How common is shutter failure?

[KeithCostin]

Hi All,
This happened about 2 weeks ago. I had only gone through one roll of film when my R3M's shutter jammed up, so I returned it to the vendor and got a replacement. This time, I got through about 5 rolls before pretty much the exact same thing happened again (except this time the shutter seems to be stuck uncocked). I recognize that sometimes these things happen, but twice in a row and each time with a lifespan of less than 72 hours? Was Cosina's entire quality-control team on vacation that day? I'm curious, how many people have experienced this problem with brand-new Bessa cameras? How did you end up resolving the problem? It seems there are multiple ways the problem can manifest AND multiple fixes ranging from "camera surgery" to "smack it really hard".

Happy shooting! (if your camera works...)

 

[brachal]

I bought my first R used in 2004, and another R new in 2006. Both get pretty regular use, and I've never had a problem. Sorry to hear yours have been so bad.

 

[kbg32]

If you are constantly keeping pressure on the advance lever, between shots, you can jam the camera. Just something you may be unaware of.....

 

[KeithCostin]

That might have been the cause of my first camera's malfunction, but I can't be sure. I think I might have pulled the lever out just a bit so I could turn the shutter speed dial more easily, but I wasn't putting any real pressure on it. With the second body I made sure never to do that. It almost certainly wasn't the cause of the second failure.

 

[pvdhaar]

A couple of years back, there was somewhat of a surge of various Bessa models with shutter failure (I was one amongst them with a broken model-T). After some discussion, there seemed to be a common denominator.. turning the advance lever while the shutter sequence isn't completely finished. When this happens, a mechanical coupling slips off of a pin, and your shutter/advance won't work anymore.

Someone even showed a picture of an R with the bottom cover removed to show what happened..