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Clearing Fingerprints from MP top plate


ELAN

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I just received my brand new a la carte chrome MP, and of course, I love love love it!!

 

I clean fingerprints off the top plate of my two-year-old chrome M-P 240 with a microfiber cloth, and with a few rubs it looks shiny and brand new again. However, doing the same on my new MP leaves dark-ish blobs where the fingerprints were, especially around the shutter dial. If I rub harder it gets cleaner, but I can't get the entire top plate homogeneously clean like I can on the M-P.

 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated :)

 

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If the problem is the skin oils left in the grain of the metal after wiping the fingerprints off, you could lightly rub the metal surfaces of the camera with a good quality gun oil, then wipe off the excess with a dry rag.  Then the oils your from your fingerprints won't contrast with the clean matte chrome.  Just be careful not to get gun oil on any lens.

 

Scott

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This has to rank as one of those 'good grief  :rolleyes:  ' threads...........If you use it you'll get finger grease all over it, then you won't be able to see single finger prints at all, but you might be better off just putting it back in the box.

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I just received my brand new a la carte chrome MP, and of course, I love love love it!!

 

I clean fingerprints off the top plate of my two-year-old chrome M-P 240 with a microfiber cloth, and with a few rubs it looks shiny and brand new again. However, doing the same on my new MP leaves dark-ish blobs where the fingerprints were, especially around the shutter dial. If I rub harder it gets cleaner, but I can't get the entire top plate homogeneously clean like I can on the M-P.

 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated :)

This is what Leica (and you), get for Leica's creating such beautiful tactile devices. I recall my opening the box of my MP ALC. I had chosen black paint, and it looked like the finish on a concert Steinway. Perfect. It doesn't look like that now. With time the new beauty of your MP will be replaced with a 'beauty' that you had a part in creating, and that's even better. Leica's ad copy is correct there. You, like others, will see. That first scrape is gonna hurt Mr., but then you can relax.

 

s-a

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Hello Sollico,

 

Welcome to the Forum.

 

Leitz/Leica cameras, lenses, etc are an interesting category of photographic equipment because they are in both the "collector" category & the "user " category at the same time.

 

If the purpose of having this camera is to be a collectors item then simply leave it in its box, on a shelf or in a cabinet & clean it gently with a simple soft cloth with NO chemicals or abrasives, etc. It should stay pretty much the way it was when you first received it.

 

If you intend to use the camera then the camera body will begin to show a SMALL* amount of body oil residue & the like simply because you are handling it. Cleaning is the same as described just above. It is interesting that your newer camera shows finger marks, etc more than your other camera does. Perhaps your other camera was handled for a while by you or someone else before you began noticing the need for a detailed cleaning. Or it is possible that the 2 cameras were plated differently at different times for different reasons.

 

Altho many 50 year old & older bright chrome "M" cameras with simple reasonable care, as above, look pretty much new today.

 

Curious.

 

Interesting note: Because photographic technology was developed from laboratory equipment: 1 of the general rules is: Brushed or satin chrome is designed to be touched by people while bright chrome portions are generally mechanical interfaces, etc which were meant NOT to be touched, unless occasionally necessary.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

 

* It seems ironic that the word "small" would be written in such large letters.

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Thank you all for your comments.  I am not new to Leica M (I have bought a few new silver Ms) and I certainly don't baby my Ms, but I do find that the top plate of my new MP shows more finger smudges than my M-P 240 does, and it's harder to clean the smudges off the MP.  I can easily get my 2-year old M-P to look brand new again (just cleaned off all the ocean spray from yesterday), while I cannot say the same about my 2-week-old MP. 

 

Perhaps the MP has a different finish, or perhaps I should try using sandpaper as some have kindly suggested.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you all for your comments.  I am not new to Leica M (I have bought a few new silver Ms) and I certainly don't baby my Ms, but I do find that the top plate of my new MP shows more finger smudges than my M-P 240 does, and it's harder to clean the smudges off the MP.  I can easily get my 2-year old M-P to look brand new again (just cleaned off all the ocean spray from yesterday), while I cannot say the same about my 2-week-old MP. 

 

Perhaps the MP has a different finish, or perhaps I should try using sandpaper as some have kindly suggested.

 

Something must have changed with the finish then. Any alcohol based cleaner and a regular cloth or lens tissues cleans of everything on my wife's silver chrome MP. Her's is an earlier (but completely refurbished) model though... My black MP is easy to clean, but then again, I'm basically seeing the paint rub off every time I use a cloth on it... So I'm not sure if it's that wise to clean it :)

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