Limited Edition Hermès Leica M9-P
Teardown
Back in 2012, Leica partnered with Hermès to create the Limited Edition Hermès Leica M9-P, a $50,000 luxury edition of the Leica M9-P camera. The camera features several changes to its design that differ from the standard, including the top deck, base plate, shutter speed dial, multifunction wheel and shutter release. Most notably, it features the ‘Veau Swift’ calfskin leather that makes it even more distinguishable. Only 100 limited edition units were ever created.
Despite its lofty status, it is a camera at heart, and that means it wasn’t immune to degradation. This Leica was in much need of a fix. So with that out of the way, let’s dive in to this camera teardown and disassembly!
As usual, we first removed the bottom cover plate by extracting 5 Philips screws.
Next, we needed to remove the top panel. Using a long screwdriver, we removed 1 Philips head screw in the battery slot. This is just one of two screws fastened to the top panel.
The second screw is located just above the shutter motor assembly gears. We needed to take great care to not to damage or poke sensitive components in this area.
Here, we lifted the top cover plate and disconnected the cable ribbon.
Next, we disconnected the rear panel ribbon. We needed to be careful not to damage the ribbon cable clamp lock.
Here, we needed to be delicate in removing the Hermes leather. This needed to be done to access more screws on the camera body underneath the leather.
Extracted three silver screws on the right side of the camera.
On the port side of the M9, we peeled back more of the leather skin and exposed three screws.
Under the LCD screen, we removed one Philips screw.
We separated the rear panel from the body to access the inside of the camera.
Toward the bottom of the camera, we disconnected the sensor ribbon and power supply cable from the motherboard. The motherboard was bolted onto the rear panel.
Leica uses shims for focus calibration. The sensor was held down with three Philips screws.
Once the screws were removed, we could lift the sensor and repair the sensor.
As fancy as the cameras are, and despite the aesthetic changes to the exterior, this limited edition Leica M9-P is exactly the same as the standard Leica M9 series cameras at its heart. They use the same CCD 11 sensor as the standard Leica M9 series — and like the standard Leica M9 cameras, our customers tell us that Leica will not replace the sensor. We find this especially ridiculous that Leica would produce a 100 units of a $50,000 price tag camera and somehow not reserve enough improved CCD 15/16 sensors to cover this limited run long-term. Maybe Leica viewed these as strictly fashion items and didn’t think they would need to repair many of them.
Oh well. We can still repair these cameras, something Leica has told us is impossible and has shown no interest in working with us to make a joint solution in repairing these cameras.
