Well, Just dropped another M yesterday. It seems like everytime I drop a camera it lands on its top.

After impact the viewfinder showed two framelines 50 and 90. A push on the preview lever produced an obvious "click" and the 90 lines went away. Infinity focus is fine.

Now I only have an edge ding for a souvenier.

Rats!

-- chris chen (chrischen@msn.com), March 04, 2002

Answers

Chris. You disobeyed the 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not drop a Leica". Well I'll tell you from my experience dropping a Canon EOS, it came apart into a million pieces, at least you have a camera that can still work. I must say my record with Leica is nearly perfect. The only Leica I ever dropped was a Leicameter MR, into the sink. Fried the electronics, but the outside was hardly nicked.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), March 04, 2002.

I think I recall Chris saying somewhere that he does not use camera straps.

-- Steve LeHuray (steve@icommag.com), March 04, 2002.

Correct, I do not use straps, but when I did, I still dropped it; it slipped off my shoulder in winter; heavy leather jacket; landed on top (rewind knob).

But, I do use non-camera cases: fanny packs, small shoulder cases, etc. with straps, M3 in question was in fanny pack. one meter drop, fell on top, of course.

-- chris chen (chrischen@msn.com), March 04, 2002.

I think I recall Chris saying somewhere that he does not use camera straps.

I no longer use straps because they slip off my shoulder or get caught on stuff and pull the camera out of my hands. Broke a Nikon F main casting that way.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), March 04, 2002.

Yesterday must've been a bad day, Chris -- I slipped on the ice and dropped mine too, and it also landed on the top. But no damage, at least from what I can tell so far.

-- Douglas Kinnear (douglas.kinnear@colostate.edu), March 04, 2002.

When I was young and stupid, I climbed. I dropped a Leica from 2/3 of the way up the Flatirons, near Boulder. The lens was a loss, but the rangefinder was still perfect.

My records are with Minolta SRT-101's. In Wyoming, I dropped one 800 to 1000 ft off of a face. Not a dent and it still works. I dropped another SRT [Wind River Range] from horse back. The horse kicked it along like a soccer ball. A few dents, but it still works and has survived 25 years of graduate students.

Some of those cameras were strong.

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), March 04, 2002.

I've only dropped a couple of cameras over the past 30 something years, but two of them were the old Leicas that I got for a song at Olden Camera in 1969.

One of them (the IIf) went off the top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico. I still remember seeing it spinning down, bouncing off the steps with bits flying off at every hit. I'd tripped and it went flying from my hands, so it got a healthy launch into oblivion. I never tried to recover it.

The other was the IIc (my favorite of the old Leicas I owned). It was in a holster while I was working on the antenna wiring at the back of a C130 in flight during a data mission in 1985. The door was open just enough for us to reach the wiring, then the hydraulics hiccoughed and the door swung down a few feet suddenly. We had safety lines on and a mesh catch net strung between the door and the fuselage, the plane bounced, and the camera slid out of the holster into the Pacific Ocean 26,000 feet below.

I never tried to retrieve that one either.

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), March 04, 2002.

Great stories, Godfrey! I think that if you're using your cameras, really USING them, then they're going to get battered and even occasionally lost or wrecked. A minty 20-yr old camera is a shame, really. But that may be a rationalization for my own clumsiness, which seems to result in a dropped camera every few years.

-- Douglas Kinnear (douglas.kinnear@colostate.edu), March 04, 2002.

In the long run, you have to be willing to lose them if you are really going to use them. That said, at least, use a wrist strap.

-- John Elder (celder2162@aol.com), March 04, 2002.

Chris,

CXheck out www.Upstrap.com. They are not authentic Leica straps, but they are the best WORKING straps I have found. You really have to bend over to have them fall off your shoulder! I have found nothing better.

-- Todd Phillips (toddvphillips@webtv.net), March 04, 2002.

The only camera I ever dropped that survived the experience was my Olympus Stylus Epic. I've dropped it onto the concrete 4 or 5 times and it still works.

The only other camera I dropped was my wife's OM-1. Destroyed it.

-- Pete Su (psu_13@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

My M5 managed to land on its bottom. Maybe that was another oddity of the M5, they land on their bottoms rather than their tops. Ouch either way.

-- Mark (Leica_M5@msn.com), March 04, 2002.

Great stories, Godfrey!

No doubt your Leica IIs will be found, oh, sometime around 5002 A.D. and sold to a wealthy Leica collector, who will post a question about which one is better - to a forum moderated by Tony Rowlett CXXIV.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), March 04, 2002.

i thought the subject was about cats...

-- Dexter Legaspi (dalegaspi@hotmail.com), March 04, 2002.

It is about cats! In 1985, my uncle was sailing his catamaran across the Pacific on a solo voyage. He was just about to stow his mainsail when, out of the blue, a heavy metal object fell from the sky and missed his head by inches. When he had recovered from his shock, he discovered a Leica iic that was completely undamaged, the sail having broken its fall. He still uses that iic to this day. Bit of luck, eh?

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

Wow, if you're going to lose your cameras, lose 'em like Godfrey did.

-- Tse-Sung (tsesung@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

I wonder if there's something in common between Leica and toast? The latter always seems to land on its buttered side when dropped. Speaking of cats, I read a little story some time ago about an experimental cat-bomb devised by the US Navy during W.W.II. The idea was to tie a bomb to a cat, and when the cat-bomb was dropped from a plane, the water-loathing animal would try to steer its way to the deck of a ship. Apparently, it didn't work as the cat passed out the moment it was thrown out of the plane. (I didn't cook this story up; it's probably not true anyway.)

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), March 05, 2002.

Ah yes butter side down! I have a simple fix for you. Start shooting with you camera upside down and fire the shutter with your left thumb.You won,t squash your nose either!

-- Tim (timphoto@ihug.com.au), March 05, 2002.

moral lesson: if you're not using a strap, attach your leica to a cat so it would land on its feet when you drop it. it would be tough to hand-hold it, though.

-- Dexter Legaspi (dalegaspi@hotmail.com), March 05, 2002.