Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
I too would love to see what the OP came back with.
I was independent-duty combat camera with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4. When I deployed to Iraq in August 2004, I took my M2 + Tom A Rapidwinder (3/300), with 3 lenses. After about 2 weeks I realized that I couldn't change lenses, so I called up KEH & bought the best M4 they had. I had them ship it in a small box packed inside a small refrigerator-sized box and then just said God willine, it will get here. It did and the big box was shaped a bit like a ball, but the camera was perfect.
I shot almost exclusively with a 28mm Kobalux on the M2 and 50 DR Summicron on the M4. Rarely touched my 90mm Elmar.
The light there was intense enough that Plus-X was my fast film & it would push my cameras to 1/1000 at f/16 easily. I was grateful for late October when it got cloudier and the season changed from boiling hot to frigid desert cold. I had 2 bricks of Pan-F there as well, 20 rolls of slide film and a few rolls of some faster emulsions.
While working outside camp in Al Anbar province in early October, I dove to the ground because of an incoming 122mm rocket. Stripped the M4 winder shaft and it was out for the count. I figured there's no Leica repair in Iraq and I wanted a 2nd camera body so with the help of one of our machinists I rebuilt the camera after having a few brass pieces turned and press fit.
After that I took both cameras into Fallujah in November right behind the 1/8 Marines. The cameras survived 1 week of constant urban combat, out on patrol, never getting a rest. It was coated with crap by the time I made it back to camp then two more weeks of constant patrols. The Navy issued Nikon D2h with 24-120 lens did not fare so well. (After only a month, that lens was no longer autofocus and I mostly used a 50mm f/1.8 AIS on the digital.)
On movement back to the states in 2005 I was in Spain for 2 weeks to work with AFRTS and compile all the visual data from our deployment. On one day off work I slipped off a jetty into the Bay of Cadiz and the M4 got soaked with seawater. That was it. 2 days later it locked up and when I got home it went off for repair and CLA. It's since been to Sherry K. for a quadruple bypass of sorts. New curtains, straps, springs, beamsplitter, CLA and M2 advance lever.
Still have the M4 and the DR Summicron but the M2 and winder got sold after I got home (yeah, I know that was a bad decision).
So, the M bodies in Iraq don't necessarily turn into junk. I took those cameras to hell for 6 months and they worked perfectly (until the incidents I described above.) You can trust that old M film camera to bring home the shots and keep working for sure, just keep one lens on it.
Phil Forrest
I was independent-duty combat camera with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4. When I deployed to Iraq in August 2004, I took my M2 + Tom A Rapidwinder (3/300), with 3 lenses. After about 2 weeks I realized that I couldn't change lenses, so I called up KEH & bought the best M4 they had. I had them ship it in a small box packed inside a small refrigerator-sized box and then just said God willine, it will get here. It did and the big box was shaped a bit like a ball, but the camera was perfect.
I shot almost exclusively with a 28mm Kobalux on the M2 and 50 DR Summicron on the M4. Rarely touched my 90mm Elmar.
The light there was intense enough that Plus-X was my fast film & it would push my cameras to 1/1000 at f/16 easily. I was grateful for late October when it got cloudier and the season changed from boiling hot to frigid desert cold. I had 2 bricks of Pan-F there as well, 20 rolls of slide film and a few rolls of some faster emulsions.
While working outside camp in Al Anbar province in early October, I dove to the ground because of an incoming 122mm rocket. Stripped the M4 winder shaft and it was out for the count. I figured there's no Leica repair in Iraq and I wanted a 2nd camera body so with the help of one of our machinists I rebuilt the camera after having a few brass pieces turned and press fit.
After that I took both cameras into Fallujah in November right behind the 1/8 Marines. The cameras survived 1 week of constant urban combat, out on patrol, never getting a rest. It was coated with crap by the time I made it back to camp then two more weeks of constant patrols. The Navy issued Nikon D2h with 24-120 lens did not fare so well. (After only a month, that lens was no longer autofocus and I mostly used a 50mm f/1.8 AIS on the digital.)
On movement back to the states in 2005 I was in Spain for 2 weeks to work with AFRTS and compile all the visual data from our deployment. On one day off work I slipped off a jetty into the Bay of Cadiz and the M4 got soaked with seawater. That was it. 2 days later it locked up and when I got home it went off for repair and CLA. It's since been to Sherry K. for a quadruple bypass of sorts. New curtains, straps, springs, beamsplitter, CLA and M2 advance lever.
Still have the M4 and the DR Summicron but the M2 and winder got sold after I got home (yeah, I know that was a bad decision).
So, the M bodies in Iraq don't necessarily turn into junk. I took those cameras to hell for 6 months and they worked perfectly (until the incidents I described above.) You can trust that old M film camera to bring home the shots and keep working for sure, just keep one lens on it.
Phil Forrest
