Pressure plate issues with new film Ms resolved?

[Jdjdjdi]

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15 hours ago, 250swb said:

Short attention span have you? Can't count can you? There are two paragraphs, the second is the longest and at a guess about 225 words. The average length paragraph in a novel is 200 words (they can be shorter or longer is what that means), so we now know you only read picture books, Kaboom! Pow! Take That Troll!

Y’all really just said Kaboom. 
 

Are you doing alright, man?

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[Bronco McBeast]

Microscopically as in no one at Leica will actually shoot a roll, develop in D76, fix and wash for 1 hour, then print a fine Baryta print, and see if it scratches the film. 
No checking to see if indeed the curtains travel as serenely throughout their course at the beginning and at the end. 

No weighing two MPs and question why are they 2 grams apart.

Is the winding lever really slanted 1 degree south? 
is the paint spread thick 100 microns all over the camera +/- 5 microns?

6 months wait? Maybe, if the parts are back-ordered. If available, then 1-2 months. Still long, but what can we do, kill the company? 

[intangiblethings]

I see both sides, but the reality is that there is no competition for a brand-new rangefinder film camera in 2023. 

Leica can very well do whatever they want to do, cause they've outlasted/outinvested the rest. 

Is it great for the brand? No. But as long as people want to shoot ANY rangefinder experience, they can continue to neglect certain customer service functions and still sell cameras. 

[Jdjdjdi]

4 hours ago, Bronco McBeast said:

Microscopically as in no one at Leica will actually shoot a roll, develop in D76, fix and wash for 1 hour, then print a fine Baryta print, and see if it scratches the film. 
No checking to see if indeed the curtains travel as serenely throughout their course at the beginning and at the end. 

No weighing two MPs and question why are they 2 grams apart.

Is the winding lever really slanted 1 degree south? 
is the paint spread thick 100 microns all over the camera +/- 5 microns?

6 months wait? Maybe, if the parts are back-ordered. If available, then 1-2 months. Still long, but what can we do, kill the company? 

Just not buy new film cameras from a company putting zero effort into QC or after service care. 
 

If Holga can make a plastic camera that doesn’t scratch film why can’t Leica make a camera literally called “mechanical perfection” that doesn’t?

It isn’t magic and there’s zero excuse for a brand new $6000 film camera to scratch film. 
 

Zero

[Matlock]

32 minutes ago, Jdjdjdi said:

Just not buy new film cameras from a company putting zero effort into QC or after service care. 
 

If Holga can make a plastic camera that doesn’t scratch film why can’t Leica make a camera literally called “mechanical perfection” that doesn’t?

It isn’t magic and there’s zero excuse for a brand new $6000 film camera to scratch film. 
 

Zero

We are talking about two very, very different cameras here. But in spite of what you say, here is a quote from a Holga review of 2022 "Unlike my other Holgas, this one did manage to put some scratches in the film."

[logan2z]

39 minutes ago, Matlock said:

We are talking about two very, very different cameras here. But in spite of what you say, here is a quote from a Holga review of 2022 "Unlike my other Holgas, this one did manage to put some scratches in the film."

I know you didn't bring up this comparison, but let's not forget that a Holga is a $50 plastic POS whose sole reason for being is to produce unpredictable artifacts on film.  So random scratches are probably viewed as a 'feature' by Holga owners.

At the risk of repeating myself, Leica does bring on this potentially impossible expectation of perfection through their own marketing and product pricing.  When someone can buy an old SLR online for under $100 that works perfectly and doesn't scratch film, they expect at least similar performance from a brand new $6000 Leica touted as 'Mechanical Perfection'. 

I'll admit that I'm a perfectionist by nature and that can cause me quite a bit of grief in this imperfect world (much of this is a a result of my own, many imperfections), but I do understand that even an expensive item can contain defects, no matter how diligent the manufacturer might be at quality control.  I think Leica's only significant failing here is the time it takes them to resolve warranty claims due to out-of-the-box defects, which can sometimes take several trips back to customer service.  If you blew it during manufacturing and/or quality control, at least get it right the first time when it comes back for repair.  I don't think that's an unreasonable ask, despite what some of the Leica apologists on the forum might think.

[Matlock]

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2 minutes ago, logan2z said:

I know you didn't bring up this comparison, but let's not forget that a Holga is a $50 plastic POS whose sole reason for being is to produce unpredictable artifacts on film.  So random scratches are probably viewed as a 'feature' by Holga owners.

At the risk of repeating myself, Leica does bring on this potentially impossible expectation of perfection through their own marketing and product pricing.  When someone can buy an old SLR online for under $100 that works perfectly and doesn't scratch film, they expect at least similar performance from a brand new $6000 Leica touted as 'Mechanical Perfection'. 

I'll admit that I'm a perfectionist by nature and that can cause me quite a bit of grief in this imperfect world (much of this is a a result of my own, many imperfections), but I do understand that even an expensive item can contain defects, no matter how diligent the manufacturer might be at quality control.  I think Leica's only significant failing here is the time it takes them to resolve warranty claims due to out-of-the-box defects, which can sometimes take several trips back to customer service.  If you blew it during manufacturing and/or quality control, at least get it right the first time when it comes back for repair.  I don't think that's an unreasonable ask, despite what some of the Leica apologists on the forum might think.

I fully agree with you and I was merely responding to the claim "If Holga can make a plastic camera that doesn’t scratch film why can’t Leica make a camera literally called “mechanical perfection” that doesn’t". As to your point about $100 SLRs, I bought a Pentax ME Super last week from a charity shop for £15, it works perfectly. As to your point about the time taken to resolve problems I would think that this is largely due to lack of suitable staff given the reluctance of young people to become apprentices when they can earn more in a supermarket and partly due to logistics given that Leicas are made in Portugal not Germany so how many trained staff are based in Wetzlar?

[250swb]

59 minutes ago, Matlock said:

We are talking about two very, very different cameras here. But in spite of what you say, here is a quote from a Holga review of 2022 "Unlike my other Holgas, this one did manage to put some scratches in the film."

Unfortunately it must be an outlier, most Holga's don't conform to the myth of light leaks and scratches which is what many expect from Holga's marketing. I guess they are just covering themselves in case it really does leak. But going by online posts a $50 POS can consistently make photographs that are interesting to look at even if they are devoid of technical merit. It's a far higher hit rate than the Leica photos you see posted so it questions if buying perfection is ever going to flatter some photographs.

[Matlock]

11 minutes ago, 250swb said:

Unfortunately it must be an outlier, most Holga's don't conform to the myth of light leaks and scratches which is what many expect from Holga's marketing. I guess they are just covering themselves in case it really does leak. But going by online posts a $50 POS can consistently make photographs that are interesting to look at even if they are devoid of technical merit. It's a far higher hit rate than the Leica photos you see posted so it questions if buying perfection is ever going to flatter some photographs.

It does say "Unlike my other Holgas", I was just pointing out that it can happen against the claim that Holga are exempt from any such problems. The couple of Holgas that I have tried have been pretty terrible but they could have been just isolated cases. 

[FrozenInTime]

With the likes of a Holga I suspect film flatness is not an great concern, but with a Leica M it is expected.

 

I do not recall any statements from Leica that elaborate what exactly the issue with the pressure plate was.

From my own experience, the only camera I’ve seen with a pressure plate issue was a, bought this year new old stock,  Nikonos III.

With this the problem extremely obvious; multiple tram lines running across the film. I could see them glistening even as I took the film from the  developing tank.

Here the pressure plate surface was not at fault, but there was too much spring pressure being applied to the plate.

The early life of that Nikonos now seems clear: it was returned to a dealer after it’s first test film, and the box sat there for forty years.