Repairability of Leitz M Meter and the Cost

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Ad

I needed a Lightmeter for my Zeiss Ikon Nettar 517/16 and I found myself buying Leitz M Meter Chrome.
It would take a month to reach me from UK , only I know , it is cosmetically perfect, not working and cost me 27 dollars including shipment to Istanbul.

I have a Leica Mini Zoom and a FED 1g and I used 6 LTMs until today but not an M Series camera.

Can it be repaired without costing an arm and an leg ? Can it be attached to FED or hand held used ?

What is the approximation for repair cost ? I prefer someone ship back cheap , parity is low. Whom I might contact with ?

Thank you,

Mustafa Umut Sarac
Istanbul

[ksmart]

As far as I know this

Leicameter - Knoch Messgeraete

is the only way to repair a Leicaterer.

Lenn from Cologne/Germany

[jaapv]

The coupling on the shutterspeed wheel, which is the essence of this meter, will not work. It will not be functional on your camera. Nor is it particularly practical handheld.
Why don't you buy a CV exposure meter, which goes very well with all vintage cameras?

[ksmart]

Ooops, Leicameter, of course. The CV is the better alternative. Should be same price new as repair of the Leicameter. L.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Mustafa,

Welcome to the Forum.

You might also try Quality Light Metric in Hollywood, California.

I find the various Leicameters to be perfectly & easily useable handheld. It sits in my shirt pocket when not in use. Watch out it does not fall out.

It is useable on a camera when both the pin underneath the rotating shuttter speed wheel & the rotating shutter speed wheel itself do not interfere with something. That makes it useable on a lot of cameras. Altho not coupled. You must transfer the shutter speed as you always must the aperture. Just like with the VC II that was suggested as an alternative.

You also might find yourself useing the meter on an M1, M2, M3, M4, M4-2, M4-P, or one of their variants one day. As it was originally designed to be used.

Enjoy your practical & useful lightmeter.

Best Regards,

Michael

[xalo]

Hello Mustafa,

Occasionally I use a Leicameter MR handheld the way you want to use yours and Michael describes. To improve the handling when it's not on a camera, I sling a tiny handstrap for a mobile phone or small camera around the axis of the speed dial (you put the sling around the dial and turn the latter to get the sling past the tight spot between dial and meter body). It's not totally foolproof, but works well.

Not sure now about your Leicameter model, but if it needs 1,35V batteries (based on older mercury cells banned in many countries for environmental reasons), you can have it adjusted during the repair to more readily available and longer lasting 1,55V cells.

Cheers,

Alexander

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Alexander,

No batteries.

The Leica Meter M, which has the same layout as an MR4, is a selenium cell meter.

It has about the sensitivity range of a Sekonic L-398A Studio Meter. A meter that many people on this Forum like.

Best Regards,

Michael

[TomB_tx]

The Leica meter M is very nicely made, with machined metal gears on the shutter-speed linkage, unlike the later MR meter with plastic parts. But the selenium meter cell is the weak link, as they typically degrade with age, and most seem to be "dead" now. I have one that I thought was dead, but sometimes works - so there must be an electrical connection inside that gets poor contact.
I don't know of anyone who repairs them, and I don't think there is a replacement for the selenium cell. This meter is more of a collector's item today, as more recent meters are more accurate and useful.
The Voigtlander VC meter is very nice, but is also expensive. You might do better with a hand-held meter.

[doubice]

A technically minded member of this forum whom I have not seen here for a while, has an ingenious and dirt cheap way of reviving the old MC meter. I saved the information as a Word document and can email it to interested parties.

All credit of course to Koray - the inventor......

Chers,

Jan

[alandash]

To Doubice,

I really would like to have a copy of Koray's Word document for repair of the MC meter.

My email is AlanDash@juno.com (Boise, Idaho)

Thank you,
Alan

[koray]

Ad

Hi Jan, and others!

Yes, it is pretty easy to revive an old MC meter. Jan, I can't remember the word document, but feel free to share the contents here.

I currently revive old MC meters using solar cells from small solar toys from ebay. Search for solar cockroaches and you will see what I mean. You just need to insert some extra resistors to calibrate the meter. Another problem is the thickness of these solar cells (the polyester on them), which requires omitting some parts from the original MC meter. We are doing a hack here, so not that important!

By the way, I should give credit where its due, to Thomas Tomosy, and his book titled Leica Camera Repair Handbook. At page 95 he suggests replacing old selenium meters with modern silicon (i.e. polycrystalline) cells. He says that the voltage in bright light should be around 0.3-0.4 volts.

Good luck!

Koray

Originally Posted by doubice

A technically minded member of this forum whom I have not seen here for a while, has an ingenious and dirt cheap way of reviving the old MC meter. I saved the information as a Word document and can email it to interested parties.

All credit of course to Koray - the inventor......

Chers,

Jan

[doubice]

Speaking of the devil - there he is!

Koray, you did not have the information as a Word document, I copied the the web page and saved it as such. Much easier than to bookmark a page with interesting information and come to it later only to find out it does not exist anymore.....

Cheers,

Jan