Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/03/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]- ---thibault collin wrote: > > What are the best M4s? > The regular old model or the more recent ones? > Marc said that the new one are more reliable. Is that also true for the M4? > Or are the M4-2/M4-P exactly done like the old one? I was a happy user of the original M-4 for eight years until it was stolen in 1982. And contrary to recent claims, it never went out of adjustement through those eight years even though it have never been cla'd . I even dropped it once from about 5 feet, put a ding on the top plate and the rf still focused correctly. I am also a happy user of an M4-P since 1986. However, I find that in contrast to the original M-4, the M-4P is sloppily put together. On the M-4P, the hinged back does not fit properly and yield slightly under pressure. The bottom plate does not seat properly and there is a slight gap (about 0.2 mm) between the bottom plate and the leather border. The bottom plate even scrapes some paint off the inner body seating surface. The lens mount mating surface is not as flat as the wetzlar m's. None of these defects are present in the m3s and m4s that I currently own and do not affect image quality. Besides these comestic imperfections, the M-4P have proven to be as realiable as any leica m's I have owned. These are only my own observations and I did not perform an statistical quality control sampling to support any definitive conclusions. ps: I generally concur with those who say the m4 is the greatest m ever made. Sherry Krauter once told me that she would not touch an m4-2 with a 10 foot pole and the m-4 is the last of the great ones. Whatever this means. thai. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com