[Leica] Never hold a dogleash with your elbow while changing lenses

[ricc at mindspring.com (Ric Carter)]

OUCH!

At least the Heliar is built to cope with such problems.

ric


On Sep 18, 2007, at 8:00 AM, Didier Ludwig wrote:

> Seems to be a bad week for some LUGgers like Daniel and me.
>
> Was at the Rheinfall in Schaffhausen with one of my sons and our  
> dog. Had the dogleash in the left ellbow and wanted to change two  
> lenses, a 15mm Heliar and a 50mm collapsible Summicron. Following  
> Murphy's law the dog pulled the leash in the very wrong moment, and  
> both lenses dropped off my hands to the stoney ground, at the  
> border of the Rhein river. The heavier Summicron stayed in front of  
> me, the lighter Heliar rolled over the stones toward the water.  
> With a brilliant goalkeeper dive roll parade my son could catch it  
> before it reached the river.
>
> No glass was touched. But the brass bayonet mount of the Summicron  
> has a tough ding which needs to be filed off. That's less bad than  
> what happened to the Aluminium body of the Heliar. The inbuilt hood  
> wing was slightly bended toward the lens, and both aperture and  
> focus rings were strongly hit and are now almost unusable. I can  
> focus when the aperture ring is at wide open, but as soon as I stop  
> down, the focus ring is completely blocked. The aperture ring  
> itself needs much power to move.
>
> I have now fixed it to f5.6-8 (sweet spot of that lens) and almost  
> at infinity - a setting that works in 90% of the shots I make with it.
>
> Maybe I'll disassemble it one day. Will see.
>
> Didier
>
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