Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/05/24

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Repair and sevice questions
From: John Collier <jbcollier@home.com>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 14:39:28 -0600

There are a few idiosyncrasies of the Leica cameras that are confusing to
the new owner and inexperienced repair person. A good example of this would
be the famous Leica M light leaks. When the hapless owner's pictures come
back from the local "Pickchurrs-Arr-Us, there is a triangular shaped light
flare on all the negs or even worse just some. The owner sends his camera
(sometimes even new ones) in for repair complaining about leaking light
seals. The repair person checks it out carefully and can find no leaks, so,
back it goes to the soon to be frustrated owner. I have read in several
places on the web about "junky" M cameras with light leaks that could not be
fixed even after practically the whole camera was covered in black tape! Now
both you and I know that the M cameras have no seals and use light traps to
keep it dark in there. The problem is, of course, shutter bounce. Other
service areas that come up are that ever so mysterious view/rangefinder,
jammed advances and loose lens bits. Quite often a well written word can
help the puzzled poster to solve their problem and, at the very least, gives
them the proper vocabulary and resources to get it properly repaired. I
think that helping people out by letting our light shine or, in this case,
trying to keep it properly covered, is a good thing. I, and many others,
have benefited from service advice given by various knowledgeable
leica-users. Why do you not relax for a while and see how things go around
here before making too many suggestions. If it is really annoying you, try
the delete key or some tweaking to your filters. Then, perhaps, happiness
will reign supreme.

Cheers

John Collier

> From: "Takeshi Hashimoto" <hashimoto.takeshi@mailcity.com>
> 
> Would not an e-mail to Leica repair serve better?
>
and also earlier wrote:
> 
> Secondly, it seems as though many posts on this list dealing with
> technical problems should be directed to Leica repair. "The advance lever
> on my M-3 feels sloppy" hardly qualifies as a useful post on this list. It
> would probably cut down a bit on unnecessary posts. Am I wrong here?
>