Review: Steve’s Camera Service in Los Angeles (getting my Leica M6 repaired)

Below is the text pulled from my Yelp review of Steve’s Camera Service to fix my broken Leica M6.

So here is the story:

About 3 months ago, I inherited a Leica M6 from a good friend of mine. I had only shot digital (with a Leica M9) and shooting film was a huge blast. I took that baby through half of Asia (Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, etc).

Then about a week ago I was shooting with it in Downtown LA and suddenly at around 20 shots in- my film advance lever would get jammed. I was scared crapless- because I had to get it fixed ASAP (heading to Hong Kong in 3 days to teach a street photography workshop).

Anyways, I asked on Twitter about the broken M6 problem- and a bunch of guys referred me to Steve.

I then found the address– drove over, and talked to Matt (the son of Steve). Matt told me Steve was out but said he would have his dad take a look. I told them I needed it fixed really quickly (two days). We chatted for a bit, and said he would call me in a day or two.

A day goes on by, and he calls me and says they weren’t able to re-create the jamming issue but found other issues wrong with my Leica M6 (meter being a stop off, the 250-500-1000 shutter mark inaccurate, and it just needed a clean). I asked them to keep working and seeing if they could recreate the shutter jamming problem. They said OK.

I called the next day to ask the progress- and was surprised to hear Steve on the phone saying it was fixed. I then jumped for joy, and drove over.

Apparently after a long time of testing, they were able to recreate the jamming part and were able to fix the other parts of my Leica M6 which were wrong. He gave me a great deal on a CLA and fixing the problem (only $275) and got it fixed in two days! This is much faster than sending it back to Solms in Germany or getting other dudes in the US.

So if you are in the LA area- highly recommend seeing Steve to fix your Leica, film camera, or digital camera. They really treat you like family here, and there are few places out there that fix cameras like these guys do!

Steve and my fixed (and cla'd) Leica M6!

Links

Steve’s Camera Service Center on Yelp

stevecamera.com

Location

4355 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230
Neighborhood: Culver City

(310) 397-0072

Business hours

Mon-Fri 9 am – 6 pm

Sat 10 am – 2 pm