Purchasing a Poor-Man's Leica Soon

dugrant153 said:

I was in the market for a usable second Leica M but found that the ones I looked at were all tattered or would require expensive CLA's. As I had invested in M mount lenses, I wanted a compatible "poor man's leica" body.

I started thinking Canon P for screw mount lenses... but eventually found a Leica CL in pretty good condition. Horizontal RF was out of whack but fixed it pretty quickly (Hopefully). You're right in that it has it's short comings and it is not in the same calibre as a Leica M in many ways... but it is powerful in it's own right. The small size also makes me nearly invisible on the streets... combined with a semi-wide lens and I'm good to go.

Congrats on the Leica CL. Love mine thus far.

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Very true, I love this little Leica. It's now my everyday's camera.

Fujica V2 .I found one for 5 bucks, shutter gunked up. The Damn camera is so beautiful, so I sent it in to my little camera repairman. $125 later it works perfectly. Has shutter priority auto, but I just shoot in manual. Has an f1.8 lens that takes 52mm filters.
I had 3 beautiful Leicas, I was afraid to use them. Didn't want to ding or scratch, and quite frankly 35mm is to small of a negative.
I have 6x9 Fuji rangefinders too, now that is perfect.

I own a QL17 and a Revue 400 which are both amazing cameras, but I've since bought an LTM Bessa R with a Jupiter 8 for now and the others get left on the shelf.

Although it's no Leica (a friend has an R4), there's no substitute for that feeling of complete control. The viewfinder is in a whole different league to the fixed lens pair, and the experience on the whole is one of both feeling like you're learning, while simultaneously giving you complete artistic control (I say that but I'm awful having only started 35mm last year).

The Bessa cost me £200 in mint condition. My black QL17 goes for 250+ on ebay regularly. The Revue is a stunner of a bargain as it's still a bit of a sleeper.
My advice for what it's worth, get a Bessa and a used lens. Canon or Jupiter for b&w, Voigtlander for colour.

I haven't looked back. I love the thing...

Please forgive this slight thread derail:

Does anyone know how a Leica CL meter would behave if the metering diode/electronics were shot?

A friend has bought a very clean CL and lenses at a good price but the match-needle just sits static in the middle regardless of light/time/aperture. This is with a fresh px625 battery.

Again sorry this is off-topic. I can't seem to find a generic repair-troubleshooting thread for camera bodies.

Mynewcolour: a simple Google search shows this question has been asked in the past on many other forums, including the rangefinder forum. You might want to check those threads. There are also many Youtube videos showing how to repair selenium cell meters, which is often fairly trivial if you're comfortable with attempting the disassemble/reassemble. Bear in mind Leicas have many factory adjustments and disassembly may throw those out of whack!

Lastly, there are several meter repair specialists out there. Google again, or search the camera forums (not just this one). Good luck!

seezee said:

a simple Google search shows this question has been asked in the past on many other forums, including the rangefinder forum.

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Ok thanks. The question is specific (to clarify): How does the match-needle behave once the meter has failed?

I've not managed to find that info so thought I'd ask in my preferred photo forum. All help hugely appreciated.

I wish I had the answer to your specific question, but I don't. You'll probably get better results by opening a new thread with a well-written title, and cross-posting to the Leica and rangefinder forums. Try the Leica Flickr groups as well. Cheers & luck to you,

mynewcolour said:

Ok thanks. The question is specific (to clarify): How does the match-needle behave once the meter has failed?

I've not managed to find that info so thought I'd ask in my preferred photo forum. All help hugely appreciated.

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Is Mr Seezee responding to you? You asked about a CL. He is writing about YouTube videos on selenium meter. In USA, Sherry Krauter or Don Goldberg may be the only technicians who can repair a CL.

Kodachromeguy said:

Is Mr Seezee responding to you? You asked about a CL. He is writing about YouTube videos on selenium meter. In USA, Sherry Krauter or Don Goldberg may be the only technicians who can repair a CL.

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Named so yes. The meter isn't a selenium type but there are some YouTube vids showing CL meter repairs.

My friend is happy to use a hotshoe meter. We're just not actually sure if, or in what way the CL is broken. Thanks.

Agfa Optima 1535 Sensor

mynewcolour said:

Please forgive this slight thread derail:

Does anyone know how a Leica CL meter would behave if the metering diode/electronics were shot?

A friend has bought a very clean CL and lenses at a good price but the match-needle just sits static in the middle regardless of light/time/aperture. This is with a fresh px625 battery.

Again sorry this is off-topic. I can't seem to find a generic repair-troubleshooting thread for camera bodies.

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That depends on how it has failed. I don't have any experience with the CL and can't say for sure how the metering system works, but on many cameras that I do have experience with, if the needle just sits motionless in the middle, it's often a battery issue. If replacing the battery didn't help, then the next most likely problem would be dirty contacts on the battery connectors, or a loose wire connecting to them. This is especially true if a battery ever leaked in there. Usually this is caused by power from the battery not reaching the light metering circuit. That's usually caused by some corrosion or a loose wire internally. Another common problem is a leaky electrolytic capacitor, if there are any. They're commonly used due to their cheap price and compact size but often have short life spans. Unfortunately, there could be a ton of places where something went wrong that would cause the same thing, so if cleaning the battery contacts doesn't fix it, you'll likely have to have someone with electronics knowledge take a look at it. They're not crazy, complex circuits, but it's also not a good item to learn on.

You're lucky it's not a selenium type. Those are often unrepairable these days. They're very simple designs, but if that selenium cell goes out, you're going to have a huge issue finding a new one that works properly to replace it with since they haven't made those in decades. One of these days I'm going to get around to experimenting with replacing them with various silicon cells and filters to compensate for the different response curves. Or not. I've got a lot of projects on the back burner as it is.

Right thread placement! CL is poor Leica indeed. With dead exposure meters as common failure. I think, only Sherry is willing to touch them now.

jim10219 said:

if the needle just sits motionless in the middle, it's often a battery issue. If replacing the battery didn't help, then the next most likely problem would be dirty contacts on the battery connectors, or a loose wire connecting to them.

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Great knowledge. Thanks.

I gather the design of the CL meter, with moving arm parts, makes fatigue in a wire or solder or something more likely.

Thanks again. We have a starting point and some options now as to how we proceed.