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Here’s a casual how-to on replacing the camera leather on your camera.

I got mine from Aki Asahi, a producer of many different types of camera leathers with self-adhesive backs. I had purchased some of his stuff once before, recovering a few Polaroid SX-70s and an old OM-1 a few years ago. He’s great to do business with- even ships before receiving payment (!). He sells a set for the Leica M6 / MP, and thanks to the aforementioned pre-adhesive backing AND the extremely precise laser cuts of leather that Aki Asahi supplies changing the skin on my camera was far easier than I thought it was going to be.

You’ll need the following:

- A camera.
- A new leather cover. This example uses the #4008 leatherette, a close match to the original M3 Vulcanite.
- A small flathead screwdriver.
- A small paint brush.
- Some rubbing alcohol. (pouring a little into a plastic film canister can help with this task)
- A smooth, flat surface to work. (I used the black plastic bag in the photo above)
- About an hour of your time.

Front:

This camera has been covered twice (three times?) during high level maintence/repair trips to the Leica service center. Each time the camera came back there has been a bubble in the leather near the frame preview lever. You can see it in the image above. I’ve seen many used M7s in the shops with the leather starting to curl and peel off from the edges. Come to think of it, I’ve seen Leica M9s already in similar condition as well.

Rear view- There used to be a full coat of thick paint on edges to the sides of the rear door. Not anymore and not for a long time.

The stock leatherette on the Leica MP is kind of like what you’d find at the bottom of a jacuzzi to keep people from slipping. There’s nothing wrong with it, really. But why not change things up a little? The worst thing that’ll happen (from my own experience) is that Shinya Arimoto will call you a geek (’tis true). Rather than your actual images, the only thing it will slightly alter is a tactile relationship your hands have with your camera. This, and the reasonable pricing of Aki Asahi’s wares was enough for me to try it out.

The stock leatherette peels off fairly easily- use a small screwdriver to get it started. It may tear in a few places, particularly around the lens and frame preview lever, though. Brushing some alcohol onto the remaining bits of adhesive on the body and letting it sit for a little bit made them easy to remove. But DON’T USE A TISSUE because your work will have just doubled or tripled with all the little shreds of tissue that you’ll have to remove afterwards. Rounding it all up with a small flathead screwdriver and removing it your fingers works best.

When totally naked your camera will look like this:

What follows was a process which didn’t let me stop to snap any photos. For a more visually detailed explanation of what comes next the step by step example on the Aki Asahi website is very useful.

For a Leica, first take the bottom plate and battery cap off before proceeding. You won’t need to remove any other parts of your camera, even the film rewind and frame selector levers.

Once ready, peel off the new leatherette from it’s wax paper backing and lay it face down onto a smooth surface that you can get wet with rubbing alcohol. Once it is laid flat, with the paint brush apply a liberal amount (I’m talking Ted Rall levels) of rubbing alcohol to the adhesive. This will weaken the stickiness just enough for you to make adjustments in positioning of the cover when applying it to the camera body.

For a Leica M, the leatherette has a hole to let the frame preview lever poke through. START HERE. Once that is positioned, wrap the leather around the rest of the body. Work it upwards with your fingers and check that the edge of the cover is tight with the edge of the top plate. Remember that little flathead screwdriver I mentioned earlier? Use that to gently press down the edges of the leather around any camera parts that it meets up against. In particular, around the lens mount and battery compartment.
Once it dries the leather will hold just as tight at anything from the factory.

I was rather pleased with the results- it looks almost exactly like what Leica is dressing up their Leica M9-P bodies in and is grippier than the standard cover the camera originally came with. I ought to mention the service price sheet at the Leica service center includes leather recovering— for 50,000 yen. That’s about $500 USD. Aki Asahi’s prices are far easier on one’s wallet.

Is all this really necessary?

Of course not.

Kind of fun?

Sure.

Aki Asahi supplies leathers for a whole slew of cameras- check out his store to see the full selection.

At the camera fair in Shinjuku last weekend I ended up purchasing my 5th or 6th Konica Big Mini, a special Rhodium edition which means who knows what. It is a bit shinier than the others but that is about all.

It was 10,000 yen which makes it 9,999 yen more than the cheapest Big Mini which I have purchased, an earlier A4 model sold by a man whose retail facilities consisted of a blanket laid out near Yoyogi park. Despite the confidence in the shop owner’s / guy with a blanket’s voice as he proclaimed that the camera worked fine, I didn’t have terribly high hopes due to a large crack down the surface of the data back. But 100 yen was a good deal for the soft case and Konica-branded lanyard. Popping in a new battery the camera began to heat up and smell like electricity. As for the others, I ended up giving a Big Mini BM-201 to a sister, and the black one at the bottom of this mini pile is probably still useable except that the cable controlling flash operation is frayed and thus inoperable, while the grey one sandwiched in between does horrible unsalvageable things when the flash is employed.

There is a story as to how I acquired the Contax T2 but it is not nearly as amusing as it is long. The most hilarious and condensed version in one sentence would be:

A friend visiting Japan found that his T2 died the day after he arrived and I took it to the Konica service center in Harajuku to get it fixed however during that time he ended up saying I could have it and the day after picking it up I shot a friend’s wedding only to find out that it hadn’t been fixed properly which explained the fact that all the shots were focused at infinity, prints of which I showed to the man behind the counter who apologized many more times than necessary and not only naturally fixed it for free but had it delivered to my apartment a week later.

That turned out to be even less interesting to type than I thought. I am quite thankful for the camera though, and ended up sending him some prints as thanks. (take note: I will swap prints for gear)

The T2 has a sharp contrasty lens which works wonders in black and white. Specifically having to dial in the aperture is somewhat odd but the manual-ness of this is interesting in its own quirky way. The only way you will have the flash go off accidentally is if you forget that you earlier set it to do so. By contrast the Big Mini is fully automated, and to turn off the flash you’ll need to apply some direct force to a comically small button on the rear of the camera and make sure that the LCD icon for the flash zig-zag has that Ghostbusters circle with a line show up over it. It’s a much lighter camera which makes it also a bit more fragile (hence purchasing 6 over 5 years) but in addition to its basic-ness, its true charm lies in the radiance of the lens. For one reason or another, to me it is the perfect portrait camera. Perhaps it is that the lens isn’t too sharp, or that it is just sharp enough. I used this camera to take photos of the visitors who came to my Konica show in 2007, and interestingly enough the people who came to my show in 2009 at Totem Pole were visitors, too.

One thing which I enjoy about the Big Mini are the orange LCD digits representing the date the camera was set for in the lower right corner of each picture. I say “set for” because the one I bought last week was set to a day in May of 1987, and this camera didn’t come out until the early 1990s. Whatever day you tell future viewers your photos were taken on, those visual dates become intrinsically branded just like you do to a cow, into the gelatin itself. And gelatin is made from cows and this fact gives my analogy that much more weight. Just like too many hamburgers will. Man somebody stop me.

When out and about for the past four or five years there has usually been a small point and shoot loaded with color film in my camera bag. This balances out a Leica and the digital GRD it shares space with. Regardless of which camera I use, I still take all my color film to a local mom and pop 1-hour photo shop in my town. Considering that it is located a 30min walk from my apartment essentially it is a 2-hour photo when you factor in the commute time. Or maybe it is a 2-hour and 500 calories photo shop, since I usually wait out the processing time at KFC.

Presumably a more responsible and socially adjusted 31 year old male would most likely have a child to care for, or at least a wife to dote on instead of a handful of cameras and access to so much Kodak Ektar.