Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/01/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:53 AM 1/2/05 -0500, dnygr wrote: >I have dropped my M on two occasions and had mixed results. The first time I dropped it from about a height of 5 feet. Fortunetly, I got my footout and managed to break the force of the all with my boot. Result: No damage. > >The second time I dropped it from a height of six feet. I had hit the camera in a closet while I had gone to supper in Germany with friends. When I came back, I forgot that I had placed the camera in closet. When i pulled something off the top shelt, I heard this heavy thud. It sounded like a rock had hit the floor. It was my M with a 28mm on it. It seemed okay. Back when I had a very early M3, I seemed to routinely drop it from a height of two or three feet onto concrete. This never seemed to affect it at all save for the battle scars on its exterior. I later sold the camera for a hell of a profit and spent a decade without an M3, though I bought one four or five years back which, again, I have dropped onto a hard floor twice and, again, it works well. I have never performed the bounce test on my M6, IIIc, IIIf RD or IIIg, but I'd suspect that these would be as impervious to damage from inadvertent gravity tests as is the M3. WEAR A STRAP AROUND YOUR NECK and you will never have these questions come up! And, yes, Leicas are tougher than we are, however tough we may be. These are REAL cameras for real people. I cheerfully admit that I am a soft-sell type and that my Leicas and Rolleis are tougher than I am. There is a magnificent story in one of the LEICA PHOTOGRAPHY journals (not that faux-elite "Leica Photographie" weeny-journal) early in the 1960's about a sky-diver who lost hold of his M3 (or was it an M2? It does not matter, given the similarity in the two of them) and, after he landed (softly, I must point out), he walked over, picked up the Leica, and found that the RF was not functional but nonetheless shot the remainder of the roll at guess-focus and all was well: he only needed a RF prism assembly and his camera was back and running. That reminds me of the sickening thud I heard seven years back when my Questar telescope somehow failed to make contact with a Bogen tripod matching plate and fell four feet onto asphalt. It still works, off course, without a problem other than a ding on the outside on the case. Quality is, after all, worth the price of admission, and that is why we pay the freight. Marc msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!