Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]John Collier wrote: > >>>>>>>I have been reading all the posts on the cold and decided to test my > two > Leica M cameras in the fairly cold weather we are experiencing right now. It > is not that cold, only about -23 degrees C (-10 degrees F) but cold enough > to see how the cameras would perform in extreme situations. The cameras are > a 1960's M2 (moderately recent CLA) and a new this spring M6-TTL with fairly > fresh batteries. The cameras were placed outside and checked at 15 minute > intervals.<<<<<< snip early tests......... > > 90m: cameras burn flesh on touch, lenses very stiff to turn, all functions > fine and TTL's meter barely working but still accurate (diodes pulse on and > off and go out quickly). > > Test suspended due to the feeling that the tester was beginning to look like > a silly ass! Tough little cameras though.<<<<<<< Hey John, I could've saved you looking like a "silly ass" in the "chilly weather" ;-) if you'd asked me what happens when you spend 14 days, every day working at minus 45 high to minus 55 low for the day time temps and using M4's in those conditions. ;-) You don't need to wait an hour before they hurt when you put them to your eye! It's like real quick! ;-) But does it ever make you shoot quickly, not too much time spent taking meter readings, man you are clicking like real fast! And if you go inside for a coffee? You leave the cameras outside, have your coffee come back out, pick them up and get at it again. You dare not take them inside unless you're in for sometime and they can completely warm to room temperature. Because if you go in and they start to warm up, condensation begins and if you go back out side while they're in that state... you are dead in the cold with frost all over the cameras. There is a little trick I used several times and that is to use very large freezer type lock seal clear plastic bags. Put the cameras inside, seal it and then go in side. Then there isn't as much chance of the condensation happening. But generally I just left them out side providing I wasn't going to be an hour in the cook shack. They can and do get a little "testy" sometimes and can give you a tad of grief in focusing and just handling them the colder they become. But I've never had an M camera of any kind fail to work no matter how cold it was. ted Grant