Shooting M8 with Catastrophic Failure of 21mm Elmarit

[LeicaMSeattle]

I was out shooting yesterday with a recently purchased M8 and 21mm Elmarit lens that I bought new a few years ago. In less than a hour, the aperture ring stiffened up to the point where you couldn't feel the dedents when turned. The focus ring, silky smooth moments earlier had just stopped at a quarter rotation. The aperture ring will turn but barely, so I immediate changed lenses and will be sending it in to Leica for their immediate attention. I am baffled to say the least to how a lens of this calibur just suffered this failure.
I take great care of my equipment, using it normally sometimes daily, but never abused.

Has anyone experienced anything like this with your Leica lenses?

 

[Ahmed Poltroon]

Sounds like a particle got into it or a metal shaving came loose in the lens.

 

[jaapv]

Both the aperture ring AND the focus ring blocked you say?😱
Foreign matter must have entered the lens. Dust or sand. Or was it very cold and was the lens full of condensation? In that case it could have simply frozen up.

 

[LeicaMSeattle]

Interesting, I'm quite meticulous when it comes to my equipment, It's blown out regularly and inspected before each shoot, coming from 25+ years of experience. It just strikes me as odd. I'm overnighting it to Leica and will test their ability to turn the lens around. I'm a member of other camera professional services but not yet a member of Leica's. I'll be sure to post the results of all of this.

 

[jaapv]

I would be very interested to know what actually happened.

 

[EricMoMo]

I had the similar experience with my 35/1.4 ASPH last November when I was shooting in about 1-7 degree celsius in Japan. But it was only the distance ring that was locked. I had a feeling that it could be caused by very cold temperature condensing the lubricant inside. I could only rotate the distance ring to and from the near end but not to the infinity end. After 10 mins of trying without putting too much force, it was released and the whole throw was turnable. But the front part of the lens seemed to have loosen from the rotation.
The interesting thing was, when I took it to Schmidt, Hong Kong's sole distributor, asking if they could fix the loosening of the front part. They said the lens was okay and slight loosening was normal in many lenses. Knowing clearly how my lens should feel in years, I then took it to an individual technician in Central, Hong Kong. The man immediately spotted the loosening was abnormal and should be fixed. And finally got it fixed within a week.

 

[Ken Shipman]

Never seen that, but sometimes blowing out with compressed air can instead blow a particle deeper into the device, so it's risky. Can't think of anything that would affect both aperture and focus though. Strange. Good luck with the repair.

 

[mikenic]

Maybe this?

Maybe this?

I had a related problem with a Noctilux (f1 version).

A grub screw on the aperture adjusting barrel had worked loose (or not fitted correctly?). So the screw head was randomly binding under the focus ring. The grub screw in question goes through (and is part of) the aperture selection ring.

This meant that, under certain conditions, especially when I focussed toward infinity, the lens would change aperture (toward closed) as the focussing ring moved up the lens. It may not be your particular problem, but boy it had me underexposing something chronic and I couldn't for the life of me understand why.

The lens was returned for repair and all good since. 🙂

Hehe .... Nocti owners beware 😱
An undocumented special feature perhaps?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

This is why "cost cutting" is actually more expensive than spending the money to do things right. Companies that are forced to cut costs for the "shot term" shoot themselves on the foot long term.

I hope that industries and countries with a good tradition for quality craft stop snorting on the lure of "cheap" labor and costs and go back to their craft for what it's worth.

Slow but steady wins the race. Steroids kill you.

 

[gfspencer]

Interesting, I'm quite meticulous when it comes to my equipment, It's blown out regularly and inspected before each shoot, coming from 25+ years of experience.

When you thought you were blowing out maybe you were blowing in.

 

[LeicaMSeattle]

The lens should have arrived at Leica, Thanks for all of your input. I've been a photog too long to know how not to further embed granular debris into a lens, possible but highly unlikely. Mikenic's experience sounds more plausible, as my aperture ring started to go bad before the focus ring did, and then everything just locked up. I'll be sure to share my findings and the Leica remedy.

 

[LeicaMSeattle]

Ok, the saga continues...My lens was received at Leica a week ago now and has just gone through an assessment process where Sarah Mayville informed me of what was needed to happen for $225.00. I further explained the circumstances prior to the lens failure where she will now be talking with the tech that actually looked at the lens tomorrow and get back with me with the precise cause of the failure. I was also thinking about having the lens coded since it was at the facility. Interesting as I'm a member of Nikon Pro Services and can usually get a piece sent in, repaired and returned within a week to week and a half. We'll see how long it'll take.

I thought this was fair. We agreed that Leica will repair the lens and do the encoding for $300 and that they would attempt to expedite the service so that I might receive it the second week of March.