cleaning / maintenance of M2

[robh]

Hi all,

This is my first post. I've just acquired a Leica M2 in nice condition after lusting for one for years. I would value your advice re. cleaning & maintenance as I want to use it & not just look at it.

Are the viewfinder & rangefinder windows & viewfinder eye-piece made of glass? Can I safely use microfibre cloth & Zeiss lens-cleaning fluid (contains isopropanol) to clean off fingerprints etc?

Any tips for safely removing marks/fingerprints from the chrome?

Should I store the camera in the humidity-controlled cabinet (35-40% RH) where I keep my lenses, or is low humidity bad for vulcanite or shutter cloth?

Thanks,
Rob

 

[Keith]

I've read that ultra low humidity is not great for lubricants in cameras or shutter curtains. Although my own M2 gets very little use I make a point of picking it up and running through all the shutter speeds once a week and to be honest I don't think much else needs doing mechanically. Fingerprints etc I just wipe off with a soft cloth. The glass in the eyepiece and viewfinder gets no special treatment! 🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

The outside of a Leica is pretty tough and can be cleaned with just about anything: isopropanol for the chrome, any normal glass cleaner for the glass (not the ones that contain silicone, obviously, but anything designed for cleaning lenses). Isoprop will lift a sort of grey-brown deposit from the vulcanite and leave it looking and smelling even funnier, so a water-damped cloth and a drop of detergent (followed by a damp cloth with no detergent) is probably the best bet there.

I keep my Ms in a humidity-controlled cabinet some of the time, when I remember, because I've got one, but really, there's no need to do that except with lenses. Even then, a dry room is all you need unless you live in the tropics or a semi-tropical area (e.g. Bermuda) with VERY high humidity more or less constantly or the room in which you store them is inherently damp -- a cellar, say.

Cheers,

R.

 

[robh]

Keith, greetings from cold, wet Melbourne.

Roger, it's only humid here for maybe 1 - 2 months per year but the cost of the cabinet was only a fraction of the cost of one Leica asph. lens!

Many thanks to you both for advice.

Regards,
Rob

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger, it's only humid here for maybe 1 - 2 months per year but the cost of the cabinet was only a fraction of the cost of one Leica asph. lens!

Dear Rob,

Oh, sure, it's not a bad idea to use one, especially for lenses. All I meant was that it's far from essential in most climates. I only got one about 5 years ago, after 35 years' photography in Bermuda, the UK, California and France. I think I had fungus on one lens in that time.

Cheers,

R.

 

[payasam]

In the 17 years for which I had an M3, it saw nothing more than a damp cloth and a bulb type air blower. Occasionally I would clean out crevices with a damp toothpick.

 

[Keith]

Keith, greetings from cold, wet Melbourne.

Roger, it's only humid here for maybe 1 - 2 months per year but the cost of the cabinet was only a fraction of the cost of one Leica asph. lens!

Many thanks to you both for advice.

Regards,
Rob

I've only been to Melbourne once Rob and it lived up to it's reputation of providing all four seasons in one day! 😛

I keep all my photography gear in a cabinet not perfectly sealed with a 5 watt bulb burning constantly in the bottom ... it provides just enough warmth to keep everything dry and it keeps air flowing through the cabinet. So far no problems with any lenses etc at all but previous to this method I got fungus in the lenses of two Rollieflexes! 🙁

 

[HuubL]

Here in the Netherlands it's pretty humid most of the time 🙂, but I've never bothered about humidity-controlled cabinets or whatever and I've never had problems with fungus in lenses or dried out vulcanite, shutter curtains or threading lubricants. Only one lens ever appeared to have fungus, and that came with a camera I bought from Australia 🙂

 

[robh]

Sounds like I should just relax and enjoy it.

Thanks again to all who responded for your advice.

Regards,
Rob