Even Leica warns to avoid burning holes in the shutter!

[Theo Sulphate]

I'm going to reconduct my experiment more rigorously and for a longer period.

I want to be as objective as I can.

 

[cliveh]

Leica are just covering themselves, a bit like don't put your cat or dog in the microwave.

 

[ic-racer]

The same thing will happen with SLR's and any camera with a focal plane shutter.....with an SLR the focussing screen will be scorched.

I'd like to see that. Can you post a picture of the damaged screen?

 

[lxdude]

I'm going to reconduct my experiment more rigorously and for a longer period.

I want to be as objective as I can.

So to speak...

 

[GregW]

I damaged the curtain on my IIIF with my Summitar. Left it on it's back absentmindedly on a picnic table in direct midsummer sun midday for about 3/4 hr.

 

[blockend]

eBay is full of old rangefinders with damaged curtains, I bought one myself with a scorched curtain. If a lens can set fire to paper, why wouldn't it do the same to rubberised fabric? It just needs the focal length, aperture, sun angle just right and you could probably have the cloth smoking in 10 seconds and alight in 30 secs. Most of the time those factors don't occur for long enough to be a problem.

If in doubt take off the lens on a sunny day, put some newspaper behind it until it focuses a spot and see how many seconds it takes to catch fire.

 

[benjiboy]

My 1930's Zeiss Contax 2 has a vertical running metal shutter with a top speed of 1/1250 sec I don't see why Leica in the intervening eighty odd years couldn't devise something similar.

 

[Huss]

My 1930's Zeiss Contax 2 has a vertical running metal shutter with a top speed of 1/1250 sec I don't see why Leica in the intervening eighty odd years couldn't devise something similar.

Seeing that Leica is still making film cameras with that same old shutter, and Zeiss Contax no longer exists, perhaps it is good they did not devise something similar.

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Seeing that Leica is still making film cameras with that same old shutter, and Zeiss Contax no longer exists, perhaps it is good they did not devise something similar.

I'm not sure that fully encapsulates the reasons why Contax RFs are gone and Leica is still around, i.e. Betamax vs VHS, among other examples out there...

 

[Huss]

Leica are just trying to cover themselves about every eventuality. A bit like don't put your cat or dog in the microwave.

It's interesting how you discount factual occurrences of this happening. Like Richard S who just a few statements above you wrote:
"it happened to me. Leica M body. No longer than a minute tops. It DOES happen. REAL WORLD example. Not theory. Trust me."

So it happened to Richard. And Leica warns about it. And yet you claim it does not exist...

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Ok here's the full details on my experience as I mentioned above of how my Leica M shutter got a hole burned by the sun: I took my M to the golf course to play a round of golf with some friends. I had the 35/2 Biogon lens and the 35/3.5 Elmar (uncoated) with me and interchanged them during the 18 holes. I have the camera in a Luigi half case and strap and wore the camera over my neck between shots. I would place the camera gently onto the grass behind me each time I'd shoot. Upon developing the negs a few days later I discovered on some frames horizontal lines, some with brighter spots at the start of each line, and at first was very confused. I then removed the lens from the M and much to my displeasure found a burned pinhole in the cloth of the shutter. Good news is a tiny amount of liquid black electrical tape sealed the hole and the camera has worked fine thereafter. And because I plan to have my family bury me with this camera I've only affected it's resale value in my afterlife, should there be one.

Bottom line, the camera never sat in a position tilted towards the sun for more than 30-45 seconds tops. I shot both 100 and 400 speed film that day and it was fairly sunny so I'm guess I likely had the lenses set at f/5.6 - F/11 or so.

So take all that for what's worth. Lesson learned: use lens caps, and of course don't lay your Leica M down in such a way as to point the lens towards the sun/sky.

 

[cliveh]

It's interesting how you discount factual occurrences of this happening. Like Richard S who just a few statements above you wrote:
"it happened to me. Leica M body. No longer than a minute tops. It DOES happen. REAL WORLD example. Not theory. Trust me."

So it happened to Richard. And Leica warns about it. And yet you claim it does not exist...

But as a very rare occurrence.

 

[MattKing]

Lesson learned: use lens caps, and of course don't lay your Leica M down in such a way as to point the lens towards the sun/sky.

And on the golf course, keep your head down?

 

[Theo Sulphate]

I'm not sure that fully encapsulates the reasons why Contax RFs are gone and Leica is still around, i.e. Betamax vs VHS, among other examples out there...

The Contax IIa has metal blinds driven by gears rather than cloth straps of the earlier Contaxes; my understanding is that made them very durable, more so than Leica, but they didn't have as much flexibility of adjustment as the two shutter curtains of the Leica.

It's just a guess on my part, but I think the material used by Leica produces a quieter shutter than that of the Contax.

I was going to buy a Contax IIa recently, but one web site scared me off - owning such a camera didn't seem worth the hassle even though they are beautiful.

 

[Sirius Glass]

But as a very rare occurrence.

For others, yes, but if it happens to you it is not a rare occurrence.

 

[tokam]

How about just defocussing the lens when you are not taking shots; i.e set to minimum distance? Would take a bit of discipline and practise.

 

[cliveh]

Even with the lens focused at infinity (it's shortest focal length), the point of focus is behind the blind.

 

[cuthbert]

The Contax IIa has metal blinds driven by gears rather than cloth straps of the earlier Contaxes; my understanding is that made them very durable, more so than Leica, but they didn't have as much flexibility of adjustment as the two shutter curtains of the Leica.

It's just a guess on my part, but I think the material used by Leica produces a quieter shutter than that of the Contax.

I was going to buy a Contax IIa recently, but one web site scared me off - owning such a camera didn't seem worth the hassle even though they are beautiful.

I think in pre-M times the Contax was considered a better RF than a Leica screw mount, and it probably it was...I have two of them, a IIa and a IIIa with a Sonnar 1.5 and a Biogon. I also have a Leica IIIb and the Contax feels stronger, and more advanced. Its shutter was the prototype of all the vertical travelling shutters that later became very popular on SLR.

Of course this changed with the introduction of the M3, Zeiss Ikon for the very well known management problems that went through wasn't capable to make a new and better RF than the IIa, they made prototypes but they were in production.

CZJ abandoned the RF when the Soviets took the production lines of the original II and III to brind them to Kiev, so they decided to focus on the development of SLRs that were pretty much their own creation.

The problem of cloth shutters was very well known, the first Hassleblads had a metal shutter (too advanced for their time) and Canon on the L1 switched from cloth to metal curtains in order to avoid the issue.

 

[paloema]

Agreed. There are a few that are in denial and claim it's an old wives' tale, no matter that there are many that have suffered from this.

 

[Huss]

Agreed. There are a few that are in denial and claim it's an old wives' tale, no matter that there are many that have suffered from this.

And the fact that Leica warns against it! Best just to tune them out.

 

[cuthbert]

Agreed. There are a few that are in denial and claim it's an old wives' tale, no matter that there are many that have suffered from this.

It appears they also forgot about the IIIc "red curtain"

That was a short lived experiment of procuring a material more resilient to sunlight (bought by Kodak before the declaration of war against the USA).

Also, a lot of Soviet cameras have the same problem as unlike Leicas they were used everyday by "common" people without much care.

 

[John Koehrer]

Agreed. There are a few that are in denial and claim it's an old wives' tale, no matter that there are many that have suffered from this.

Hey! I have an old wife & she never told me that.

 

[Ronald Moravec]

When in my younger days, we started fires with a magnifying glass.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

I will reconduct and photograph my experiment as soon as the sun appears ...maybe in July.