M2 as smooth as butter

thomasw_ said:
There is sample variation to be sure; I'll bet there is the odd lame duck M2 with which someone somewhere has suffered. But in my experience with four different MPs, the earlier M2/3/4 models are better built and smoother in use. Better VFs (if one picks wisely) and no distracting red-haze-causing LEDs and no plastic; the early Ms were built to higher standards during an era more concerned with quality than the current MP. That said, I thought the MP was the best built of current era 35mm cameras that I have handled.
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Wow four MP bodies over 9 years or less! Why did you keep going back?
 
There is nothing as fine as a slick M2. But the MP does need a few years on it to bed in and start feeling close, which makes sense as I doubt very few of us bought an M2 new so don't know what that felt like. But in use, as opposed to firing a few frames off with an empty camera, they are very similar in quality, so close you'd need to be concentrating on the camera and not the subject of the photograph to notice.
 
V-12 said:
There is nothing as fine as a slick M2. But the MP does need a few years on it to bed in and start feeling close, which makes sense as I doubt very few of us bought an M2 new so don't know what that felt like. But in use, as opposed to firing a few frames off with an empty camera, they are very similar in quality, so close you'd need to be concentrating on the camera and not the subject of the photograph to notice.
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Fair enough. My only new M is the M9. I couldn't get any of the accessory finders to mount and went back to the web to see whether indeed they should. They should, and do, but it's tight. Still not noticeably looser 6 months later. I'll look up this thread in 20 years which is the age of my M2 when I got it.
 
Richard G said:
Fair enough. My only new M is the M9. I couldn't get any of the accessory finders to mount and went back to the web to see whether indeed they should. They should, and do, but it's tight. Still not noticeably looser 6 months later. I'll look up this thread in 20 years which is the age of my M2 when I got it.
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It doesn't take twenty years. I put a couple hundred rolls through my first MP in its first year. It was/is as smooth as any of the M2 bodies I've owned over the years, except one, that being a former newspaper camera that had probably seen no less than 20,000 rolls. Oh yeah, the L seal was missing!
 
V-12 said:
There is nothing as fine as a slick M2. But the MP does need a few years on it to bed in and start feeling close, which makes sense as I doubt very few of us bought an M2 new so don't know what that felt like. But in use, as opposed to firing a few frames off with an empty camera, they are very similar in quality, so close you'd need to be concentrating on the camera and not the subject of the photograph to notice.
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"But in use, as opposed to firing a few frames off with an empty camera, they are very similar in quality, so close you'd need to be concentrating on the camera and not the subject of the photograph to notice."

Words to live by...
 
My M2 is better than my M6 and M7, way better. Better quality build, better control, better handling. It's just better. Not because it's the old one, it's better because that's the fact.
 
Sent my Virgin M2 to YYE yesterday, she will be back as a Women later, I believe.
btw, second version is always my favorite.
 
My M2 is not only smooth as butter, it's always been sharper than my M3. Been serviced together, still it's better.
Leica M is not only the only smooth film advance camera! Smooth as it is, my Nikon F3 is way smoother. In fact, it is so well geared, one is never sure the film is advancing! Have to constantly check the rewind knob, to see if turns!
The Leicas are of course way quieter on shutter release!
 
leicapixie said:
Smooth as it is, my Nikon F3 is way smoother.
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I was still using my first M2 for theatre work when I got a brand new Nikon F3, at the time it seemed a considerable 'investment'. I walked out of the shop wondering what the heck I had done (I already had two F2's that didn't need replacing). But after a few days I was wondering how Nikon could make such a great camera for so little money! And yes you are correct, film advance was smoother than my well serviced M2. Oh no, the curse of Ebay being open 24hrs a day......
 
I've used well over a half dozen M's over 35 years. Including an M2 of unknown CLA history but with good shutter speeds and another one with a fresh CLA. Nothing compares to the MP. The wind is so smooth that it seduces you into taking just one more frame so that you can wind it again. It sure feels like it has brass gears to me. If they are steel then Leica has done a good job of disguising it. However, it just may be that when my MP is 50 years old, it won't be as smooth as an M2. I'd like to be here to find out. All M's are great cameras (including the M4-2), but my M6 feels like a clunker next to the MP. And, of course, this isn't even mentioning the brass plates and knobs of the MP that are slowly, beautifully, emerging from their coat(s) of black paint.
 
In the short space of time, a matter of days, I have become imcredibly attached to my M2, strange really its just an object, and even with film in its so smooth
 
I'm waiting for my M2 to return from Don/DAG...Had major servicing
so I'm psyched to use,see,feel it upon its return
Hope I can swoon like You about Butter , ;)

The M4 is on its way to Dag too...Life is Dreadful without an M
 
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