[Leica] M5 questions

[marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)]

At 05:13 PM 5/10/2007, Harrison McClary wrote:
 >
 >Anyway I have one question and a few observations.  First the question,
 >the rangefinder patch shows minor signs of separation.  How big of an
 >issue or concern is this?  I know this is fairly common, just wonder how
 >rapidly this progresses, and how much a repair of something like this is
 >should it become necessary.
 >
 >Now to the observations...Why was this camera not well liked?

Yes, the rangefinder can be either replaced or 
repaired.  Replacement is economically more 
logical, but, then, you are buying into a 
35-year-old RF assembly, where a rebuild will 
guarantee you another several decades of 
use.  Check with the usual repair suspects and do 
not accept claims by some that this cannot be 
rebuilt:  that merely means that they do not wish 
to do this.  Others will.  Leica did a rebuild 
switch-out (you DX'ed yours to them, and they 
sent you a factory rebuilt unit) for a long time 
but I am not certain that they still do so.

The M5 is huge and ungainly to a lot of us and 
was a comprehensive flop in the marketplace to 
the point where Leitz had to bring the M4 back 
into production to assuage their unhappy 
public:  a lot of folks were still unhappy over 
the increase in size from the IIIf to the M3, and 
a further increase seemed absolutely 
unwarranted.  That side-hanging strap was the 
ultimate insult:  how '70's and how stupid can you get?

The M5 is an interesting camera but it is more of 
a museum piece than a Leica user, though there 
are many who use it:  the same can be said of the Zeiss Ikon Contarex line.

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
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