Zeiss Ikon Hits The Floor--Hard!

joebt

joebt

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Apr 4, 2006
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Well, it was bound to happen, and it did happen on Saturday. While visiting the musems in our nations capitol, I just walked through the door with the ZI in my hand, with the wrist strap around my wrist. I was pulling off my golves, and the strap stayed with the glove, and when the glove cleared my hand the ZI fell straight to the hard concrete floor (About a 5 feet drop) landing on the bottom first and then the lens (VC 40mm Nokton).

The bottom has a scratch on it and the rangefinder is totally out of allighnment, but everything else seems ok. I just sent it to DAG to have the allighnment corrected. So, it's back to my M3 and M6TTL for the time being. The Nokton is fine. I used it the rest of the day on a friends M3.
 
Hi,

welcome to the club!
Happened to me during a vacation, Rf out of alignment, but everything else just worked fine.
Scale focusing worked great!

Ciao

joerg
 
Ha, but with a Leica surely the rangefinder would have stayed in alignment, and you could still have used it to smash glass cupboards and steal museum exhibits! (Or something.)
 
back alley said:
i still remember the sound of my canon p hitting the concrete...
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Happened twice to me. Never a good sound. But easy enough to re-align the RF by yourself at least. :)

(listens for the sound of a dozen mental notes not to buy a Canon P from RD)
 
rogue_designer said:
Happened twice to me. Never a good sound. But easy enough to re-align the RF by yourself at least. :)

(listens for the sound of a dozen mental notes not to buy a Canon P from RD)
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I was tempted to do it myself. The M3 screw I can see, but I was not too sure about the ZI's screw. My buddy thinks his M3 would have survived that fall and been just fine, but he was not willing to let me try it.
 
Speaking of which, nobody has ventured forth with home-brew instructions to adjust the ZI rangefinder, have they? I know there's a fair amount of stuff on the R3A if I should ever feel the need to do so (probably won't), but I don't recall anybody attempting the maneuver on a ZI. Probably because most have still been under warranty, I guess. Or maybe because the R3A is nearly half as expensive, folks feel more bold to tinker with it?
 
Sadly, I can attest to the ease of aligning the Canon P. Mine spilled out onto asphalt landing on the lens the the top plate. Heck of a dent on an otherwise clean body, but it was back in alignment in no time.
 
While packing for my trip to Hawaii my newly purchased Agfa Super Isolette flew out of a backpack and landed on my hardwood floor. It left a pretty good dent on the floor. It was a sickening, helpless feeling. It did have a minor problem but worked well for the trip. Hope your ZI is OK.
 
What I heard once is that if a whack get the RF out of alignment, another will get it back in.

Never tried, though... Now, just sit for a looooong wait. Don must be very busy these days.
 
SolaresLarrave said:
What I heard once is that if a whack get the RF out of alignment, another will get it back in.

Never tried, though... Now, just sit for a looooong wait. Don must be very busy these days.
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I don't mind the wait. I just want it back working as well as it did before I dropped it. My favorite RF is my beloved 51 year old M3 DS. I had it CLA'd about 2 months ago by Youxin Ye. He told me it was in such nice shape that it should go another 15 years before it needs to be CLA'd again. I'll mount my VC 35mm Nokton on it, and continue to tell my story. Had I dropped the M3 DS, I would be out on a ledge somewhere. :)
 
I watched my RD-1 bounce down a flight of stairs! carpeted until the tile floor below. it even bounced around a corner landing.

got the RF re-aligned at Steve's in Los Angeles, the scars from the drop make the camera look tougher.
 
Hi Joe

sorry guys for my ignorance.. what, exactly, went out of aligment? Lines in the viewfinder? What else?

Thanks in advance
 
Hello italy74!

The camera now reads the distance from the camera to the subject inaccurately being off by about 3 or 4 feet. The images no longer line up at infinity either. A friend of mine stood right next to me with his M3 and he would focus on the exact same subject, and when the images lined up in my viewfinder, I was always off by several feet.

Other than the rangefinder being inaccurate, the camera seems fine.

By The way, I love my F5 and 17-35mm F/2.8 too.
 
I forgot to add. My friend no longer wants a ZI because I dropped it. He believes the Leica would have survived that fall with no ill effects. He's now thinking about getting the M6 as opposed to the ZI.

I tried to tell him none of them would have walked away from that fall.
 
Solidarity

Solidarity

I try not to let my friends take their hits alone, so when my Canon P fell on the ice earlier this winter, I fell with it. The P is having it´s rf realigned, my butt still hurts a bit. That´s solidarity for you!:D
 
joebt said:
My favorite RF is my beloved 51 year old M3 DS. [...] I'll mount my VC 35mm Nokton on it, and continue to tell my story.
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Since the M3 is 0.92, do you approximate the framing by using the whole viewfinder? Been wondering about this for a while.
 
joebt said:
I forgot to add. My friend no longer wants a ZI because I dropped it. He believes the Leica would have survived that fall with no ill effects. He's now thinking about getting the M6 as opposed to the ZI.

I tried to tell him none of them would have walked away from that fall.
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Tell him I dropped my M6 from about 3-4 feet up onto hard tile and it's definitely not aligned anymore.
 
The Sofa King--hahahah, now that's what I'm talking about!

His M3 was out of alignment when he got it, so I'm not sure why he has flipped like that all of a sudden.
 
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