M-A repurposed MP body?

[malligator]

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10 minutes ago, Swordman said:

Well, the Rolex is fundamentally worse than a G-Shock in every measurable way.

And yet it does the job perfectly.

[Swordman]

2 hours ago, malligator said:

And yet it does the job perfectly.

So, suppose your business required accurate timing from a watch. Do you think the Rolex would be the perfect tool for the job?

[malligator]

52 minutes ago, Swordman said:

So, suppose your business required accurate timing from a watch. Do you think the Rolex would be the perfect tool for the job?

I just told you I literally stake my life on timing decompression stops with my Sub. That not good enough?

[Swordman]

47 minutes ago, malligator said:

I just told you I literally stake my life on timing decompression stops with my Sub. That not good enough?

Well, forgive my ignorance on not being up to date with diving jargon. Surely, you must’ve seen what fellow divers use? Perhaps, it’s a dive computer, perhaps it’s a G-shock…the point is…the more popular options are more accurate and more reliable and therefore better tools.

A Rolex is, on the other hand, a Rolex - a luxury item that happens to tell the time.

[Topsy]

To be fair no clockwork wristwatch when worn can be as accurate as a digital wristwatch because the movements in the clockwork watch are affected by the movements of the wearer to differing degrees whereas the digital watch is unaffected by the wearer. When Rolex, Omega, Timex (insert any brand of choice) were only competing against clockwork wristwatches the expensive brands were generally more robust, waterproof etc so were chosen for those demanding tasks (Rocketeering to the Moon, diving to the depths of the oceans), nowadays there are more accurate timekeepers but the accuracy of the old clockwork wristwatches is still plenty accurate for most purposes.

[fededuran]

I received my new M-A yesterday. Surprisingly, it has the same issue. After talking to the store where I bought it, they checked another M-A to compare both and confirmed that my camera is not right. So Leica claims to be the top of the top in terms of quality but let these things happen? Obviously I've sent the M-A back and will get a second unit next week. Hope this is just bad luck and no more refurbished M-Ps are coming as if they were M-As.

 

[a.noctilux]

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2 hours ago, fededuran said:

I received my new M-A yesterday. Surprisingly, it has the same issue. After talking to the store where I bought it, they checked another M-A to compare both and confirmed that my camera is not right. So Leica claims to be the top of the top in terms of quality but let these things happen? Obviously I've sent the M-A back and will get a second unit next week. Hope this is just bad luck and no more refurbished M-Ps are coming as if they were M-As.

 

Welcome here Fededuran.

What went wrong with the M-A ?

[fededuran]

36 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Welcome here Fededuran.

What went wrong with the M-A ?

You can check it here. Leica's quality control looks bad. Never have had an issue with my less expensive sony's and fuji's. 

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[fededuran]

40 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Hope it's just a bad beginning before a love story. 

40 minutes ago, a.noctilux said:

Welcome here Fededuran.

What went wrong with the M-A ?

with the M-A ?

[Steve Ricoh]

17 minutes ago, fededuran said:

You can check it here. Leica's quality control looks bad. Never have had an issue with my less expensive sony's and fuji's. 

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That’s really unacceptable and you have to query the standards being passed by the company’s quality control department. Touch alone would cause it be tossed into the reject bin!

[a.noctilux]

50 minutes ago, fededuran said:

You can check it here. Leica's quality control looks bad. Never have had an issue with my less expensive sony's and fuji's. 

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In the box, you have a folded paper with signature and date of quality control, you may send the card with the camera.

Somebody forgot to use the right body.

For me not that bad, 😉 if only esthetic flaws.

 

And what about functionality of the camera ?

[Huss]

On 12/22/2021 at 11:32 PM, Swordman said:

Come on now…you don’t surely believe that, do you? This is a Leica we’re talking about. It’s the camera equivalent of a Rolex. Nobody buys a Rolex because it tells the time better than other watches, because it doesn’t. They buy Rolex because it’s a well, recognised luxury watch with excellent build quality. As a tool, it falls short.

Leica cameras are basically the same thing. Performance-wise it trails behind other marques, and it costs triple the price. Nobody buys it as just a tool. They spend their money on something that's been marketed as a luxury item with superior build quality. At the prices they charge, I’d accept nothing but perfection.

Name a 35mm rangefinder camera that is better than a Leica.  And if you even think to suggest the Zeiss Ikon ZM - I had one.  Compared to my M7 it did have a bigger vf but that's where the pluses ended.  With that bigger viewfinder you also got a rangefinder patch that would flare out unless your eye was perfectly centered, shutter speed LEDs that you cannot see in daylight unless it is overcast, and worse of all, an rf patch that remains stationary.  So when you focus and the frame lines move to compensate for parallax, the rf patch does not so it no longer is centered.  This is a big deal in composition with an RF camera, because the centered patch always gives you bearings as to where the composition would be.

But wait, there's more.  The body is made of a much softer metal and dings up real easy and the film advance gear train is all plastic.  Does it matter?  Yes because it failed on my ZM, and also on my $90 Bessa L, because they share the same crappy cheap plastic pieces under the skin.

What else was there? Oh yeah the Nikon S series back in the day.  Basically Nikon threw in the towel and went for SLRs because they couldn't compete w the Leica Ms with their S2/S3/Sp cameras.  Biggest flaw was the weird Contax style mount which resulted in the helicoid being in the camera body.  What this means is when you focus it rotates the entire lens, so the aperture ring always moves.  Add to that much lower contrast RF blobs instead of Leica's excellent defined and bright RF patches.  And very limited lens selections.

Think about it this way.  Leica stuck with the M which in essence is the original mirrorless camera.  The definition I am using is that there is no mirror between the lens and the shutter.  Nikon dropped the RF, went to the SLR (mirror), and now has zero film cameras in production AND has dropped their digital SLRs!  To go back to mirrorless.  Where Leica has been since the 1930s...

Guess someone did it right all along!

[Huss]

5 hours ago, fededuran said:

You can check it here. Leica's quality control looks bad. Never have had an issue with my less expensive sony's and fuji's. 

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Glass half empty.. glass half full is that indentation is an excellent place to assist in holding the camera..

I kid.  That sucks and should never have been sold or delivered as is.  

[IkarusJohn]

6 hours ago, fededuran said:

You can check it here. Leica's quality control looks bad. Never have had an issue with my less expensive sony's and fuji's. 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

As I understand it (someone stripped back the skin on their M-A some years ago, and found a welded disk, right where your indentation is), the MP and M-A share a chassis.  Is that so surprising?  The only difference is that the M-A has a disk welded where the battery cover would go on the MP.  I see no issue with the cameras sharing the same chassis - I haven’t heard of anyone taking the skin off and finding that any M-A is any different.

I agree that the indentation is not good, and you were right to send it back.  Was it soft? Ie, no disk welded at all? or had it been pushed in? 

Really, not good.  I would assume (being charitable) that the camera looked fine when it went into the box (or maybe it was signed off in the dark?), but the disk was not properly welded in place and got pushed in somehow.

Bad luck.  I hope the replacement is perfect.  I love mine.

Edited February 27, 2022 by IkarusJohn

[28framelines]

9 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

In the box, you have a folded paper with signature and date of quality control, you may send the card with the camera.

Somebody forgot to use the right body.

For me not that bad, 😉 if only esthetic flaws.

 

And what about functionality of the camera ?

Please share the name on the card with Leica. I really hate to say this, but I think some people need to be let go. The QC has been going downhill. Myself and one other person on this forum had their rangefinder out of alignment right out of the box. Something is being missed, and whether that’s not enough staff or poor training, it’s setting a bad precedent.

[Helge]

Defects can always happen, especially on transport after final check, zero defects is a myth, you can only keep them down to a minimum.

Also it is necessary to understand, that a mainly manual assembly process has its systematic flaws, „built-in“ quality is a lot harder to achieve, you have to rely a lot more on very sophisticated intermediate and especially final quality checks, however things that can not be checked will make it through QC.

And finally it is necessary to understand that mainly unhappy customers will report on the condition of the camera they received…😉

[fededuran]

Hi again. The hole you see in the picture is of course soft and there's a clear risk of breaking the skin of the M-A with the past of the time. 

I can't provide the name of the QC controllers because the camera is already on its way to the store. Didn't write that info down. 

Not trying to discredit Leica, but there's an obvious contradiction between its narrative of excellence (and the price associated with it) and the reality of a product control system that cannot afford these mistakes. 

[fededuran]

That said, I'm looking forward to my second M-A unit, hopefully the good one.

I can only say good things about the 50mm lux I bought simultaneously (very special rendering compared to my also beloved Zeiss Planar 50mm 1.4 for sony, to my CV 50mm 1.2 and even to the GF 63mm for the GFX). Wonder if the 35 lux has a similar rendering. In that case it will be next. 

[IkarusJohn]

7 hours ago, fededuran said:

That said, I'm looking forward to my second M-A unit, hopefully the good one.

I can only say good things about the 50mm lux I bought simultaneously (very special rendering compared to my also beloved Zeiss Planar 50mm 1.4 for sony, to my CV 50mm 1.2 and even to the GF 63mm for the GFX). Wonder if the 35 lux has a similar rendering. In that case it will be next. 

Good to hear.

No, the 35 Summilux does not share the same rendering as the 50 ASPH.  There’s much written about the 35 Summilux (FLE) on this forum.  Tim Ashley also did a very good review - https://tashley1.zenfolio.com/blog/2013/4/leica-m-240-with-35mm-f1-4-fle---some-observations

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Huss]

10 hours ago, Helge said:

Defects can always happen, especially on transport after final check, zero defects is a myth, you can only keep them down to a minimum.

..

I've done a lot of work in QC.  When each item is supposedly QC-d, with the tech signing off on it, it is unacceptable that something so obvious that would fail the most cursory check goes through.  That is what that tech is getting paid for.  As they say, he had one job...

It's not like they randomly QC every 10th camera.  Then I can see a defective one getting through.  Leica, supposedly, QC's each single camera which is also why their production run is so low.  Honestly I don't believe they are doing a QC from the results.  Just signing a piece of paper to make  'us' feel good about paying $6000 for a camera.