Film is not dead… but my camera may be…

[wattsy]

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On 11/14/2023 at 1:26 PM, TomB_tx said:

sent for repair in 2019 is now finished and being sent to me.

Crikey, with the average age of Leica repairers and, to some extent, owners, it is not inconceivable that one of the parties (repairer or customer) could have died in that timescale.

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[willeica]

25 minutes ago, wattsy said:

Crikey, with the average age of Leica repairers and, to some extent, owners, it is not inconceivable that one of the parties (repairer or customer) could have died in that timescale.

In my case, the repairer (a member of this forum) died. He had a Zeiss camera of mine and was waiting to get a piece of material to finish the repair when he passed away. I will contact his wife one of these days to see if I can get the un-repaired camera back.

When I was in Wetzlar a few weeks ago they told me that the backlog of unprepared M6s runs into the thousands. There is also a substantial waiting list for the new M6s. I would mention Camera Rescue from Finland here who may or may not have all the parts necessary to repair an M6. It might be worthwhile getting in touch with them. I have been suggesting for some time that Leica and Camera Rescue should get together as regards repairs, but the folks in Wetzlar don't seem to like outsourcing repair work. In Vienna, Leica Shop /Leitz Auction have some young repairers and have also bought equipment from Ottmar Michaely of Wetzlar who has retired. Ottmar has trained the young people in Vienna. A lot of their work is for the auction, but it might be worthwhile contacting them.

William

[Wildpeak]

So 14 months later, my camera is finally back.

In all this time Leica hasn’t been able to even tell me when to expect it back or how far down the queue it still was.

what they have been able to tell me though is how quickly they wanted their loaner back, months in advance of returning my camera.

And now, to make matters worse:

- the fault I sent it in for is not fixed - it’s worse than before. Instead of making uneven exposures at 1/1000, it now exposes about 5% of the frame on one side before fading to nothing (transparent negative, i.e. black) and worse still, it even does that at 1/500.

- a new fault has been added - the film advance lever is somehow broken too now. It does still perform its function but goes beyond where it should and one can feel the mechanism suffering, as though teeth on a wheel didn’t mesh properly and skipped off eachother. Not very confidence inducing.

And for all of this, I paid these people a four figure amount in service fees.

I want to like this brand, I sure do love their gear when it works. But this is just a really really saddening experience so far.

[spydrxx]

Years ago I was very disappointed in Leica USA (NJ). Eventually I found several independent repairpersons who were Leica trained and do an excellent job on those cameras they accept for repair. In recent times, their waitlist has grown as younger and newer Leica users have also discovered them. In the future I 'd strongly advise you to find excellent repairpersons outside of the Wetzlar facility, hopefully near your home country to reduce shipping costs. There are lots of recommendations across the continents and countries in this forum...you might be enlightened to read stories of their work.

[Mute-on]

2 hours ago, Wildpeak said:

So 14 months later, my camera is finally back.

In all this time Leica hasn’t been able to even tell me when to expect it back or how far down the queue it still was.

what they have been able to tell me though is how quickly they wanted their loaner back, months in advance of returning my camera.

And now, to make matters worse:

- the fault I sent it in for is not fixed - it’s worse than before. Instead of making uneven exposures at 1/1000, it now exposes about 5% of the frame on one side before fading to nothing (transparent negative, i.e. black) and worse still, it even does that at 1/500.

- a new fault has been added - the film advance lever is somehow broken too now. It does still perform its function but goes beyond where it should and one can feel the mechanism suffering, as though teeth on a wheel didn’t mesh properly and skipped off eachother. Not very confidence inducing.

And for all of this, I paid these people a four figure amount in service fees.

I want to like this brand, I sure do love their gear when it works. But this is just a really really saddening experience so far.

To say this is incredibly disappointing is, of course, a massive understatement. Frankly, it is unacceptable if not entirely pathetic, not least because of the ridiculous amount of time and money involved.

In your shoes, I would be very hesitant to persevere with using Leica for film M service. They are demonstrably incompetent. I used them once, nearly 20 years ago, and never since. Even then, the experience was far more frustrating than it had any right to be. 

As others have indicated, you would be far better served finding a known-to-be-good independent Leica repair service that is local to you, and use them. It will not cost you four figures (it never should have in the first place), and you will have a properly adjusted and functioning camera. A properly functioning Leica M film camera is truly a thing of functional beauty that delivers immense satisfaction.

I wish you the very best of luck. 

[Wildpeak]

Once more, I have to add that while the circumstances I encountered and described above are certainly quite disappointing, the response of Leica Switzerland, for what they can do, has been nothing but impeccable. Since I voiced my concerns to them, they have committed to getting me a replacement camera, this time for the entire duration of the the work on mine, and to personally follow up with the factory to ensure a speedy treatment of my camera, all this in a wonderfully gracious and extremely friendly manner. 

That does truly go a long way, though one must wonder, could that kind of special treatment be why it’s so hard for Leica to state ETAs for their repairs? I have to assume they’ll have to bump other repairs for this case now, and likely has to bump mine several times over the time it was there in similar circumstances. 

Perhaps they could solve for that by having one team work strictly chronologically and one handling the special cases? Surely, there must be a solution? Unless it’s really just one single century old service technician locked away somewhere in their basement among racks and racks of spare parts, ducked over a little table with a little lamp and a little screwdriver (please forgive the horrible cliche).