50mm Summilux Black Chrome - 11688 - Lens hood damaged. Repairable?

[Abram]

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Hi everyone. I looked before posting but wasn't able to determine an answer. I have a 50mm Summilux Black Chrome edition, and the lens hood has an issue I'm trying to repair. I have separated the vented portion from the mounting barrel, but the problem I'm observing is that the retention clips are not retracting to allow the hood to be mounted. The silver release buttons have no tension and stay pressed in but the clips stay engaged. With the vented portion of the hood detached I can see that the barrel could potentially come apart which I think is what I want so I can look at all the pieces individually and try to repair whatever is struggling to engage. However I haven't been able to figure out how to fully disassemble it. 

Ultimately I'm trying to see if I can repair it myself before having to spend $400 on a replacement hood for something I'm not going to use 100% of the time. As of right now the hood is completely unusable as it cannot be mounted. 

Has anyone repaired one of these? 

 

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[graphlex]

Somewhere in a forum thread are shown Leica’s several redesigns of this hood.  Won’t necessarily solve your issue but might help m

[Abram]

Presumably this is an original one as the lens is from 2016. I’d love to not have to buy another but I’ll do some digging and see what I can find. 

[farnz]

Hi, Abram,

It's not clear from your post how the damage occurred so we're flying a little bit blind.  It sounds like the simple spring mechanism has got jammed (perhaps from an impact) and needs releasing somehow so that the tangs can retract.

One thing you might try that will cost you nothing is to put the hood in the freezer overnight and see if it's behaving better in the morning.  The hood is made of different types of metal that will contract at different rates and to different extents so relative contraction might rectify the problem.  If not, then when you take it out of the freezer gently tap the hood against a table or work top a few times to see if that helps.

Good luck!

Pete.

Edited May 17 by farnz

[Abram]

Yeah I apologize my description and photos weren’t the most helpful but I appreciate your input! 
 

I’ll try to elaborate better: I bought the lens second hand and the hood arrived in this condition it doesn’t look to have taken an impact but it does look like someone tried digging out the prongs at some point. If I remove the vented portion there is an outer and inner ring which can slide somewhat independently of one another. At no point do the prongs retract and the silver release tabs feel as though they’re connected to nothing. Just loosely attached with no tension behind them. 
 

I have tried to carefully twist the rings independently to see if it would cause the tabs to reengage but so far that hasn’t done anything. 

[Abram]

I figured I'd post this for posterity as I still search for solutions but I had reached out to Leica to see the hood would be repairable if I sent it to them. They declined and told me that it's a non-repairable item and my option would be to purchase a new one (which also features the updated design to accommodate using a filter + the hood). 

Not exactly a preferable solution but I've as of yet been unable to disassemble the hood and repair it myself, so I'm either just going to permanently forego using a hood or I'll have to suck it up and pay the $400 for a replacement. I feel like if I could get it apart I could probably figure out how to fix it, I just lack the tools / understanding to do it myself it seems. 

Edited May 19 by Abram

[farnz]

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Hi Abram,

In case it helps, I've had the 50 Summilux Black Chrome since it was released and use it frequently.  I have never used the hood with it owing to its size but I've also never noticed flare or veiling glare with the lens so it seems fairly flare-resistant to me.  YMMV of course.

Pete.

Edited May 20 by farnz

[Ralf]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb farnz:

Hi Abram,

In case it helps, I've had the 50 Summilux Black Chrome since it was released and use it frequently.  I have never used the hood with it owing to its size but I've also never noticed flare or veiling glare with the lens so it seems fairly flare-resistant to me.  YMMV of course.

Pete.

+1

[Abram]

That’s likely to be my scenario as well and this is the 4th (or maybe 6th?) 50mm Summilux ASPH I’ve owned over the years so I’m pretty well acquainted with its behaviors. I just have something of a tic that I “need” things to be complete. 
 

But yes it does help, thank you