Is this a write off?

Richard Marks said:
Keith why is it a necessity that it should fracture for a digital camera?
I have to disagree that this is no reflection on Leica. If you look at the slot in the base plate that inserts into the elevated lug on the left side of the body, the thickness of metal on the upper aspect of the slot is about 1mm. Its just not enough if the camera is tripod mounted as the whole weight of the camera and lens (and possibly even flash gun) is enough to tear it very easilly. Just compare it with the film design. Clearly that 'heal' on the baseplate evolved for a reason.

I am not blaming Leica for the fact that I was caught out by a sudden gust of wind at the top of a big hill. I do agree that the 'planets were in the wrong position etc.' but a good design should be able to take a little adversity in its stride. Leica are keen to appeal to the pro market. Professional equipmment should be able to take the knocks as often one is working very quickly to get shots and safety of equipment (and even self) may be secondary to getting the images. A film M definately meets this. Im now not so sure about the M8. Do not get me wrong I adore my M8 and sold every other bit of camera gear i own to acquire it. I am simply objective about my experiences, give credit where its due, and keen to point out limitations of design for future improvement. Defending something that is inherently badly designed does not do Leica or its customers any long term favours.

I think I will stay in doors today!


Richard
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Sorry not 'necessary' ... I didn't mean it to sound like it was deliberate. :p

Over the years I have dealt a lot with magnesium alloys and as good as they are in some areas they also have failings. As I said I supect the material was chosen for it's ability retain accuracy under thermal extremes but it does tend to be brittle. Any other M would have bent the material rather than broken it but it's hard to label it as poor design from my point of view. Car wheels are a classic example ... if a genuine magnesium wheel clouts a gutter or even a very large pothole it may break which is a huge safety issue ... yet it's acceptable in a competition environment.

I guess maybe Leica should have chosen a material with more give in it but then it may not have had the rigidity required to keep the sensor etc exactly where it needs to be in relation to the lens mount under stress. It is a bit of a trade off and I do think you were extremely unlucky ... hopefully you won't be out of pocket! I do know that I'll be watching my M8 very carefully when tripod mounted on windy days :eek: ... don't most tripods have the facility to hang a counter weight from the underneath of the centre column?

I read somewhere that the chassis of the M8 is made in Portugal ... the company that makes it is renowned for their expertise in casting and machining of magnesium alloys. :)
 
Keith
Thanks. I understand.
I am just thinking how this can be improved. Some posters have suggested that the tripod mount is part of the chasis. Perhaps the baseplate itself would then have a central hole and the 'pod would actually mount onto the chasis. (there is a recess inside the body which could be threaded) The alternative is to make the baseplate so it tears off very easilly without pulling a piece of the magnesium body off with it, and have cheaply replaceable base plates.

If we accept that the body must be made from magnesium (for what ever putative reason) it needs to be thicker.

I will of course make this point to leica when sending them my camera. lets see what happens!

Richard
 
Trying to be more cheerful (!!), to me it looks as though you just need another base-plate and a rangefinder check. Surely the baseplate doesn't have to be lighttight when there is no film roll in there, so having a bit missing is not so bad. It may well be that the slightly weaker fitting for the baseplate is the fail-point which is designed in to reduce damage to the relatively brittle body parts.

So far as the tripod mount goes, I would have considered attaching it to the main casting with a deliberately "weak" method (tiny screws instead of big ones for example) in order to provide some protection in case of extreme impact but, as it is now, the baseplate fixing does this job.

EDIT: Sorry Richard, looks like we posted the remark about designing in points-of-failure at the same time.
 
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God ... I can see what will happen. It will be like the auto industry ... we'll have cameras with 'crumple zones' even air bags! :p
 
MartinP said:
Trying to be more cheerful (!!), to me it looks as though you just need another base-plate and a rangefinder check. Surely the baseplate doesn't have to be lighttight when there is no film roll in there, so having a bit missing is not so bad. It may well be that the slightly weaker fitting for the baseplate is the fail-point which is designed in to reduce damage to the relatively brittle body parts.

So far as the tripod mount goes, I would have considered attaching it to the main casting with a deliberately "weak" method (tiny screws instead of big ones for example) in order to provide some protection in case of extreme impact but, as it is now, the baseplate fixing does this job.

EDIT: Sorry Richard, looks like we posted the remark about designing in points-of-failure at the same time.
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Martin
Replacing the baseplate would not be so bad. The problem is it has torn a piece of the magnesium body as well! The roof of the thin slot sheared off fairly easilly, but at the other end of the plate where the locking mechanism is, the base plate did not shear and it took out a bite of the M8 body instead!

The base plate does not need to be light tight. In fact other than Leica's ironic attempts to make it feel like a film M the baseplate could be completely solid. All that is needed is a cover for the battery and SD card. It need not be that big.

Best wishes

Richard
 
Much sympathy Richard! The wind is a cruel mistress. It got the better of me the other day as well. I was out on a lake here in Iceland and the wind was really howling. I was using a Rollei 6008AF and 180mm 2.8 Schneider. This weighs at least 10 pounds. It is like a brick with a coffee can glued on front:
6008af.jpg


Nevertheless, the wind blew it over, lens first (no filter) into gravel. Amazingly, the gravel slowed it down a bit I guess and there was a metal screw in hood on it. The hood is scraped up and there is a scrape or two on the lens body, but everything else seems to be working fine. Luckily no damage to the glass. But it sure did teach me a lesson. Even if your camera weighs 10+ pounds, that does not mean the wind won't blow it over!

Anyway, I agree with you about the Leica baseplate. It was a novel idea, but it just does not make any sense anymore. The attachments do seem less secure than they were with the film version.
 
After all, this camera was not produced to a price point.
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What makes you say that? As far as I am aware, it was produced to be under US 5000 at release.
 
Stuart
Glad to see that your lens is OK. Thank goodness for the lens hood!

Regarding price ad build quality, I am sure corners were cut. If you think about it an M7 with motor winder would cost around £2,400 and the M8 started at £2,990. Clearly the new digital sensor and electronics would not have been cheap and presumably there were huge R and D costs to make the 'impossible' digital rangefinder.

Regarding the idea that it must look and feel like a film M, Im not so sure it has to be identical to the letter. I mean why not make the battery look like a roll of Tri x!! I expect Leica to introduce improvements with advancing technology whilst retaining those things which are proven.

Perhaps we should have one of our sites famous votes on Fixed vs removable M8 base!

Regards

Richard
 
sitemistic said:
So they compromised the quality of the casting to hold down costs on a $5,000 camera? Or to maximize profit? Leica hasn't built cameras in the past like they had a price point in mind. That suggests compromise, and that wasn't the position of the old Leica. Although it does seem that with the M6, Leica started compromising.
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I doubt they were saying, "Let's make the baseplate cheap so that we can charge less than 5000 bucks." More likely, they were saying, "Well, how can we incorporate an SD card and battery slot into the basic M camera body? What are we removing? No more film, pressure plate and winding system. Well, why not put the battery where the film went, the SD card near the pressure plate. M users are already used to a removeable baseplate so it will not be a big stretch for them. We kill two birds with one stone." Unfortunately, the baseplate is not as strong as it could be, but I think that is more an engineering oversight than an outright cost-cutting measure.

As for the built to a price point bit...everything is. Whether it is for the space program, IKEA, Rolls Royce or Leica. The price point may be higher or lower, but they are always built to a price point. If you don't know your market and what you can charge, your business is not going to last very long.
 
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Keith said:
I can see what will happen. It will be like the auto industry ... we'll have cameras with 'crumple zones' even air bags! :p
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Air-bags . . . thats a great idea !! It would also help if you were in a small boat and dropped the camera over the side, with a suitably dual-purpose trigger for the air-bags of course. And this would be ideal for PJ's covering sinking ships etc - the camera could be self-rescuing. For the after-sales market maybe a small addition to Luigi's (spelling ?) fine cases could be developed. One litre of water weighs a kilogram, so what volume will the protection/flotation bag need for an M-series camera, in order that it will float ?

Where can we find a manufacturer in time for Christmas . . .
;)
 
Dear Fred

The casing is marginally thicker on my M6 but it is also reinforced at the curved edges. The wider body of the M8 may also mean that the curve is less stable at the ends and should be thicker. The metal itself looks to be thinner than on my M6 but its composition is probably more the important factor. It feels more 'bendy' than the m6.

All of the precautions that you suggest are much appreciated. The hill that i climbed up (steep 1300m) would have been even worse with sandbags. I do not fancy keeping the strap of the camera round my neck whilst its on a tripod. Obviously one should never leave a camera unattended ..... but this really was just about to change lenses and it really was a split second. I am not sure that your suggestions are entirely realistic. The ground temeperature was 1 degree c but the wind took the temperature quite a bit below freezing. probably a bit different to the studio!!

I am not trying to blame any one for this misshap, and did not require a lecture on camera safety, its just that this particular aspect of the M8's design does seem somewhat inferior to its film based siblings. If it can be improved, it should be!

One the subject of Magnesium, it is a metal subject to metal fatigue, and the amount on the upper aspect of the base plate slot is pretty thin. I would not be suprised to find that it does get quite a bit of stress on it just using the camera on a tripod routinely and it may be that eventually just a small knock may be enough to tear it. This is what we really need to think about.

Best wishes


Richard
 
Richard Marks said:
...Professional equipmment should be able to take the knocks as often one is working very quickly to get shots and safety of equipment (and even self) may be secondary to getting the images. A film M definately meets this. Im now not so sure about the M8. Do not get me wrong I adore my M8 and sold every other bit of camera gear i own to acquire it. I am simply objective about my experiences, give credit where its due, and keen to point out limitations of design for future improvement. ...
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I feel your pain. My MacBook "Pro" is a great computer although it’s the most delicate portable I've ever owned.
Regards,:rolleyes:
 
This is the 3rd or 4th time I have heard of this happening, the bottom plate is a serious design flaw. Lets hope Leica gets the picture. In the mean time....are you taking notes Voigtlander/Zeiss?
 
I use a tripod with a hook on the bottom of the center column. I hang my camera bag on the hook and it does make a difference when it is blowy.
 
I have received an e-mail from a fellow user who referred me to the LUF thread May 2007 entitled "base plate failure". Interestingly the point where the tear in the body has occured is in exactly the same place as mine. (The photo looks identical!!). I think this rather supports the notion that there is a design flaw because in this instance there was no history of trauma and it was concluded to be the result of metal fatigue. From a legal point of view if the same problem occurs in the same place on multiple occasions, and does not occur with other models performing in similar circumstances, its faulty (UK sale of goods act)! Can any one recall this relating to film M's?

Richard
 
Dear Fred
Apology accepted. Nothing at all wrong with making those points if it helps some one else.
Glad to see you have changed your view from "cant blame it on the design".
I am actually more concerned about metal fatigue than accidental damage as the former occuring out of warranty (say 2 or 3 years down the line) could prove expensive if not terminal. I do agree with you that the socket should be connected to something stronger. Its a bit like towing a trailer connected to the boot (US ? Trunk) rather than a towbar on a car chasis.

Incidentally Stuart R's experience with the Rolleiflex is interesting, easilly 3 Kg of camera blown down in strong winds and nothing dropped off!

Best wishes


Richard
 
Richard Marks said:
Incidentally Stuart R's experience with the Rolleiflex is interesting, easilly 3 Kg of camera blown down in strong winds and nothing dropped off!

Best wishes


Richard
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Not off the camera anyway....I think I might have lost a bit of weight from it though. :eek:
 
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