Hello fellow Leica shooters, my name is Sergio, I’m a photographer and designer based in Shanghai and today I’d like to share with you all a successful DIY story:
Or should I say RIY because the hero of the story is Leica’s Visoflex 2 that needed a repair. I’m a lucky owner of M11 and while committing to optical viewfinder to the most extent possible, I do realize that having an EVF has its advantages, especially with wide angle lenses and shooting looking down. That said, I was reluctant to cash out for a Visoflex 2 because of the price.
That was until I saw an ad from a guy selling his damaged Visoflex 2. It was 3-4 times cheaper and according to his explanation the electronic side of things was intact, the problem was mechanical: it would freely swing and not fix in 45 and 90 degree position. Having some experience with disassembling and repairing (see my Hammertone Fuji X-Pro1 project), I’ve decided to make a leap of faith and purchased it in hopes to fix it. At worst, I would’ve just used it in a default locked position.
There are no disassembly instructions or videos online, so it took some time for me to figure all out. The parts are extremely precise, luckily after some trial and error I found the right replacement parts. Without going into the details here, I managed to fix all the issues! The full disassembly and more about how I did the repair are in my video down below. Hopefully this guide will be helpful to the community, and if you have questions about the exact sizes or anything else you can reach out to me, I’d be happy to help!
The video was previously posted here.
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