I was a bit sharp in my reply to Richard Knoppow's comments yesterday about the relative simplicity of the shutters on the Contax RF and Leica TM cameras.
Yes, the Leica shutter is somewhat simpler. However, it is a bear to repair, as you have to take the camera innards OUT of the body shell, which requires removal of such items as the top plate and the rangefinder and all of the little fiddly knobs. The Contax shutter is a module which can be removed from the bottom. Thus, in the end, the Contax shutter takes a lot less effort to mend if something goes wrong. And, to put it bluntly, the only serious risk of a problem in the Contax RF shutter is the cloth tapes. Other than those, the Contax shutter is pretty bullet proof. (The Postwar Contax SLR shutter was constructed from flimsy materials on machine tools worn out to a point of uselessness by the War -- but I have yet to ever handle a Contax S or the like which does not work to this day -- my Contax D still functions flawlessly and the shutter is still accurate. Those interested might dig out a copy of Peter Dechert's outstanding work on the breed to see how a mechanical fiasco can be made to work without a problem for decades.)
Again, I have overhauled both a Prewar Contax II and a Prewar Leica IIIa, and I would prefer to never work on either ever again! But if I had a choice, I'd go for the Contax RF shutter for reliability and ease of repair.
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