How much abuse can a mechanical-M REALLY take?

maitrestanley said:
The camera has been out with me in really cold conditions though. For example, I had it out on Monday and Tuesday night, testing high ISO settings on the streets of DT. If I remember correctly, the temperature dropped to -17 at night.
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Mon & Tue was ridiculously cold. It was -22C Tuesday morning before the windchill. Around -20C, you'll have the danger of skin freezing to metal parts - ouch.

I have no doubts about the M's worthiness. Just a caution about what might seem okay that will give you grief later. Corrosion and fungus take a while to develop. You're better off in the dry cold than the wet.

I've done 6-8 hr walks on Tommy Thompson Park aka Leslie Spit in Toronto in the winter with various cameras electronic and manual, and have even dropped a few in the snow and mud. No harm so far, but my apartment is quite dry year round. I usually quit functioning before the cameras do.
 
Interesting stuff. My M4 was thrown against a wall repeatedly, broke the bottom plate and the body shell. I put a roll in and taped the bottom with black gaffer's tape and it worked like a charm. rangefinder was even still in. sent it to sherry krauter for the real fix (new shell, bottom plate, and slow speed adjust). I took this same leica with me to brazil, it went through rain and humidity and hot sun, although that had more of an affect on me, and came through with flying colors.

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.
 
[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.]

Rumour has it that this is a certain cure for a glitchy M8 .... just joking Ted and Jaapv. 😀

My M's all look like they have lead a very sheltered existence, aside from an M2 that looks really rough ... (deluded eBay seller!). I'm thinking of getting that one CLA'd so I can brag about it's adventures ... that it obviously had without me! 😛
 
Kin Lau said:
Mon & Tue was ridiculously cold. It was -22C Tuesday morning before the windchill. Around -20C, you'll have the danger of skin freezing to metal parts - ouch.

I have no doubts about the M's worthiness. Just a caution about what might seem okay that will give you grief later. Corrosion and fungus take a while to develop. You're better off in the dry cold than the wet.

I've done 6-8 hr walks on Tommy Thompson Park aka Leslie Spit in Toronto in the winter with various cameras electronic and manual, and have even dropped a few in the snow and mud. No harm so far, but my apartment is quite dry year round. I usually quit functioning before the cameras do.
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Oh it WAS cold!! : ( I can't wait to develop the photos (haven't had the time. I normally just store many rolls of exposed film in the freezer and batch process them at a later point in time)

When I go out for extended periods, I usually bundle up a lot. The worst is your fingers, followed by toes and face. I used to wear a pair of gloves with the finger tips cut out for easy handling. That was a complete failure - they were too thin to help at all and I was better off not wearing them because they just added to the slip-factor (this was before I bought a neck strap. I did have the M-handgrip but that only helped a bit when wearing gloves).

What I do now is wear said gloves under a pair of the mitts that fold back to expose the fingers (you know, those "smoker mitts"). However, I keep all of my fingers protected under the flap except for the index fingers. I leave them poking out for shutter/lens control and when not needed, I tuck them back under the flap. I finally got a neck strap so I'm not worried about the camera slipping out of my hands anymore.

I remember I was out once with my RTS in mid-January. I had an open house around St. Patrick station in the early evening so I decided to head down a few hours in advance to grab some shots of the winter city around sunset. Boy was that a mistake. I totally chose the wrong type of footwear (I wore a pair of leather mocs - not exactly water proof). I was hoping that it'd be so cold that the snow would be dry but nope: It semi-warmed up that day and temps hovered around zero. The roads and sidewalks were slush. The winds were fierce. An overcast developed and half an hour into my walk, it started to rain/slush. My shoes, socks, and pants around the ankle were completely soaked. My toes felt frozen. It's suffice to say that that was one of my worst photographic experiences of the year so far. I couldn't go home either because I had that open house to attend. The worst part is that I don't even know where that roll of film went -___-"
 
Nando said:
Is that what they call a storm in Toronto?😀
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Haha yeah..

The worst I've ever experienced is in Waterloo. I remember a couple years back, I'd be in the libary studying for finals until maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. When my friend and I would leave, it wasn't unusual for temps to be -40C in the wind (-30 out of the wind). I guess that was for the better because after walking her home, she wouldn't let me leave because it was so cold 🙄

I've never photographed in these conditions though. The worst is probaby... -25 to -28ish in the wind. No snow though.

The worst heat I've photographed in is probably.. 36C with high humidity in the Caribbean.

I was in Spain last summer where temps rose to 42C in certain parts but it was a dry heat and much easier to deal with than humid heat. Oh, I shot all digital there with a tiny, dinky, restrictive P&S - didn't want a dSLR nor could I afford it at the time. Didn't feel like lugging my film SLR system / lenses around either.
 
On another thread, few months ago, i wrote how i built my confidence on M -gear. Here´s a quote of myself:

Bicycle -tour finished. M6 survived. 35 ´cron survived.
I ended up starting the tour without any extra protection for the camera. It was in the handle-bar bag with the other stuff for the whole trip. It now has some more shining in the corners. Eyepiece rattled off once. I crashed twice (nothing too bad, but crashes anyway...). It got some rain on it. It got some sand on it. Everything works 100%. Me like it 😀

The camera hasn´t shown signs of any defect after the tour either. But the poor XA that traveled the same trip has made some nasty noises since it got sand on it.

Niko
 
I don't think I'll be trying the toilet cleaning method with mine anytime soon, haha.

I haven't done anything to the M3 yet, so no stories. Well, my bag fell off a table with it in there, but that doesn't count because I had so much stuff packed in that there wasn't much impact...
Just 20 or so uneventful rolls of film, nothing below 0' or over 65' because it's still winter.
 
Sorry. I got to laugh. What you guys are describing as a stormy or extremely cold day in southern Ontario is basically a typical January of February day up here in the Soo. Its not even that bad over here compared to communities a few hundred kilometres north of us. Its not unusual for me to clear my driveway of 1-foot (or sometimes 2-foot) deep snow, two or three times a day.

Still prefer Canadian winters over Portuguese winters though. At least in Canada, most homes are heated. In a Portuguese winter, it can be 17-18C outside and inside an unheated home it can be as low as 7 or 8C. Not only cold but extremely damp. I once spent 2 weeks in Portugal during my Christmas break a few years ago. I washed the clothes that I wore on the plane the first day I got there. They never dried. In the summers though, up to 40+ like Spain and extremely dry.

So if I was shooting outside every day, my cameras would have to withstand a temperature range of -40 in Canada to +45 in Portugal. Hmmm....
 
Last time in Mongolia I met a man in a museum, He was carrying an M7 or MP IIRC. Camera was scraped and scuffed but working properly. The lens was dinged and dented but also working. Turned out he had to use the camera to beat an irate ninja miner with it, who eventually got hold of the camera and threw it away. Mongolian men are notoriously resistant to pain, especially a beating, so no wonder the Leica couldn't keep him away. But the camera withstood the beating and subsequent throwing away admireably. Nasty thing is that this happened to be a mint MP/M7. It's "worthless" now. 🙂
 
I took my M3 and a Rolleiflex to Hook Head (south easter tip of Ireland) in November. The rain was blowing sideways and the waves were crashing over my head. Both cameras got soaked and carried on working. The only hard part was keeping the lenses clear. The waist level VF really helps in theose conditions.
 
oh oh... it's now a Canadian winter bragfest 😀 where's the Albertans?
 
Cold & snow in NYC , tropical summer in Japan

Cold & snow in NYC , tropical summer in Japan

Wheather seal or not my M6 took everything I took and so far it never let me down. I was in Japan a couple of years ago during a hot and humid summer. The water was running down outside of the window of shops and restaurants with air condition. Five minutes walking around outside had you sweating like a pig. It was never below 27C/82F (at night) and tropical condition during daytime. I climbed Fjui-san and there snow in the crater and blistering winds.
I also took the M6 out in the blizzard in NYC beginning of '06 and besides scraping snow out of the lens hood where is was accumulating I didn't had any problems. I went into a cafe for warming myself up and changing film and heading out again. No issues whatsoever😀 .
 
Nando said:
Sorry. I got to laugh. What you guys are describing as a stormy or extremely cold day in southern Ontario is basically a typical January of February day up here in the Soo. Its not even that bad over here compared to communities a few hundred kilometres north of us. Its not unusual for me to clear my driveway of 1-foot (or sometimes 2-foot) deep snow, two or three times a day.

Still prefer Canadian winters over Portuguese winters though. At least in Canada, most homes are heated. In a Portuguese winter, it can be 17-18C outside and inside an unheated home it can be as low as 7 or 8C. Not only cold but extremely damp. I once spent 2 weeks in Portugal during my Christmas break a few years ago. I washed the clothes that I wore on the plane the first day I got there. They never dried. In the summers though, up to 40+ like Spain and extremely dry.

So if I was shooting outside every day, my cameras would have to withstand a temperature range of -40 in Canada to +45 in Portugal. Hmmm....
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That weather sounds crazy!! Definitely never got any of that in Southern Ont. or Toronto.

I wonder how an M6 would fare in the Arctic 😀


Have you guys seen the photos of the ice storm in __________ where everything was coated with an inch or more of ice? Pretty insane..
 
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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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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It's impressive because my 20+ year old camera can handle what most new-aged cameras cannot and that gives me piece of mind.

btw, people have dropped Leica's without any damage to the vf.. though it isn't a recommended practice 😉
 
maitrestanley said:
It's impressive because my 20+ year old camera can handle what most new-aged cameras cannot and that gives me piece of mind.

btw, people have dropped Leica's without any damage to the vf.. though it isn't a recommended practice 😉
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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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