salburns

Looks beautiful. If you're inclined to eradicate the bubbles yourself (at the risk of inflaming some), see if you can gently peel up a corner of the skin from the shell adjacent to one of the bottom corners of the film door. If it looks like there is a rubberised cement/contact glue that is holding the skin in place and the skin is flexible, you'll soon get an idea of whether it can be peeled up. In this case, you can gently (*gently*) remove the skin by cleaning as you go with a few cotton buds and some isopropyl alcohol before applying a fresh thin layer of new cement and smoothing the cover into place. Otherwise, leave it as it is and enjoy! Great find.

Not seen one of these big beauties before! Are they difficult to get your hands on in good working condition? S

I'm a bit late to the post, however I can put in a recommendation for a pretty new repair service based in the UK called Camera Obscura Repairs. I have just had a CLA done on my M6 for £250, which included a couple of replacement levers. Turnaround time of 7 days start to finish, delivered back to me by day 11 from when I had posted it. The service is run by an independent tech, Alex, who is very professional and thorough. He was happy to explain the whole process to me and made me feel like I understood a little something about my M6 that I hadn't before. He's also a young guy, which I think is important given the fact that when the older generation of technicians phase out we will face a bit of a shortfall in expertise! I will be going back with my M4. I have also sent a lens to Cameraworks-uk and, while they could not fix it due to an irreplaceable internal missing part, they did diagnose the problem correctly and returned the lens free of charge. The waiting time was, however, really really protracted (4 months just to get them to look at it).

I use a Billingham Leica M Combination Bag - Black Canvas/Black Leather. It's marketed for Leica (and I do use it for my M6), however there's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't use the same bag for another similarly-sized 35mm. Pro points: -Great size -Throw over the shoulder, across the body -Excellent padding inside -Moveable padded velcro separators -Great build quality Neg points: -Price

Great shot! Get those gears up and running in the frosty temps.