The ideal light meter IMO would adjust to shutter speeds my camera REALLY HAS, not what are inscribed on the ss dial. My M4-P, just back from a $200+ CLA, tested as fol: 1000=1/553--500=1/366--250= 1/196--the rest were fairly close (+/- 10%), but the speeds I use the most were the farthest off. Has anybody ever made such a meter? The dealer where I bought my M4-P did the testing. For sake of curiosity, he took a brand new M6, put it on the speed test device. I remember that the 1000 setting tested 1/650!

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001

Answers

Frank,

Do I rightly detect a taste of bittersweet sarcasm in your question? May I reply with some flavour of irony? Yes, there is. It's called AE. But it's hard to find on a Leica M. So far. ;o)

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), October 29, 2001.

Frank, I'm concerned about you shutter speeds. I've had my Leicas tested on the bench and they seem to deliver tighter tolerances...perhaps adjustment is in order by one of the well-known Leica specialists. I'm curious; who did your CLA

-- George L. Doolittle (geodoolitt@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

George- The dealer had sent it back to Leica after taking it in on a trade. He showed me their paperwork on it. FH

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.

Lutz- ....and I hope we will not be finding AE on the Ms! I'd rather find a programmable light meter!

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.

Frank:

I don't think that I have ever had one that far off at 1/1000 but then I have never had one tested. For the higher speeds, I have just run test rolls and come up with a personal speed reading. If you use large format much you are used to the procedure. Actually, the only manual camera that I have had with accurate speeds on the high end was the Nikon F2. It is still accurate in its old age.

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

If his shutter tester has been recently calibrated, send it back. Otherwise try one that has been recently calibrated.

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), October 29, 2001.

Frank, it sounds like somebody's been had on that CLA. There is no excuse for a focal plane shutter testing a full stop off at 1/1000; anything slower than 1/800 is certainly an unacceptable error. It's possible for an inexperienced user to misread the high speeds on a tester, and hopefully that's the case here - even so, this is a big error. I test shutters reasonably often and virtually never see anything remotely approaching this, even on old, cheap cameras.

rick :)=

-- Rick Oleson (rick_oleson@yahoo.com), October 29, 2001.

Frank,

Have you considered calibrating your film speed rating per John Shaw's approach in his Nature Photography books, using your most often used speeds? This might help some. But if one or more of your speeds are "off" in the wrong direction and do not fit the calibration of the other speeds, you might just have to remember to adjust that speed by 1/2 step more or less as needed. Good luck. LB

-- Luther Berry (lberrytx@aol.com), October 29, 2001.

Years ago, I had a brand new M6 classic straight out of the box that had 1/1000 deliver 1/500; 1/500 deliver 1/350; 1/250 deliver 1/ 150, etc. Sent back to LeicaGermany for repair under warranty. Camera came back with 1/1000 delivering 1/650, with the slower speeds also slightly out. I have sold it immeadiatly and bought a second hand M4-P. 1/1000 was slightly slow which has been locally adjusted and delivers all the shutter speeds as marked. By conrast I still own 2 Nikon F2's and 1 Nikon F they have never needed any CLA and deliver correct shutter speeds.

-- sait (akkirman@clear.net.nz), October 29, 2001.

Tested both my M6TTL and M4-P at a recent Leica Day. Both were within 10% at all rated shutter speeds. The M6TTL is new, the M4-P had been overhauled by Sherry Krauter some time before I bought it.

Presuming that your dealers shutter testing machine is not out of calibration, I'd have Leica warranty their CLA service work as that is not acceptable error. 5-15% deviation from is acceptable.

BTW, I understand the Nikon F5 shutter and meter self-calibrate to each other by an in-camera diagnostic. The shutter will self adjust up to accommodate wear and increased friction, and the meter is kept informed of the adjustment and how far out the shutter is. Wonderful stuff. Of course, to get it you have to drag around an F5 lump, but there's a price for everything, eh?

Godfrey

-- Godfrey (ramarren@bayarea.net), October 29, 2001.

Frank- Those speeds are way off. Have someone else test the camera. If they are still off, get it fixed or replaced. Even mechanical shutters have closer tolerances than that.

As for the meter compensating, well, the evolution of cameras beyond the 1950s rangefinder took care of that and many other technical problems and someone above ably pointed out, we now have the Nikon F5 which addresses this and many other "issues".

Camera advertising, by the way, thrives on such insecurity (with all due respect-your shutter really is off).

Just the same, you can still do critical work with a properly CLA'd and maintained M camera :-)

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), October 29, 2001.

I think I read that Leica's tolerance is 20%. But didn't someone post here within the past month that the M's 1/1000 speed varies quite a bit from shot to shot?

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), October 29, 2001.

LEICA people are the BEST people! Thanks for all the replies. I've tested every shutter I've owned for 25 yrs. Most are way off! I can mentally compensate and my results have been quite decent. The older I get, the more I would like to have the METER do all my thinking! At one time, I could sware I could observe 1/10 stop differences in exposure! The dealer who tested the above mentioned M4-P is also a repairman with mucho experience, plus a Masters Degree. As long as the shutter is consistent shot-to-shot, I don't care if its slow. FH

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), October 29, 2001.

i guess it isn't tester error, then; but the idea of a shutter being that far off, or varying noticeably from shot to shot at 1/1000, in a Leica, Nikon, Pentax, Ricoh, Chinon or any other reasonably decent camera in good condition is totally beyond my experience or comprehension. It should never be far enough off for the meter to be able to detect the error.

rick :)=

rick_oleson.tripod.com

-- Rick Oleson (rick_oleson@yahoo.com), October 30, 2001.

I recently got an R6 back from Leica, tested the shutter, and promptly sent it back. When returned, now the speeds are very accurate. My M6's 1000 and 500 are set to within 1/6 stop, because I adjusted them myself. From one firing to the next, however, there is a fair amount of variance, perhaps as much as 1/3 stop. Also, on every M I've ever had, there was at least 1/3 stop difference between right and left edges of the frame at 1/1000. The M6 is nice because 100 and 500 can be adjusted without removing the top plate. M4-P and earlier require the top plate to be removed, which in turn requires special tools to not gore or x-thread the retaining rings.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), October 30, 2001.

I have a shutter speed tester and can confirm that Leica tolerance of 20% at 1/1000sec is within the normal range. The longer speed the less tolerance.

Shutter speeds are adjusted from the camera bottom after taking off the plate with a diagram of loading. There are two adjusting screws with stoppers on the left side, when the lens mounting facing to you, which either tense or release shutter springs. Adjusting is made after cleaning and lubricating only, if the camera is old. When testing, as a rule the tester shows about 0.00125-0.00105 sec at 1/100, that means 1/800-1/950 rare shows 0.001. However, as a rule, if the camera is very old and the shutter shows 1/850, for example, or any other speed, that speed appears during every shot tested. A small tolerance may be registered only at the sixth/seventh decimal place. It’s easy to adjust the exact value of 0.001sec. Long speeds (1sec-1/30sec) don’t require adjusting, only cleaning and lubricating as a watch movement. When all the speeds have been adjusted, it has to adjust with the second curtain’ spring the full frame opening at the speed of a flash synchronization. Hope this helps.

-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), November 01, 2001.