[Leica] LTM windfall: Follow-up Question

[grdalton at hotmail.com (Gary Dalton)]

My M2 was asleep for 20 years and I've been exercising it: with and without 
film. I used a 35 Summaron and a 90 Elmar for test shots at various speeds 
and apertures, and they came out fine -- no flares, etc....

When I exercise the M2 without film, I've not always had a cap over the 
shutter opening. Looking into the opening before I press the button, I see a 
perfectly smooth black surface -- a canvas if you will. After I release the 
shutter, I still see most of that canvas, but at the far left end toward the 
rewind side of the camera, I see what appears to be a "rubber seam." When I 
cock the camera for the next shot, it goes away -- sliding back to the right.

Should I be seeing this seam after I take the shot?

Does seeing this seam mean that the shutter isn't closing all the way?






> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:55:21 -0500
> To: lug@leica-users.org
> From: marcsmall@comcast.net
> Subject: Re: [Leica] LTM  windfall
> 
> 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!
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
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