Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/02/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ken Welcome to the windfall. Several points. Mechanical cameras get lazy when allowed to sleep for decades. Shucks, I am lazy all the time but am worse when I get to sleep a full 12 or 14 hours. Exercise the cameras for a day. Get a riveting long movie to watch -- say, go to your local library and check out DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. Then, just keep advancing the camera and snapping the shutter while you observe Zhivago sink into destruction. Set it on 1/30" at first but gradually move the speeds around from top to bottom. In 90% of the cases, that will cure the sloth mode problem. No need for a CLA unless the shimming under the lens mount has gotten rotten, and that is VERY rare though, to be fair, it did happen on my IIIc. The lenses? If you cannot clean them, there is only one place to send them. John Van Stelten at Focal Point. Feel free to use my name: I have hawked his virtues long and hard for more than twenty years, and I will continue to do so. Whenever I have a lens which needs service, poof! it is off to Colorado. John is backlogged with work but his work is impeccable. (If I were as smart as Mark Rabiner, I'd recall the Latin for, "forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned", as that ends with "peccavi" but, alas, it is late and my wife and I spent the evening watching WITCHBLADE episodes, so I will give that a pass, albeit I do have an MA in Classical Languages and should know better!) I very rarely look at the pictures folks post and whether you post or not is your own business. What is of concern to me is that the cameras and lenses get used. These were built to last for centuries and are capable of grand pictures today. I would urge you to so use them. Putting them on a shelf or selling them to a collector would be a sin. Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!