[Leica] Leica Horror Stories

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

>>>I dropped an M6 with 35/1.4 lens out of a canoe in the Patuca River
in
Honduras...After Hurricane Mitch, I was wading in mud up to my knees
when a different  M6 slid off of my shoulder and sank in the mud...My
husband managed to hook his foot in the strap of my M6 which was sitting
on the bar. The camera was flung forcefully to the floor<<<


Tina,
Call me sentimental, but I love stories like this.

This is why they made 'em tough. This is why no flip-open back.

I used to tell my students to go ahead and try to use one up. "Go
ahead--make its day."

Nothing I hate to see like a Leica being babied. Heck, baby a cheap
plastic AF job--it needs it!

It's an honorable thing to have used up a Leica. And not at all easy, as
you well know!

I like the story David Vestal tells. He used his two Leica M2s for
thirty years, every day, "putting one on the morning when I put on my
shirt, and taking it off at night when I got ready for bed." Finally,
they started getting old and grumpy on him. So he replaced them with two
Olympus OM-10s. Used those for about ten years, and they gave up the
ghost--and weren't repairable. Not knowing quite what to do next, he
took the two now-40-year-old M2s to be repaired. They're both working
fine now and back in daily rotation--they've been back to South America
since they were "brought back from 'playing dead.'"

- --Mike