charles_trentelman1

<p>speaking as a leica owner/user AND as the brother of a museum conservation scientist (Getty) I must beg you pleasepleaseplease do NOT attempt to fix this beyond shimming the lens.<br>

It is a piece of history, nay, even art ... its history is written in its damage, and as one of only 900 cameras that damage makes it more unique than any mere "user" camera. Some Army correspondent probably got shot at while denting that camera.<br>

You want to take pictures? A nice M2 can be had for $700 or so. You make repairs that involve milling, replacing the frame, who knows what else, it is no longer an M2S that saw combat and served our country.<br>

It's just a camera.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>It is frustrating that none of the media reporting this story ever ask specifically about the film and chemical production -- but as David Barts notes, film still makes money -- at one time it had an 85 percent profit margin for the company -- so why would it not continue?</p>

<p>Well, there are bean counters who think the way to make a company profitable is to kill off any segment that makes money -- on the other hand, this is a reorganization under Ch. 11, not a bankruptcy under Ch. 7, so it is primarily to shed debt and improve the cash flow and operations, not shut down.</p>

<p>Ilford did a Ch. 11 a bunch of years ago, remember, and it is now doing fine under an employee-owned scheme. We can only hope Kodak's film division fares as well.</p>

<p>well,i have about 300 or 400 feet of plus x rebadged as arista in the freezer, another 300 feet of fuji also rebadged as arista, and i dunno how much tri-x rebadged as arista, so I'm good for a while. I also have a darkroom dataguide so I can make D-76 out of raw chemicals if push comes to shove, but I doubt that will be for a while yet.</p>

<p>I AM glad to see that Ilford is holding firm. Kodak's problems may take it down, but film will not die for a little while yet. </p>

<p>i might add that, while the older models of canon scanner may have been slow, this is very quick and I like that it can scan 120 and 35, and does 12 frames of 35 at once, and scans each frame of either format individually, so you don't get one frame underexposed because the rest were too dense, or something. The scanner is either automatic or you can set the settings manually.</p>

<p>Anyway, a HUGE improvement over the minolta product I had before, which was very old anyway.</p>

<p>I just bought a canonscan 9000F and find it works very well, using the enclosed software which includes photoshop elements.</p>

<p>Amazon has them for $175 including free shipping.</p>

<p>http://www.amazon.com/Canon-CanoScan-9000F-Color-Scanner/dp/B003JQLHEA</p>

<p>i am always amazed that there are people who sell Leica cameras and/or lenses. I have never done so, and the few I have met who have done so have always regretted it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>was not sure if it was worth it to get the shutter bounce on my m3 fixed. Guess it is, huh?</p>

<p>i sent one of these to krauter who said oil from the mechanism had outgassed and pitted the rear of the front element -- so she put in a new element and complained about how hard those lenses are to work on. Nice lens, though, now, and like new.</p>

<p>Hate to admit it but the XA is a better street-shooter than a Leica M or even CL -- quicker to use, more compact, nobody takes it seriously so it isn't as visible to the people you are shooting, and the lens is first-rate. The auto-exposure also seems to be extremely good.<br>

My favorite story about my XA is the time I dropped it about 3 feet onto concrete and the little needle that indicates the shutter speed quit working, but the shutter still seemed accurate, so I kept using it. Several months later I dropped it again -- accidentally, I swear -- and the needle fixed itself. Rangefinder/shutter all kept in synch. After 20 years or so the wind-on gears are wearing a bit, so negatives are not as evenly spaced as a Leica's, but there's no overlap and the camera keeps chugging along, a perfect travel camera.</p>

<p>Just to clarify a bit -- the 24mm lens with three cams and without the encoding for the R8 or whatever WILL work on an SL2 but NOT on the SL without modifying the SL.<br>

This is probably one of several reasons why the SL2 costs so much more than an SL. Frustratingly, there are several things like a 2X adaptor that will only work on the R3 and up but not the SL or SL2, but oh well.<br>

I got an SL2 specifically so I could use my 24 and my fisheye on both my R-range cameras.</p>

<p>What's the big deal with ostrich? They used to sell ostrich sausage in Utah until the bottom fell out of the market. You make ostrich sausage, you got to do something with the skin. Not as if the critters are indangered or something.</p>

<p>Cute that they offer a free training session. I'm tempted to say "if you need training, you don't need a Leica" but then I realized that the digital aspects of it would be a mystery to me.</p>

<p>Oh, yeah,a really good example is the self timer which he says does not work?</p>

<p>It took me several ties to find out it takes a VERY light touch on the shutter button to engage the ST on an R4. Otherwise you just fire the shutter. I bet you dollars to pounds this is a mistake being made.</p>

<p>From what you say, I'd say user error.</p>

<p>I bought an R4 last year and discovered quickly that one needs to consult the manual early and often to figure out the nuances of the various auto modes and the little blinking lights -- if you don't set it at its minimum aperature on P mode all the lights blink, for example, or at least some of them do.</p>

<p>You're doing the right thing to offer a refund but encourage him/her to sit down with the manual (abailable on-line for free) a dead roll of film and perhaps even you on the phone to walk him/her through some of the finer points. The R5 is a lovely machine if it's half as nice as the R4, I find it impossible that a correctly working one would go ka-flooey if it were properly packaged.</p>

<p>It is time to have it serviced, I suspect. Something is not right -- a contact not contacting would be my guess -- and, beyond prayer or swearing, little you can do about it.<br>

DAG is my first recommendation. Leica is my second. Beyond that, I have none.<br>

Standard service will be in the neighborhood of $200 or so, maybe more, but another body that also might need service because it is 35 years old, will cost you as much.</p>

<p>I have, and dearly love, the 24mm R lens -- Leica FAQ says this lens was designed by Minolta, and sort of built, but also says that a very small percentage of the Minolta-made lenses were able to pass Leitz quality control and required so much rebuilding to do so that they could legally be labeled "Made in Germany."<br>

It's a 2.8 and has a floating element for close-focus shots, and is a very good performer. If other people think otherwise, then you can maybe even get one cheap -- score!</p>

<p>... but the rolleipar I have, both Bay 1 and Bay 3, are separate lenses, one for taking, one for viewing, but the viewing one is also a close-up lens, not a separate wedge. Perhaps this refers to an earlier model where the close-up and and wedge are two separate things, with a third lens, just close-up, going on the taking?</p>

<p>To take a double exposure, take a shot, then push the little thingy at the base of the wind crank in the direction of the arrow and WIND THE CRANK BACKWARDS, not forwards. This will cock the shutter without advancing the film. <br>

If the switch around the shutter button is like on an older model E, when you t urn it to where the arrow is pointing inside the half circle, it is locked. When you point it to where the arrow goes through the little half circle, the shutter is open and ready to fire. </p>

<p>I had one of these that looked hazy, so sent it to Sherry Krauter to clean, she said it had a pitted element from the oil haze, replaced the front element, charged me $175 for the whole thing. Considering these lenses sell in the $400 range, not a bad deal for what I ended up with.</p>

<p>There were several cheap cameras -- made, as i recall, by the Everflash folks -- that used an over-and-under setup for tele and "wide" that, from the outside, looked very much like this Kodak. You flipped a switch and an internal mirror changed the lens the camera was using. I see them every now and then in thrift stores but have never felt they were worth the buck or two it would cost to take one home and add it to the pile.</p>

<p>Even DAG or Krauter will do a CLA for under $300 -- definitely something jammed, also definitely that it is not something you did -- sometimes stuff happens. If it was CLAed 6 years ago, I'm guessing something came loose somewhere, a screw perhaps vibrated loose from being in an airplane or car? These things happen with mechanical objects.</p>

<p>Fortunately, a good M2 is always worth fixing. ALWAYS.</p>

<p>Even DAG or Krauter will do a CLA for under $300 -- definitely something jammed, also definitely that it is not something you did -- sometimes stuff happens. If it was CLAed 6 years ago, I'm guessing something came loose somewhere, a screw perhaps vibrated loose from being in an airplane or car? These things happen with mechanical objects.</p>

<p>Fortunately, a good M2 is always worth fixing. ALWAYS.</p>

<p>The seriel number would make this a II model from 1932 -- the window frame is wrong and, one presumes, the cam follower for the rangefinder. In addition to lacking the step, the frame around the finder window on this camera is also flush with the top -- on a real II it is a distinctly separate window with an edge between the frame and the top of the camera almost as if it is a separate piece of metal screwed on.<br>

Leicas, even of this vintage, also have a much better build quality inside than a Zorki or a Fed. Once you've handled a few real Leicas, you can spot a fake with your eyes closed.</p>

<p>The premise of the article that collectors make user Leicas too expensive is false -- Leica collectors don't bid up user models, the ones with scratches and scuffs and the occasional dent but that still work. Collectors don't even want those -- not the serious collectors, anyway. To a Leica collector, condition is very very important, especially cosmetics.</p>

<p>What is bidding up the price of a user M3 (to use your example) is the simple fact that Leica only made 220,000 or so of them, with another 80,000 M2s and 45,000 M4s. In a world of several billions of people that is a very small supply to meet even the needs of the small percentage of people who still shoot film and still want the best.</p>

<p>So supply and demand, not collecting, is what is driving the price. You want a Leica M and don't want to pay $3,000? You buy used. The more who buy used, the higher the price goes. </p>

<p>I just bought a Nikon F2 user body for $100. You want cheap, go that direction.</p>

<p>Sherry does have, or can get, parts for the CL -- she replaced a bent (don't ask) rangefinder lens piece in mine. Meter cell may mean the meter itself, which will cost you -- the CL makes a great camera in any event, but with a bad meter I would not pay much for one.<br>

If you got it very cheap, however, it might be work fixing if all else is ok.</p>

<p>$100 for a Contax IIa in any shape at all is a good deal, especially if it's got a lens. Go for it, try a roll of film and see if they are noticeably off -- after all, disparities of as much as 10 and 20 percent really don't make that huge a difference and can be compensated for by film latitude and brain power. <br>

If you buy and and decide you really really want to use it a lot, you should have it serviced anyway. Under $200 will do it. </p>