Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/05/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]>>> Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 20:50:01 -0700 From: S Dimitrov <sld@earthlink.net> Subject: [Leica] Re: mechanical shutters Message-ID: <3B034A5D.E9A5CA1B@earthlink.net> References: thought some of you might want to know about this: I have an R6 whose shutter took a dive a few months ago. Apparently they are not rebuildable. The shutter had to be sent to Leica for an exchange. I was told that the shutter might even be Japanese. The failure was at 1/15 and at 1/30, where it stuck at 1/8. All the other speeds were fine. The shutter apparently hits a piece of plastic at one point of its cycle, not sure when, as I can't recall that part of the conversation. With use this piece of plastic gets gummed up and makes the shutter stick, possibly creating the problem I had. Nearly $500.00 later, I wondered why I didn't just get the R6.2 or just another Leicaflex SL. Lesson in this, is that even the mechanical gear is as prone to failure as the electronic gear, of the more recent vintage that is. Best, Slobodan Dimitrov >>> Slobodan, the same thing happened to my R6 a coupe of years ago due to (so i thought) very high temperatures at a brick kiln. Standing on top of the kiln with several 100,000 bricks firing beneath me I suddenly found I had to keep smacking the camera with my hand to get the shutter to fire. Eventually (after a couple of minutes) it completely froze. This was annoying as it had taken a couple of days negotiating to get into the lpace in the first place - one thing the owner was worried about was the child labour issue, and the place was full of kids, not labouring, but doing odd jobs. So that was annoying. The repairman in Calcutta told me same thing you said, which is that the shutter hits a kind of plastic or silicon vibration damper which can melt or gum up (I have no idea whether this actually so). He simply scraped this part right off and the camera worked like new again. It cost me about $50 to get fixed - not cheap for India, certainly, but still better than $500! But I moved to M's not long after, partly for this reason, the second R6 to die on me that year. But mainly for the better focusing. My wife's F3's have never had shutter problems - wind-on problems instead. But my suspicion is that if you want real accuracy and reliability, complex mechanical mechanisms are not the way to go. That said, my M's have never had any mechanical failure problems, and they've been in some pretty bad weather, hat and rain. But that kiln was hot. Damn hot. Even the labourers, who were mostly barefoot, were wearing thick leather sandals up there! Talking of India, I met a Leica-toting newspaper photographer there last month. He has a couple of M6's with ancient collapsible 50 and 90 lenses, and a 24 asph. He said the one lens he used most was the 24, which is why he sold his aged and feeble parents into slavery to be able to buy it. And who can blame him - that is a great lens. I think he must be the only working news photographer to use Leica in India. Rob.