How much abuse can a mechanical-M REALLY take?

NB23 said:
Hmm! Nikon f5 found burried deepin 9/11 tragedy, still working, exposed film still kept intact... Camera now in a museum. My old D100 took a hit on the floor, bounced left to right with no damage at all. The list goes on...

Really, plastic is better for impact absorption then any metal. Many new cameras will also last for the longest time.

We all love our Ms but quite frankly, I think this "rain and snow" resistance is pathetic at best... Any camera will last for extremely long. Any.

I'm sorry for not playng along, though...
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First of all, rain and snow is very much different from shocks and impact. Besides, I never made any notion that my M6 can take more physical hits than your plastic, digital system. However, I doubt you can take your digital system out in a -25C storm for more than half an hour without the batteries freezing up on you - and at the same time, the camera.
 
x-ray said:
... The top was torn off, all the vulcanote came off, the bottom was torn off, all the prisms in the RF were broken and two elements came out of the lens and the lens was seperated from the body.
Click to expand...

I think I've seen that one on Ebay - advertised as "minty"
 
I have a rolleiflex from approx. 1938. It does not look like it was sitting on a shelf for seventy years... full of dings and corrosion spots. Still it works. And it produces amazing quality.
Why would a leica be less resistant.
 
NB23 said:
You guys are really impressed by a camera whitstanding some snow, rain, subzero and hot conditions? If my shoes can, a metal camera can, too. No biggie...

Me, what I want to know is if you drop a leica, will the VF get knocked off? The answer is yes, of course.
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Well, my shoes don't have any moving parts...

As far as damage from dropping, I summarized two personal experiences above. An M6 that hit the floor was completely undamaged. An M3 that was wrapped in a sweater and a shirt had the shutter go tango uniform. Flip a coin...?
 
Who's winter is stronger?? ok. I play.
A few days ago i did a not-so-clever scientific experiment having the end result that my shoes can withstand even liquid nitrogen temperature. That's -196 celsius (or -321 F). But i did not move them while frozen (that would have been fatal i guess).
 
Pherdinand said:
Who's winter is stronger?? ok. I play.
A few days ago i did a not-so-clever scientific experiment having the end result that my shoes can withstand even liquid nitrogen temperature. That's -196 celsius (or -321 F). But i did not move them while frozen (that would have been fatal i guess).
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😀

Where'd you get ahold of liquid N2??
 
More relvant to most Leicas; does anyone kow how much loving a Leica can take? I mean wine, cigars and bodily fluids just can't be good for them.
 
Turtle said:
More relvant to most Leicas; does anyone kow how much loving a Leica can take? I mean wine, cigars and bodily fluids just can't be good for them.
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Just fondle them every now and then, and they'll purr like a cat.. Especially the slow speeds that is..
 
maitrestanley said:
Haha yeah..

The worst I've ever experienced ...

The worst heat I've photographed in is probably.. 36C with high humidity in the Caribbean.
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36C? That's a mild summer's day! 😀 Now I wonder where my photos are from the summer of '80, when I travelled with a friend across the Nullabor Plain in 48C temps that continued for several days! My OM10 was doing sterling service on that trip.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mattmills
And, on a separate note, I have a friend who used to fly a seaplane for the Cousteau Society, and he told me that when their leicas would get wet with seawater, they would just put them in the back of the toilets and flush it until it was clear of the salt. Remarkably durable, then, in my exerience.

This is one of the absolutely most brilliant things that have been posted on this thread, yet only Keith reacted!!!

Best,
__________________
Magus.
Click to expand...

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

😀
 
Cold is usually not a problem for cameras, not even digital ones - just use an external battery pack. The problem is when you go from cold to hot. The sound of a cracking lens isn't a good sound....luckily I have only heard it on my brothers camera.
The following picture: http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=57940&ppuser=5327 was taken on a 6 hour ski-trip in -17 C in humid conditions. I have no clue what the windchill was... The picture was take a couple of miles from the fjord and the atlantic ocean.
The pictures found in the following link: http://www.fjellforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=7840 was taken with a Olympus E-1. As you can see the digital E-1 had no problem working even without an external batterypack. I also brought my M6, but it was resting for the whole trip - the light was too dull for b/w!
 
maitrestanley said:
😀

Where'd you get ahold of liquid N2??
Click to expand...

I was refilling a cryostat at our labs and the pipe was leaking as usual, but this time on my shoes. When i started to feel the cold on my toes, i realized what's happening but the shoe itself was already frozen...so i had to take it off carefully not to crack it.
Normally it'snot a problem, you can hold liquid N2 in your hands for a few seconds, since it boils at the contact with the skin and forms a not very cold gas layer in between (like water drops on a very hot iron plate) but the shoe got soaked a bit.
 
equalizer said:
I recently bought an M6...
just wondering...

how many clicks can an M6 shutter suffer before it dies???
Click to expand...

Try it! Empirical data beats any of the guess work we see so much. 🙂
 
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