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 p.7 #8 · Leica 35mm Summicron KOB copy by ‘Mandler’ | |
Getting back to the Ksana vs. Mandler thing after some testing and, importantly, after some real-world experience. Bottom line: I cannot recommend the Ksana at this time, for QC reasons similar to those I've seen complaints about from others.
In terms of general handling, I still largely prefer the Mandler, though after looking at pictures I like the rendering of the Ksana more, so my intention was to keep that one and list the Mandler for sale.
Then I took the Ksana to New York for a week with my M4-P. Everything seemed to go just fine, even if I did find the loose-to-mushy aperture a little frustrating in actual use. No dings, no drops, no damage, and the camera-and-lens combo lived in my overly-padded Billingham when not in use.
When I got home and unpacked, though, I noticed that the aperture ring on the Ksana didn't want to turn past f/2.8 toward f/2. And then I pulled the lens off the camera and, in turning the ring, realized that no matter what I did, the aperture was stuck wide open. It looks like the blade mechanism has somehow become decoupled from the aperture ring. In inspecting that, I also realized that the lens element housing is loose, to the extent that it will visibly wobble around when touched. None of that was the case before I took the thing out for some actual photography.
Had I dropped or bumped the lens or the camera, or were I otherwise able to point to something I did to cause this, that would be one thing. But I can't. This seems to have happened somehow without my noticing during normal use. My best guess is that it has to have happened when I was swapping lens filters around (once or twice they were on there pretty tight and took a little effort to dislodge, though nothing out of the ordinary), but that's just a guess. To make matters worse, it is likely this happened at some point while I was actively shooting without me realizing it, as I was floating around between f/5.6 and f/11 during most of the trip and wouldn't have caught the issues opening up past f/2.8 for that reason. I won't know until I develop the film, but I'm guessing I've got a lot of seriously overexposed images just waiting to be discovered.
I have reached out to Thypoch support to see what they're willing to do about this. To their credit, though the webform I sent generated an autoreply that it could take up to 15 business days to get a response, they emailed in under 24 hours asking for more information and for a video of the problems. I sent that in this morning. We'll see what results, and I'll report back here when I know.
Bottom line, though, is that I would avoid the Ksana 35mm at least for now, even if you like the images. The QC issues are unfortunately very real. My copy will be unusable without repair.
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