Hi All- I was just travelling in Egypt and, while at an airport, a customs agent dropped my M6 from ~1.5 feet onto a hard floor - the camera was in a Zing case. I was lucky to get out of this place actually - another story (difficult travel, egypt). All persoanl anguish aside, what i notice now is that the focus is a tad bit tight in one area, but that the rangefinder is still perfectly aligned and there doesn't appear to be anything else wrong with the camera.

My present concern is that the lens alignment may be off, but I have no proof of this, just suspect. Camera is otherwise fine, no apparent body damage. Makes me a bit mad as the Leica is supposed to be tougher than this, I thought, capable of being taken anywhere. My Leica passport warrantees are still intact, 2 more years to go.

Thoughts? Thanks..

Peter

-- peter demenocal (peterNYC7@hotmail.com), May 20, 2001

Answers

Sure. Send it right away to Leica. That's what you paid extra for a US Passort model for.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), May 20, 2001.

"Makes me a bit mad as the Leica is supposed to be tougher than this, I thought, capable of being taken anywhere. "

It is - you took it to Egypt.

How tough would you _like_ your camera to be?

It seems pretty miraculous to me that the rangefinder is still aligned. 1.5 feet onto a concrete floor is a pretty hefty deceleration for a precision instrument to be subjected to.

-- rob appleby (rob@robertappleby.com), May 20, 2001.

>Makes me a bit mad as the Leica is supposed to be tougher than this<

I think you story is an endorsement of the M's ability to come through when the going gets tough! I imagine if it had been a newer Nikon or Canon it would have been renered inoperable after that kind of drop!

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), May 20, 2001.

Not quite, Jack. My FM2 has gone all over the Atacama Desert in the back seat of a truck and fell down much more times than reasonable with NO problems though it was in a soft case only or with no case at all and with a heavy 70/210 lens attached. The same is true regarding my (ex) F601 which now belongs to my son and still performs flawlessly. It is not that I think this is a proper way to use cameras but I think a modern Leica wouldn't suffer much from that incident, less so if it was in a case ... and, please be aware that I love Leicas but Nikons seem to be strong cameras too. Anyhow, Peter: I trust the Passport will work to your advantage. Good luck !! Iván

-- Ivan Barrientos (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), May 20, 2001.

I dropped my 90mm Summicron R straight onto the sidewalk from waist height or higher - fearfulk thunk and a chip taken out of the aperture ring - perfect otherwise. But similar drop for a fat Tele_Elmarit 90mm. Terrible. Helical screwed up (forgive the pun). Not really economic to repair - sold it for parts (the exterior was fine).

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), May 21, 2001.

The old Wild Leitz plant in Midland Ontario had a drop station for for lens drop test. At that time, all Leitz lenses were tested to withstood impact force of 100 g

Leica may have quietly discontinued this 100 g drop load requirement or lowered it to "remarkly high"

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), May 21, 2001.

My Canon EOS A2 with 80-200 f2.8L lens attached fell several feet from the seat of my Ford F-250 four-wheel-drive pickup to a hard road surface. The damage was a half-inch crack in the baseplate. I never bothered to have it repaired, and two years later it's still going strong.

-- Dave Jenkins (djphoto@vol.com), May 22, 2001.

I think it's an entirely hit ir miss affair. I've dropped an FE with a PC lens attached (a lens with a lot of 'innards') from a 5' stepladder on to concrete and suffered only a bent lenshade. I've dropped a collapible elmar 3' onto carpet and it would no longer collapse and was not economical to repair. But these are the extremes. In day to day heavy use (my idea of heavy is only a roll a day), my Leicas require much less long term service than either my previous Nikon or Olympus cameras.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), May 23, 2001.

Ivan:

I specifically said "newer" Nikon or Canon... The Nikon F3's and earlier were "tanks", the FM's and FE's "Bradleys". I've seen an N90, F4, and EOS bite it big time falling over onto dirt while on a tripod (No, not all on the same trip, and no these were not my cameras. They belonged to people who were not paying attention to how their tripod was set up.) -- In all three cases the lensmount was pulled out of the body(!), and in the case of the EOS the body cracked wide-open.

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), May 23, 2001.

OK, Peter. You are right, of course: you said newer. That's why I told about the F601. That is an all-electronic newer generation high- tech plastic Nikon and I was very concerned about its capacity to whithstand rough usage or accidents but after a few incidents I forget my concerns. It is tough though not a "pro" Nikon by far ... Anyhow I think that direct comparisons could be not really meaningful since a lot will depend upon the way the camera fell down. I mean if it hits the floor on a wider body surface (back, base plate, all along an end ..)the damage could be lesser because the force would be distributed in a more favorable way. A lot will depend upon pure luck I mean, but physics put aside, were you able to have the damage repaired on the Passport program you paid for? I would be glad if you did and can continue enjoying your camera for a very long time. Best regards, Peter.

Ivan

Oh, by the way: I forgot to tell you that, no matter what, I always keep the strap around a wrist. I usually do it even if handing the camera to somebody else until I'm sure it is secure enough. It has became an habit and saved my cameras several serious accidents in a years time, specially while handing cameras to people and being seated at a small cofee table. Hopefully it could work for you too ... Cheers !

-- Ivan Barrientos (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), May 28, 2001.

One of the the toughest csamera in the world is the Olympus Stylus Epic.

I've dropped mine at least 4 times onto the sidewalk from 4 or 5 feet up, and the thing still works.

-- Pete Su (psu_13@yahoo.com), May 29, 2001.