[marknorton]

With the shutter removed, there’s not much left, especially once the shutter/motor wind controller is also removed.

Rear without Shutteer.jpg

There is an additional circuit board, connected to the three sensors at the bottom of the lens throat and held in place by the aluminium bar. From there, a folded circuit board and a flex print to the M16C board and the “blue spot” sensor. This circuit then is the light metering circuit – the ambient sensor, the main light meter and the twin flash metering cells.

Here’s a picture of the circuit board:

Photo Diode Circuit - Flat.jpg

The final surprises come when you remove the battery case. The front of the battery case and the lens throat are a single plastic moulding and underneath the battery case is the circuit for the lens coding detector.

Frame Selector.jpg

In this picture, the lens code sensor connects bottom right and there are six (black) transistors, presumably to amplify the signals from the photodiodes in the sensor. There is also a pair of tiny toggle switches which are activated by the frame selection lever.

Clearly, repairing this part of the camera if it should fail is complex, involving as it does almost complete dismantling of the camera.

Frame Selector Closeup.jpg

In this case, the upper switch is activated. When the lever is in the centre position, neither switch is activated. In the lower position, the lower switch is activated. These switches are used to determine the selected focal length when the Normal Tri-Elmar is mounted on the camera.

That’s it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of the Anatomy of the Leica M8.