I just bought a new M6, and I ran one roll through the camera and noticed that the frame counter wasn't keeping tracking of shot I was taking. I thgouht I had loaded film incorrectly in it, so I loaded a second roll and the same thing happened. Am I doing something wrong or is the camera defective?

-- Joel Feliciano (bastos18@hotmail.com), December 10, 2000

Answers

How do you know that the film *was* loaded correctly? It's not terribily obvious. For a while after I got my M6, I had a hard time loading film. I was never quite certain if I'd got it right. I realized after watching the Leica expert at my local camera shop (Glazer's in Seattle) that the film wasn't sitting far enough down in the camera and wasn't easily catching on the take-up sprockets.

Good luck.

Fergus

-- Fergus Hammond (fhammond@adobe.com), December 10, 2000.

I knew the film was loaded properly because I took up the slack of the film with the rewinder.

-- Joel Feliciano (bastos18@hotmail.com), December 10, 2000.

As we all know, too well, the counter doesn't tell you if the film is loaded correctly or inocrrectly--it just does it's own thing independent of everything except for counting the times you move the wind lever a full stroke. If the bottom is on the camera and the counter wasn't moving ahead one number every time you wound the film, something is broken.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), December 10, 2000.

The frame counter operates whether or not there is film in the camera, and whether or not the film is loaded correctly. I think you have a defective camera. Exchange it.

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), December 10, 2000.

I have read of a problem with early M42 frame counters. It seems the disc was distorted and could not turn freely and had to be repaired. I suspect the top will have to come off and hope you are covered by Warranty. Get a "hands on" expert opinion (or two) from a repair person knowledgeable about Leica M before contacting Leica.

-- Michael D. Johnson (mdjohnsonphoto@hotmail.com), December 12, 2000.