Servicing R cameras: the end of the story for R8 and R9

[wlaidlaw]

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Spares are getting very tight generally for older Leicas, especially outside Wetzlar, who are no longer selling them to third party repairers, no matter how well known they are. I have just put my name on the last new M4 flash port in the UK. Some previous owner had super-glued one of the ports into the top cover - grrrrrrr - on my M4-P, so it fell to pieces when removing the top cover to repair the RF/VF mangled by a previous repair. As I suspect they may also become difficult and mine are showing some signs of all not being perfect, I am having the blinds replaced by a genuine new set. That just leaves my M3 to do and all my film M's will have had recent CLA's by either Alan Starkie or Peter Grisaffi.

That will probably see me out 💀. 

Wilson

[msh58]

Am 11.6.2019 um 03:53 schrieb wlaidlaw:

Leica did not actually run out of spare parts, they sold them all off. Leicaflex and R3-R7 to Paepke, who at least are using them to provide service for Leica Reflex owners. Sadly the R8 and R9 parts were all sold off to Photo-Arsenal who are neither selling them on at present or providing service. It might have been nice if Leica had offered them for sale only to companies who would give an undertaking to provide a parts service for R owners. That would have been the responsible thing to do for owners who have often shown great loyalty to Leica over the years and recently seem to be getting precious little in the way of reciprocation. I really cannot understand why these parts were not sold to the LHSA or to one of the service gurus like Don Goldberg. Perhaps a combination would have been the answer, where the LHSA members provided the purchase funds and the parts sales service was then contracted out to Don on a commission basis but it's too late anyway now. 

Wilson

Does anybody know whether the parts and equipment to convert R lenses to ROM were also sold off to Photo-Arsenal? 

- Matti

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[james.liam]

2 hours ago, msh58 said:

Does anybody know whether the parts and equipment to convert R lenses to ROM were also sold off to Photo-Arsenal? 

- Matti

That's the running rumor. They also appear to be selling more R lenses than anyone on the web in "mint" condition.

[masjah]

2 hours ago, msh58 said:

Does anybody know whether the parts and equipment to convert R lenses to ROM were also sold off to Photo-Arsenal? 

- Matti

If so then they have got some pretty exotic equipment. Every individual sample of a ROM lens has its own aperture dynamics programmed into its chip, to pass on to the camera, so that an R8/R9 camera can optimise its aperture stop-down and shutter release to that individual lens sample. They would need the equipment to measure all this in order to be able to program the chip.

 

[james.liam]

The down-side of over-engineering. 

[wlaidlaw]

I would very much doubt that Photo Arsenal has the ability to program the ROM chips for a lens conversion. This is a similar scenario to the timing EPROM chip on the R8, R9 or M7's shutter control card. Only Leica Germany have the equipment and software to reprogram this chip if its contents become corrupted, possibly due to cosmic or X rays or a nearby strong magnetic field. It was feared that this had happened on my M7 but in the end after checking with a recording oscilloscope, that the signal timing was correct, it was found the triggering magnets and blind rollers were misaligned, which was causing a delay in the blind actuation at the end of the exposure. Thus 1/1000 became slightly slower than 1/500th. 

Wilson

Edited August 12, 2019 by wlaidlaw

[msh58]

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Thanks for your replies to my question! It seems conceivable that Leica might still have the ROM calibration equipment even though they don't apparently offer the conversion of R lenses any more. Even without knowing the financial background of Leica's decisions it seems that their commitment to extending the life and usability of many R system components, especially lenses, still around is somehow half hearted. After all, in particular the latest R system lenses still have a performance close to the present products and are interesting to use for many purposes.

- Matti

[mmradman]

On 8/13/2019 at 12:01 PM, msh58 said:

Thanks for your replies to my question! It seems conceivable that Leica might still have the ROM calibration equipment even though they don't apparently offer the conversion of R lenses any more. Even without knowing the financial background of Leica's decisions it seems that their commitment to extending the life and usability of many R system components, especially lenses, still around is somehow half hearted. After all, in particular the latest R system lenses still have a performance close to the present products and are interesting to use for many purposes.

- Matti

With old lenses still being good who needs to buy new ones?  In actual fact people do buy new lenses but that is not how the businesses may look at it.  Keeping service departments running comes at the cost and service departments are not well known for geenrating profit - only keeping reputation.  Also try convincing board members when sales of new cameras and lenses are in decline (based on recent trends in industry) why support legacy products as new goods need to be sold.

[msh58]

vor 22 Stunden schrieb mmradman:

With old lenses still being good who needs to buy new ones?  In actual fact people do buy new lenses but that is not how the businesses may look at it.  Keeping service departments running comes at the cost and service departments are not well known for geenrating profit - only keeping reputation.  Also try convincing board members when sales of new cameras and lenses are in decline (based on recent trends in industry) why support legacy products as new goods need to be sold.

Well, "keeping reputation" also generates customers and eventually hopefully profits. Therefore, it is not "only" keeping reputation. Leica has also made some effort to direct their R service to third parties but if the rumor that some of the parts were sold to Photo Arsenal is true, they are not exactly determined in this respect. If we leave the service of their legacy products alone, my own experiences and those expressed on these forums indicate that their service organization even for present products does not exactly appear to have a consistent quality system, especially in terms of feedback provided to the customers and estimates of lead times. This is probably because the Leica photographic products are not really "mission critical" and not having a camera available does not incur any big financial consequence to the customer. I must say that the impression I get from the service organization of Zeiss is much better. I suspect that this relates to their overall product portfolio being directed to professional use and not just to rich amateurs. This is, of course, an unproven theory and based on too few data points.

[mmradman]

1 hour ago, msh58 said:

Well, "keeping reputation" also generates customers and eventually hopefully profits. Therefore, it is not "only" keeping reputation. Leica has also made some effort to direct their R service to third parties but if the rumor that some of the parts were sold to Photo Arsenal is true, they are not exactly determined in this respect. If we leave the service of their legacy products alone, my own experiences and those expressed on these forums indicate that their service organization even for present products does not exactly appear to have a consistent quality system, especially in terms of feedback provided to the customers and estimates of lead times. This is probably because the Leica photographic products are not really "mission critical" and not having a camera available does not incur any big financial consequence to the customer. I must say that the impression I get from the service organization of Zeiss is much better. I suspect that this relates to their overall product portfolio being directed to professional use and not just to rich amateurs. This is, of course, an unproven theory and based on too few data points.

As much as i love my M & R lenses i am very sceptical about anything electronic or opto-electronic with Leica badge, my only digital Leica camera, M246, has been playing with sensitive scroll wheel form day one, not that i loose sleep over it, rather than trying to service it i enjoy using it.  You are right the brand is the preserve of enthusiasts who are prepared to pay for the privilege of ownership.  There is definitely more to photographic equipment than vaunted ultimate image quality, look no further which "off the shelf" camera gear is selected by NASA for space missions - not Leica.

[msh58]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb mmradman:

As much as i love my M & R lenses i am very sceptical about anything electronic or opto-electronic with Leica badge, my only digital Leica camera, M246, has been playing with sensitive scroll wheel form day one, not that i loose sleep over it, rather than trying to service it i enjoy using it.  You are right the brand is the preserve of enthusiasts who are prepared to pay for the privilege of ownership.  There is definitely more to photographic equipment than vaunted ultimate image quality, look no further which "off the shelf" camera gear is selected by NASA for space missions - not Leica.

I have been actually quite lucky with Leica digital camera: no need for service except for the (free) sensor replacement of the M9, which took 4 months to accomplish with hardly any update on the ETA. I lost one R9, though, because of light meter (cell) malfunction: I just sold it on eBay and bought a replacement. Someone got many usable parts as a result. I have sent any R lenses that have needed CLA to DAG with perfect outcome. A used Summilux-M 50 ASPH on the other hand did get its calibration right after two visits to Leica despite comprehensive evidence provided to demonstrate that it was off. I was told it was within the tolerances. I sold the lens and bought another used one, which had been recently adjusted by DAG, and this lens has worked perfectly since. Maybe we as Leica users love this kind of a stochastic outcome. 

I guess the Contarex Special which went to space with Gemini 4 together with a standard Planar 50/2 was not a model of reliability either but it worked. Perhaps more importantly this choice obviously started a relationship between NASA and Zeiss and their lenses, obviously tailored for this purpose, were used on Hasselblad cameras on the Apollo missions with memorable results.  

[SteveYork]

On 7/4/2019 at 7:29 AM, wlaidlaw said:

I agree John. When my M7 repair turned from a quick job on the shutter release shaft to a marathon with a myriad of problems having been found, many from a very poor previous service, I started researching R cameras, availability, price, winder availability, reliability etc etc. From what various people I trust, such as Steve Byford of Ffordes and Alan Starkie of Cameraworks, I received some very sound advice. Because of the age of the cameras, I was limiting myself to R7, R8 and R9. Both the aforementioned parties tried to steer me away from the R8, as they said it was not ageing well and was likely to be more trouble than the older R7. The R9 they both agreed was the best SLR Leica ever made by some margin but they did warn me of the service issue. I paid just over £500 for an R9 with winder, which I need due to an uncooperative right thumb for lever winds. I paid Thomas Merkt another £300 for a "like new" 50 Summicron ROM. The total of £800 was about half what another M7 would have cost me. Of course I have had a serious attack of GAS since and added a 24/2.8, 28-70 and MR500 R lenses plus I ended up with a supposedly broken R4-MOT with winder, which was thrown in free with the MR500. An hour's work resurrected the camera and winder from the dead and it is now a good back up for my R9, if it dies. I was recently offered a new/old stock R8 for £1000. I declined after my past experience with a new/old stock Leicaflex SL2, which turned out to be a total dog. It had 4 or 5 warranty visits to Leica UK , after which it was still not working correctly, so I gave it back to the dealer for a full credit. 

Wilson

Why would the reliability of an R9 be any different from that of a later R8, as they are substantially the same?  Not trying to be a jerk, just curious.

[wlaidlaw]

One of the stated improvements on the release R9 was improved reliability from the R8. In my case, I have a barely used and mint R8 compared with my very well "pre-loved" R9, so I would guess that now reliability would probably be about equal.

The fragile bit seems to be the motor-winder, where after mine failed, I did some research and found this was common. Having stripped my broken motor-winder to pieces, it was obvious what the problem is. The quite powerful sealed 6V motor has no ventilation and is tiny, so not much metal to provide a heat sink. Unlike the Motor-M and previous Motor-Winder M4-2, there is no power switch on the Motor-winder R8, as it is wholly controlled from the camera. If you don't power rewind right away at the end of the film and the previous wind on was a partial one, the motor remains powered up until the camera is switched off or auto powers down, which may be a few minutes. The motor is not rotating at this stage as there is no more film in the cassette to wind. No motor rotation = no back-EMF to reduce the current through it provided by the Lithium-Manganese CR123A batteries, so the current will be quite high. This will quickly over-heat the motor and distort the stator. That is what had happened to mine. The lesson is: always rewind the film after the last frame and never leave it to be done later. 

I now have one new old stock R8 Motor-winder and the barely used Motor-winder that came with the R8, so hopefully set fair for a few years. I did leave a film not rewound when I was in India and I am fairly sure that is what killed my motor winder. I will be very careful not to do that in the future. Interestingly all my other motor drive cameras have either completely manual or automatic power rewind, when you reach the last frame, which avoids the problem. 

Wilson

[earleygallery]

There was also a modification to the tripod thread mount which Andy Barton referred to - use of a non standard thread can cause damage to the base and shutter/mirror box by compressing it.

[wlaidlaw]

16 minutes ago, earleygallery said:

There was also a modification to the tripod thread mount which Andy Barton referred to - use of a non standard thread can cause damage to the base and shutter/mirror box by compressing it.

Using the motor-winder R gets round this problem on the R8, as it has its own full depth tripod socket. 

Wilson

Edited June 25, 2020 by wlaidlaw

[chris_livsey]

20 hours ago, SteveYork said:

Why would the reliability of an R9 be any different from that of a later R8, as they are substantially the same?  Not trying to be a jerk, just curious.

As was discussed earlier it is a combination of age and experience.

The younger a camera is the less likely to fail, other than a brand new one. All electronic devices have an early failure rate that is quite high, ( makers release QC varies, Leica was very good, perhaps less so these days) the weak are weeded out either by QC or by users, then they are largely reliable until the components age and begin end of life failure. The R9 will be younger and will be later to go into age failure. (usage plays a part as well of course but these will be almost entirely amateur usage).

The model difference is the experience. The R8 had some well documented points of failure or things that didn't please owners. The R9 being later was designed and built to build on the feedback, not least from the  service dept., (It was in Leica's best interest to reduce warranty work and even in those days reduce "bad press") they should be reasonably expected to be more reliable. Perhaps higher spec parts were used where previously failure rate was noted, Leica have always improved incrementally through production, in the M3 early days almost no two cameras are exactly the same as has been painstakingly documented here. Andy's tripod mount is a very good example of a positive change made from "in the field" failure that was easily remedied.

You can go too far in a younger camera being better, the film Ms began to use plastic parts, in some cases this was positive for wear and tolerance in others less so, breakage and plastic becoming brittle with age, also the design Dept. can be "corrupted" by the bean counters looking at cost and imposing limits on cost. Not necessarily bad if it means the company survives.