M- Camera build quality

[Joop van Heijgen]

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It is difficult to narrow down issues like build quality. It depends on usage and care more than anything. Today we expect our DS M3"s to work perfectly after 50+ years!

My own experience of the various M's is as follows:

M3/ Early double stroke ones. The shutter brake tends to give up and you occasionally find them with either black rangefinder patches or severely faded "half" mirrors. It is still the M with the smoothest advance and the softest release of them all.

Later single stroke M3's are among the best built cameras ever. If it has been serviced regularly and not abused, they tend to work perfectly, even after 1000's of rolls. The weak spot is the finder. They can black out through de-lamination of the prism (usually through impact).

 

M2/ Because it is a simpler camera, there are less things to go wrong. The finder is robust and though it can dim through oxidization of the mirrors, it can still be fixed. The advance on some of the earlier M2's (button advance) could get rough with heavy use. If the shaft springs are worn, you can get overlap on the negatives when the shaft turns inside the take up spool.

 

M4/ leica put everything into this camera! It is very well built, but check for bent re-wind cranks and worn take up "tulips". The finder usually hold up well and has the advantage of having many parts in common with the M2 and later M4P's and M6's. It is usually easier to find a "mintish" M4 than M2/M3 as these earlier Leica were the only game in town for press photographers in the 50's. In the 60's the SLR came into play and the pro's switched, mainly because of the ease of using long lenses.

 

M5/ I have had several of these, but I never got along with it. Too big and a bit clumsy. Again, the mechanicals are very good, though the bottom rewind can act up and one of mine decided not to retract the meter arm. Interesting object cluttering up the sky on a whole roll!. The meter sensor can age badly (like most of us) and loose sensitivity and it does use the #625 style battery too.

 

M4-2/ The earliest of these had a problem with the shutter brake and the shutter speed regulator would go 'kabloonk" occasionally. Part of the problem was mis-communication between Wetzlar and Midland. The good news is that most of the M4-2's available now have been fixed. Leica started to add a lot of shims to the various shafts and locks and with time these springs shims get tired and you get misaligned locks on the base plate and interior drives. The film rewind was made from alloy and would bend or "buckle" if you hit it.

 

The M4-P/ This is a generally good camera and it can take a lot of film. The problems with the shutter was rectified. The film rewind is still alloy and occasionally you have to replace it(expensive) or simply bend it back and file off the flange at the bottom. I still have my 1981 M4P and it has had 10 000's of rolls through it. It was my bench tester for Rapidwinders and also primary camera for a lot of trips. The inter mediate drive (motor coupling) came apart once and was replaced and the gear in the advance wore out and was replaced. A couple of curtains got pin holded (not the cameras fault).

 

M6/ The first version of the M6 had problem with the meter "chip" and they frequently died or showed only one of the diodes. Leica replaced most of these under warranty in the mid 80's and after that the M6 is as good as even the earlier M2/M3/M4's. It is a very robust cameras, the alignment in the rangefinder can go out if you bang it hard, but this is rare. There have been problems with a 'grommet" that seals the meter information transfer wires and you could get light leaks. Some of the Titanium M6's had a film counter spring that failed and needed to be replaced.

 

M6TTL/ Initially these cameras had a problem with battery drain. There are a couple of contacts at the bottom of the battery well that would drain the batteries in a matter of hours. The solution is to push these contacts down, below the surface of the bottom. These are "test" connections for probes. Otherwise the TTL is a good camera and as most confirmed M-users prefer the old style shutter speed dial, a good deal too. On a couple I had problems with information transfer from the back door to the diodes (both after having been banged hard against unyielding car doors and door frames).

 

MP/ Early MP's had a faulty seal around the eye-piece and dust would seep in to finder. It was fixed and Lieca actually supplied new and improved seals to "do it yourselfers". Thre was a bit of a flare problem in the finder with the 0.85 and 0,72 versions that could cause problems. Other wise I think that the MP is one of the best built Leica M's ever. The top plate is brass as a Leica top should be, the gears are remarkably smooth (film advance on a MP rivals that of a Double Stroke M3} and the fact that you have a choice of finder magnification adds to the attraction.

 

M7/ I had one for a couple of years and apart from going through batteries at an alarming rate and a tendency to shut down suddenly, it held up well. The electronics worried me though and the magnetic controls of the shutter would be sensitive to a heavy Gauss field ( a large electric motor starting up). I never liked the release on the M7 - very "jagged" feel to it. I loved the 32 second long exposure count though.

 

general problems encountered with M4-2/M4-P and some R6's. The top was made from die-cast zinc alloy and if you got a scratch that penetrated the plating the top turned into a galvanic element and started to bubble the black chrome. More common on the R6, but I have seen some M4-2 and M4-P's with the same problem.

The shutter curtains on old M's can dry out and get brittle and the adhesive that holds the 'straps" for the curtains to the shutter drum will loose 'power" with age and can come loose. There is also a felt trap in the track of the M's (up to M4P) that can came loose and jam the shutter curtain. It is again adhesive that gos brittle with age. It is aiways a good idea to CLA any older M' on a regular basis anyway (every 5-7 years) and beware of M's that have sitting idle for a long time. Lubricants dry out and curtains loose flexibility if they are not used.

What is remarkable is not the problems that occasionally occur with older M's - it is how well they still work after 40 or 50 years! There are few products available today that can claim that. Even battered old M3's and M2's will produce great pictures after decades of use. So the shutter speeds might be a bit off, learn to compensate, the finder could be brighter - use hyper focal, the rewind squeels a bit - dont worry, it will wear it self in! AND there a few products that have compatibility going back 80 years. You can put your nickel Elmar from 1927 on your 2007 MP or even on the M8. That is foresight in design and, yes a bit of german stubborness too - but it all benefits us, the users.

__________________

Bests to Everybody,

Tom Abrahamsson of RapidWinder.com

 

See also the discussion about it on: http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=607053#post607053

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[Mountaineer-American]

Tom, thanks a million for your report. We all profit from your experience. This information is something we can bear in mind for our own cameras, as well as when camera shopping. Your final point about using 1927 lenses on current cameras is worth noting. So much commerce, particularly American commerce, is based on the notion of planned obsolescence. It is marvelous to see there is still a part of the world that strives for excellence.

 

"Don't start vast projects with half-vast ideas."