Tell me about the 35 Lux AA ?

[mmradman]

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1 hour ago, Wonzo said:

You better don’t use the lens, as long as there is humidity inside. Keep it in a bin with salt. This will remove any humidity.

Be very carful with salt, you don't wish any of it getting into contact with the lens.  Although M lens is only mechnaical salt i tihnk would be worse than wine.  Problem with many beverages, probably includes wine, is they always have residue of some sort. 

Plain white rice is also very good dehumidifier, saved my girlfriend's mobile [cell] phones after these taking a swim on more than one occassion. 

[Wonzo]

vor 1 Minute schrieb mmradman:

Be very carful with salt, you don't wish any of it getting into contact with the lens.  Although M lens is only mechnaical salt i tihnk would be worse than wine.  Problem with many beverages, probably includes wine, is they always have residue of some sort. 

Plain white rice is also very good dehumidifier, saved my girlfriend's mobile [cell] phones after these taking a swim on more than one occassion. 

Rice is good but salt is even better. In any case I would never put the lens directly into whatever you choose. A direct contact is not necessary to take away humidity.

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[Guest]

1 hour ago, Steven said:

30 mins after the accident. The aperture ring almost doesn’t turn anymore. I want to cry. 

Steven, so sorry to hear this............long ago I had something similar happen, beer not wine, with a 35mm Summilux 1.4. I called my repair guy in London and he said put the lens into fresh spring bottled water, ( no additives or gas ), or distilled water from a pharmacy, seal it in a bag with little or no air and get it to him ASAP. Unfortunately this happened on a shoot in Tunsia it took almost a week to get it back to London..............But after it was worked on and some weeks later it was as good as new.

I'd be concerned in drying it out with rice, silica gel or anything like that because wine will have ingredients, ( sugars? ), that when dried out could leave a film that would be hard to remove. The aperture ring has some in there by the sound of it. I wouldn't try to operate focus or anything, I'd keep it wet and get it to a repair place as soon as you can.

No guarantees this would work for you but it did for me. The worst thing was the initial immersion in the water! BUT if you have a trusted repair person call them first.

Edited April 12, 2021 by petermullett

[Casey Jefferson]

@Steven I strongly believe folks at Leica don't design a lens without taking in consideration that it'll have to withstand wine splashes! Do send for CLA as soon as you can. Best of luck! 😥

[Steven]

5 hours ago, Jeff S said:

Time for a CLA.

Jeff

I hope a CLA can save it. 

[Steven]

5 hours ago, evikne said:

Thanks, although the question was not directly addressed to you. I just quoted you because you mentioned this "hate" that I have heard about so many times before. 😉

I am too worried about my AA right now to focus on the FLE/preFLE. But the owning the AA gave me a little more perspective on this too. On paper/charts, the FLE is better than the AA. Yet, there is something about the AA that is very ethereal, and hard to pinpoint, but that everyone loves and describes as magic. The FLE is very hard to warm too. a little like the V4 vs V5 cron. The V5 is better, but we just prefer the V4. You included. With the AA and th FLE it's the same. The FLE doesnt have much character, much atmosphere. 

So, having used the AA, the FLE, and the pre FLE, I can tell you one thing. The AA is closed to the pre FLE than the FLE. Id rather take a pre fle with heavy focus shift than perfect FLE, anytime of the day. Harry, who is one of the biggest 35mm collectioner on this forum feels the same. Having talked with him, he's told me that he thinks he prefers the pre fle even to the AA. I think I feel the same. If I had to keep only one lens in my life, it would be the pre fle. Try one, you will understand what im talking about when you see it 

[Jeff S]

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42 minutes ago, Steven said:

I hope a CLA can save it. 

Don't see why not, in competent hands.

As noted regarding the FLE vs the prior ASPH, a fair amount of us here owned the latter before switching to FLE.  I did, and don't miss the older version.  Matter of use case, display medium, personal taste, and sometimes even sample variation.  Nice to have choices.  I think your AA will remain one of your options if you get it to a qualified repair service, Leica or other, preferably sooner than later.  In the US, I'd send it to DAG.  In your neck of the woods, probably to Leica, unless you know of a respected third party service (Jaap often mentions Will Van Manen).  I'm sure your dealer friend (Jean-Marc?) will have a recommendation.

Jeff

[Steven]

Here's what happened in the past few hours. 

- I dried the lens, it seemed find. 

- an hour later, in notice the aperture ring started to feel rusted. I moves slowly and then gets stuck around 5.6 or 8. 

- I panicked, left the house, went to Leica Geneva (where I am for the weekend). They said they didn't know how to repair this lens and sent me to a service store in Geneva. 

- I showed up at that store. They saw my AA and straight away said "sorry, we're not touching that lens"

- I called Herve in Paris, at the Leica store, he told me on the phone he would be scared to open it, and would send it to Wetzlar, but it could take up to 12 weeks due to covid. 

- So then I had no other choice. I called JMF! He sent me to Sylvan from photo suffren in Paris. Sylvain has the reputation to be one of Europe's best Leica surgeon. I saw him in action before on an M7 and it was impressive. 

- I called Sylvain, told him I had an AA soaked in wine and Leica stores were scared to open it. He answered "HAAA FUNNNN, bring it to me, let's see what it has in the belly". 

- I am taking a train tomorrow. The lens will be in his hands around 5PM. 

I am very anxious because I've had for less than a month. I cant believe it's currently sleeping in a bag of rice! not the fate I had expected for my AA. 

On the other hand, the photos taken with it still look perfect, so im hopeful the damage is not too deep. 

 

TO be continued. .....

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[Steven]

30 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

As noted regarding the FLE vs the prior ASPH, a fair amount of us here owned the latter before switching to FLE.  I did, and don't miss the older version.  Matter of use case, display medium, personal taste, and sometimes even sample variation.

Absolutely. Differnent people, different needs. That's the beauty. Lots of people went form the V4 Cron to the APSH, and love it this way. I'm a V4 kind of guy. 

[pippy]

5 minutes ago, Steven said:

...I am taking a train tomorrow. The lens will be in his hands around 5PM...

I'm sure all of us here wish you (and Sylvain) the very best of good fortune, Steven.

Philip.

[Jeff S]

15 minutes ago, Steven said:

Absolutely. Differnent people, different needs. That's the beauty. Lots of people went form the V4 Cron to the APSH, and love it this way. I'm a V4 kind of guy. 

Yup.  And, interestingly, you prefer the Summilux ASPH (but pre-FLE) to the pre-ASPH. Can’t always trust the name or tech...comes down to experience.

Good luck with the AA.  I think it will be fine.  Hope you at least enjoyed the wine before the incident. Your boy also learned to avoid ‘AA’, which in the US helps deal with abuse of wine. 

Jeff

[Steven]

1 minute ago, Jeff S said:

Your boy also learned to avoid ‘AA’, which in the US helps deal with abuse of wine. 

 

😅🤣

[Steven]

1 minute ago, Jeff S said:

And, interestingly, you prefer the Summilux ASPH (but pre-FLE) to the pre-ASPH.

I do, but I also learned to love the pre asph now. I'm addicted to it. So much that I'm looking int buying a second one that ill store away as back up for the future in case the one I use was to break, or get soaked in wine. I'm afraid the prices will continue to go up and that I'll not be able to get one later if I need. 

[beewee]

Sorry to hear about the AA. Rice is definitely a better option than salt. Salt can have very fine dust that’ll get into the lens. Silica packs are the safest but rice is the next best thing.

I would imagine my biggest concern would be the acid in the wine. Sugars can get cleaned up but acids can eat away metal and lens coatings over time so it’s good that you’re able to get it cleaned out ASAP. I’d don’t imagine the wine would have gotten into the inside unless it was submerged - which was not the case.

Interesting that the AA is close to the pre-FLE. I have both the FLE and pre-FLE (titanium finish) and noticed that the rendering was different very early on and I too preferred the look of the pre-FLE. The main reason I got the FLE was because of focus shifting on the M8.2 and the lack of live view at the time.

[Steven]

3 hours ago, beewee said:

pre-FLE (titanium finish) and noticed that the rendering was different very early on and I too preferred the look of the pre-FLE

Thanks! One more testimony in favour of me being crazy. The AA is (sometimes) slightly nice than the pre FLE, but they are the two most similar lenses. If you have a pe FLE, unless you really want the perfect lens, you're not missing out on anything. The Pre FLE has my favourite rendering of all time. It's very different than the FLE, I believe. 

[Steven]

This morning, after a full night in rice, things are looking better. The aperture ring now functions almost normally again all the way to 16, which is a good sign, I think. 

It leads me to my next doubt: if everything seems fine, should I have it opened ? I'm leaning towards yes. 

I would love to avoid an unnecessary surgery, but I also am afraid that some wine ingredients could cause long term corrosion. 

[Steve Ash]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Steven:

This morning, after a full night in rice, things are looking better. The aperture ring now functions almost normally again all the way to 16, which is a good sign, I think. 

It leads me to my next doubt: if everything seems fine, should I have it opened ? I'm leaning towards yes. 

I would love to avoid an unnecessary surgery, but I also am afraid that some wine ingredients could cause long term corrosion. 

I think you correctly answered yourself.

[Steven]

2 hours ago, Steve Ash said:

I think you correctly answered yourself.

This morning, I managed to reach out to the customer care service in Weltzar and told the story to a repair specialist. 
I was very surprised by his answer. He said that the fact the aperture ring was starting to turn again was a sign that liquids were drying off. He said it’s the change of temperature yesterday that blocked the ring with the liquids. 
He added that as long as the lens worked fine and took nice photos, he didn’t advise me to send it to him. 

I asked him about the risk of long term corrosion inside the lens because of the ingredients in the wine. He said it would be nothing that would break the lens, and nothing that couldn’t be removed later on. 
 

While it was a little reassuring, I a not sure If I want to follow that advice. 

Another new detail: someone who saw the scene unfold yesterday told me it was not the wine that my son picked up, but a glass of tequila don julio 70. It makes more sense now, as that glass looked like fresh water. Well,  i don’t know if this is good or bad news anyway! 
 

one last thing: this morning I spoke to Laurent from Leica in paris. He told me that last year a client dropped a 50apo in the sea. He dived to pick it up, rinsed in fresh water, brought it for CLA, and the lens was like new. I think M lenses are quite resistant. Some of us sometimes worry about rain droplets. If my AA survives the don Julio 70, I will dare to take it out in the rain a little more often. 
 

by the way, the M10R got splashed by the tequila too, but nothing seems to have happened to it. 

[AndreasG]

If wine with its ingredients (85% water, 12% ethanol, some sugar, soft organic acidic substances, traces of compounds that make the flavor and taste) could damage the anodized aluminium or brass parts of the lens body or the inorganic glasses including coatings, we better avoid wine as a beverage. The advice from Leica how to handle this situation was appropriate.

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Hallo,

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[ibramr]

2 hours ago, Steven said:

This morning, I managed to reach out to the customer care service in Weltzar and told the story to a repair specialist. 
I was very surprised by his answer. He said that the fact the aperture ring was starting to turn again was a sign that liquids were drying off. He said it’s the change of temperature yesterday that blocked the ring with the liquids. 

[Edited]
 

by the way, the M10R got splashed by the tequila too, but nothing seems to have happened to it. 

Best of luck, and hope that all will end well.  This episode, however, raises the importance of having adequate insurance to mitigate the impacts of such risks.  Perhaps we can discuss this point in a different thread.  The output from the AA is very enjoyable and thank you to all who contributed to to it.  Regards