[Leica] Leica Service in Hong Kong

[pmcc_2000 at yahoo.com (pmcc)]

Howard,

Access to camera service in HK sures beats hollow
anything we have in the States. Over the counter
service?  Forget it. Ability to talk face-to-face with
the tech?  In your dreams.  Fast turnaround?  Hahaha.

Around 1999 my IIIf jammed in Beijing and when I got
to HK, Joseph went with me to see Mr. Lee (the retired
Schmidt tech) who CLA'd it for me in a couple of days.
I am reminded of this because when I had dinner with
them last week, Sarah produced some photos Joseph had
taken of me with Mr. Lee (both Mr. Lee and I were
young and beautiful then; Sarah remains so). On the
occasion when Joseph had the big HK LUG dinner at the
Foreign Correspondents Club, for which Adrian appeared
from Shanghai and I came in from Bangkok, my CLE with
the notoriously fragile film wind jammed and Mr. Chin
had it fixed for me in a flash. It's hard to get
anyone here even to touch a CLE. Back when he was
still in his prime, Mr. Lee did a CLA on my >1m# SS M3
which had never been touched (L seal intact) and it
was the best job I've ever had done (including the
work of the the Leica virtuousos oft mentioned here).
Silky smooth like a finely tuned Swiss watch, RF clear
and bright, with a turnaround within a week. Still my
best mechanical camera. Last week I sent a bashed body
to Joseph from Shanghai (OK, I'm a little hard on my
gear when I travel). The tech fixed it while Joseph
watched and then Joseph took him out to lunch. The
repaired body is on its way back to me in SF via EMS
as we speak.

Efficient lot, you Hong Kongers. No dithering about.
Of course, having good friends with guanxi doesn't
hurt either.

PMCC.
SF, CA

--- Howard Cummer <cummer@netvigator.com> wrote:

> Hi Luggers,
> I went into the Schmidt office (Leica Agent for HK
> and China) in  
> Quarry Bay today ready to give Kelvin and the pretty
> Cherry (they are  
> the front line flak catchers) A Piece of My Mind
> because I had  
> emailed them earlier in the week that they had
> promised my lenses  
> would be returned from their coding visit to Solms
> in 6 to 8 weeks  
> and 9 weeks had passed. But I didn't get to do my
> high dudgeon  
> routine (perfected over 50+ years of practice)
> because as I came in  
> the door Kelvin beamed up at me and sang out "Cummer
> - two of your  
> lenses came back yesterday". I was disarmed
> immediately and sat down  
> to find out which two. They turned out to be the 35
> Lux Asph and the  
> Tri Elmar which pleased me much. The other two the
> 21 Elmarit and the  
> 24 Elmarit Asph are still visiting Germany. I had
> Kelvin search the  
> repair item data base (Schmidt certainly have a lot
> of equipment  
> traveling between HK and Solms). We found my two
> wides and he said he  
> would follow up on their estimated date of return. I
> then turned to  
> Cherry and asked her about buying Leica IR cut
> filters for the  
> returned lens - a 46 for the 35 and a 49 for the 3E.
> She told me that  
> only 39 and 46mm filters had been delivered to HK so
> far and that all  
> the filters had been shipped out to the camera
> stores - none left  
> with Schmidt. I must have looked very unhappy
> because Cherry picked  
> up the phone and called Tin Cheung Camera (on
> Carnarvon Road in Tsim  
> Sha Tsui) and I was able to go there after lunch and
> pick up two 46mm  
> filters for HK$1,000 (US$128.00) each. I need an
> adapter so I can  
> mount the 46mm filter on the 49mm thread of the 3E
> (vignetting be  
> damned). Can anyone help?
> Cheers,
> Howard (in Hong Kong)
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for
> more information
> 


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