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M6 Titanium durability?


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Owners of the PowerBook G4 Titanium, which was advertized for its rugged, space-age Ti shell, began complaining almost immediately about how easily the titanium could be scratched. My Ti G4 has very few marks after two years but I really, really baby it. Moral don't get sold on the idea of Titanium = rugged. It's just another marketing scheme.
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What marketing twonk comes up with all these crazy finishes?

 

Black paint, lacquer, snake, titanium, gold etc..

 

I can sort of understand the logic behind a camera that is made from titanium for strength and resilience and if the camera ONLY comes in that material (Contax T3 for example) then there is no choice.

 

But given a choice then why not go for the normal tried and tested 'cooking' version?

 

The reason your Titanium will rub off with a pencil eraser is that it was never meant to be used. It was meant to be put in a glass case, resting elegantly in a satin lined presentation box (coffin) alongside your Lemur skin and depleted uranium M6 'Special' and your Emerald and Platignum Hassy and Urushi(?) Rollei 35SE

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The M6 Titanium has a plated surface--the shell is not milled from a block of Ti. I've always heard it has the best wear characteristics of any M. There are several grades of titanium available commercially. CP, or commericially pure, is the softest and most easily formed and machined, (and has the lowest fatigue life). I would suspect that the ibook case is fabricated from CP. 3/2.5, (3% Aluminum, 2.5% Vanadium was one of the first alloys available, and revolutionized the applications of titanium in the aerospace energy because of the increased fatigue life. 6/4 is the hardest of the three, has the greatest fatigue life, almost infinite if proper cleaning and welding techniques are followed. 6/4 is pretty scratch resistant, but the Ti alloys "work harden", meaning as you machine them, any area that has been touched with a cutter or bit, becomes so hard, that if a second pass is required, you might as well start over. What is wonderful about solid titanium, like stainless, is that a scratch can be buffed out using fine sandpaper or polishing compound, and there is no danger of wearing through a thin plating. The Hexar RF has top and bottom plates made of stamped Ti. As they are relatively thin in height, this application is an excellent use of the metal. The deeper top plate of the Leica M would make a Ti stamping difficult, and Leica is now machining the brass top plates for the MP.
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Although the inner workings of a titanium M6 is the same as all other

M6's, the top plate is made of brass instead of zinc. The titanium

finish is obtained not by plating but by the actual incorporation of

titanium into the brass to the depth of several microns. Given that

information, the titanium finish is vulnerable to dings and scratches

but, in my experience, more resistant to bright marks. I have a ti M6

which has been in service for nearly 10 years. It has minute dings

and it has bright marks--but you really have to look closely, all the

while, moving the surface relative to the light source, to find the

marks. They are inapparent and difficult to see.

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Almost everone is way off the mark here, the M6 Titanium, has a brass top plate, that is coated with Titanium Nitrite (TiN). All of the other metal surface are also coated with TiN.

Titanium Nitrite is probable one of the best wearing surfaces known to man, and is widely used in the aerospace industry on high wear surfaces.

 

You will also see TiN at your local hardware store on various cutting tools, again because of it's exceptional wear properties.

 

The fact that someone at Leica did some homework on the this finish, and convinced marketing that it was a good idea, has been negated by people who think that it is another collector's piece.

 

Yes, the finish will dent (it is only brass underneath) however, anyone who thinks that it is just Titanium and it doesn't wear very well, is simply misinformed.

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I own an M6 Titanium classic. I've used it regulary for two years and I'm not its first owner. To me, its finish looks brand new and shows no sign of any scratches or rub marks. The titanium is not painted on and I seriously doubt any of the finish would come off with an eraser, anymore than it does when I rub off fingerprints, rainwater, or anything else that might spill on it. I find the titanium finish to be the most durable and aesthetically pleasing of any I've seen or owned.

 

If you're looking for someone to agree that the titanium finish is just an excuse to charge more, but adds nothing to the durability of the camera, don't ask someone who owns a titanium M6. I love mine.

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Again, many many thanks to all of you for your very helpful comments -I was beginning to think that I had be hoodwinked into buying a 'pup'!

 

If anyone can point me to a more detailed description of the TiN coating process used by Leica I would be very interested to read it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This I trust this will put to rest once and for all the question as to

how Leica applies titanium to it's various metal surfaces. The

bulk of the comments above are questionable, i.e. it can be

rubbed off with an eraser is highly suspect, unless the eraser

has powdered diamond filings as it's main material, which

would sure play havoc when used to erase some writing on a

piece of paper, which it was designed to do. Anyone who takes

an eraser to a 2500. Camera body to begin with should probably

seek a twelve step program to over come the urge to destroy

expensive items...

 

The titanium coating process indeed starts with brass

components, it is then nickel-plated and bombarded with

titanium ions using "sputtering," a high tech vacuum process.

This results in an extremely hard, even and dull-bright

champagne colored titanium surfaces, which should prove to be

a far more durable finish then the black chrome or black lacquer

surfaces which predominate the market place.

 

For those of you who for whatever reason seek pleasure in

dispensing erroneous information to make others feel they were

cheated at the cash register for purchasing the titanium version

of the M6, it's time to move on to claim that the new MP is being

made from old M3 parts that Leica had laying around from the

fifties, which should keep you busy till the next Leica appears�

 

In the mean time, consider taking your plastic Japanese

camera's and loading some film in them and actually make

some images, just as serious Leica users have been doing for

the last 75+ years, with a camera that has it's roots in the first

quarter of the last century, and has been used by serious

practitioners of the art because of it's solid construction which

inspires confidence and a sense of pride of ownership, whether

in your hand or under glass, Leica's prove that form follows

function and is at home in the field or as an objet d'art.

 

Why do I use M Leica's, that's simple, it's unobtrusive, fast

handling and when you push the shutter release it records the

image in about 9MS, not 60 to 250MS as most SLR's do. Then

thrown in for good measure are some of the best lenses in the

world which attach to it. Granted it's not cheap, but if you really

want one on a budget, eBay or Photo.net offer used Leica's at

half the new prices. Granted there of little use for photog's

shooting sports or other fast action, but for those of us who have

need of it's unique capabilities, nothing else will do... Then that's

just my humble opinion...

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  • 15 years later...
Nitrite

That's "nitride," a substance harder than carborundum. Pencil erasers contain an abrasive, such as pumice (volcanic glass), but TIN should be harder. TIN coatings are very thin, and its resistance to scratches will depend on the hardness of the substrate.

Why do I use M Leica's, that's simple, it's unobtrusive, fast

handling and when you push the shutter release it records the

image in about 9MS, not 60 to 250MS as most SLR's do.

Depending on the model, the shutter lag of a Leica M is on the order of 12 msec. A Sony A7 has a lag of about 20 msec, and a DSLR ranges from about 25 msec to 60 msec.

 

Some cameras have a noticeable break point in the shutter release, but Leica M (including digital in the "soft" mode), and Nikons from the F3 onward, are very smooth. The release occurs before the button reaches the end of its travel. A digital M defaults to a two-stage release, shortened to one stage in the "soft" mode. It also defaults to instant rewind of the shutter, but that is delayed in the "quiet" mode until you actually release the button.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I have red somewhere that Leica has indeed made M film-camera(s) from Titanium for some very rich client (I believe somewhere from the Gulf region of the Middle East). Titanium was harder to work with than brass and Aluminum and it required special tooling. Aside from the body, lenses were also made out of Titanium for this customer. All in all, one of a kind, kind of deal. I wonder how much it cost...
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  • 1 month later...

I've been meaning to respond to this thread for quite some time and I'm now finally getting around it. I have a VERY well-worn example of a "user-condition" titanium M6 classic that illustrates what years of truly hard use eventually does to the finish.

 

44472605291_9e5aa5535e_c.jpg

 

44472605371_7bc9afe90d_c.jpg

 

43562834015_a79903a23b_c.jpg

 

It's provenance is known, having been bought new in London in 1994 and used relentlessly by a famous world-travelling photojournalist until it was eventually sold to me on consignment in a DC shop in 2012 (the PJ went digital).

 

Considering this is titanium (and the words "titanium" and "user" are rarely used in the same sentence), I can't imagine what this camera would have looked like had it been standard black or silver! It's sure not pretty, but it works flawlessly.

 

The 50/2.8 Elmar-M lens didn't come with the body by the way, I purchased that later on.

 

Cheers, Allan

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