Hi Frank,
There are in my experience with the LX basically two flash problems.
Read below.
there is a possibility that it's a rather simple repair, if you do it
yourself. To me, the LX is somewhat notorious for loose flash and
viewfinder contacts (and I almost threw it against the wall _myself_
on a big reportage few years ago, when it failed to flash about third
of the time, boy, I was really mad! Two week documentary, forty rolls
of film, lot of pictures I wanted to fillflash, and sometimes nothing...)
The problem could be either in the hotshoe itself, which is the easy
repair. Remove the black plate by slidin it off camera with a small
screwdriver (it has little catches but just raise it with the blade).
Remove the four screws hidden under. Remove the whole hotshoe now.
Now, peek around ;-) I don't remember the exact specifics (it's been
two years now), but there were problems either with the golden
contacts inside the prism housing not touching enough, or with the
hotshoe not screwed snugly enough, or something like that. It's like
repairing a bike, Frank <g>. This happens often, even in other
cameras, as the (usually) four screws holding the hotshoe to the prism
are very tiny, and for ease of repair, the contacts are just that,
contacts - meaning there are no soldered wires to the hotshoe.
Or, it could be a bigger problem of loose viewfinder. I had almost
brand new LX, which started to exhibit this syndrome after I used it a
lot with heavy pro flashes like Metz MZ40. Mind you, removable prisms
were never meant for hweavy pro flashes! I have seen problems with
prisms getting loose contacts just by heavy PJ and news use. Even on
Nikon F4, which is a BRICK! There is a reason flash brackets were
invented too... Try pushing the prism with strength towards the lens
mount. When you remove it, there are on it several golden pins which
_ideally_ touch the contacts on the camera. In many cases, the tiny
spring lock holding the prism tight is not tight enough, and the pins
make _intermittent_ contact, or even none. This results in flash
firing intermittently at best. This is much worse, but I was able to
repair even that. I had to open the prism, loosing parts of the water
resistance seals (which can be remedied by use of some silicone
afterwards). As it is not possible to shim the hole where the lock
catches the prism, I had to improvise. The prism slides on the railings by way
of two plastic
washers. I had to raise these washers so there would be more pressure
on the rails, and the prism would fit very tightly. I just put some
shims cut from brass, around 0.5-0.7mm thick IIRC between the prism
body and the plastic (it's glued on IIRC). Worked flawlessly
afterwards.
Good light!
fra
