Vintage film cameras

[johnnyrod]

I've checked it and it shows why I don't use viewfinder cameras, I can't estimate distance to save my life. It's a little off, the scale matches the film plane but the focus screen tells you to focus a touch longer than that, maybe 2%, so it's no the safe side esp if you use smaller apertures.

[johnnyrod]

I found out how to adjust the focus, will have a twiddle over Christmas. Left things a bit late so have been cleaning a K1000 I picked up over summer, it was grottier than I'd thought, all works fine though. Checked the shutter speeds of the Minolta while I was at it, all very good.

[Kenzie]

Yeah, it was in pretty good condition. Was just hanging in my room so thought it time to move it on. How do you adjust the focus?

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[johnnyrod]

There's a manual on Learn Camera Repair. It looks like some screws to adjust, if I've read it right - I think normally you have to shim things?

[Kenzie]

Bought a Panasonic GF1 as it had a cracked screen for a fiver. Turns out the LCD was fine but the lens was cracked. Managed to track down a donor in Italy of all places and managed to swap the parts over. Ended up changing the whole rear and LCD. Turned out to be ten screws and three ribbons to sort.

[yokohama]

Nice job. What's the plan for it? A daily carry point and shoot? It looks fairly compact.

[Kenzie]

Just to use it as and when. I have quite a few similar sized Olympus Pens. It's quite chunky though, a good inch thick but sits nicely in the palm. I also wanted to see how it stacked up against the Olympus offerings.

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[johnnyrod]

nice

[johnnyrod]

Hope you all had a good Christmas and new year. Finally got my pics back from Snaps in Bournemouth, a 120 roll of FP4 from the Seagull 4A, and a roll of Poundland Agfa from my Contessa LKE which I took to Spain with me. Bit of a disaster all over really.

The FP4 has spots all over it to varying degrees. They don't seem to correlate to anything, but might be a problem Ilford were having with their backing paper at one point. Waiting for an email back from Snaps then will contact Ilford. OK pics, lens can be sharp.

Some of my holiday pics are OK, mainly the landscapes, but anything else is pretty blurry and often the focus is miles off. Anything indoors is focussed really long. I'll need to check it out, last time it was fine, but no idea what's going on there. I struggled to see the RF patch indoors, but the focal distances are miles away from what they should have been.

Had hoped to get the top off the SRT to adjust the focus screen but the winder won't budge, and the rewind was very tight indeed. Will check the meter out again (PX625 type) to figure out what to set it for, and finally put a film in it.

[yokohama]

If you ever get the winder off, the other thing to be careful with the SRT is the final top cover fixing - the red dot for aligning the lens mount. Sometimes it's a screw, sometimes it's a bolt.
My Christmas was ruined by a Voigtlander Vito B which I'd picked up a few weeks earlier. Lovely condition, seems to be OK but slower shutter speeds sticking. It was relatively easy to disassemble, clean out the shutter and self-timer mechanisms but putting it all back was a nightmare. Firstly, after putting the slow shutter escapement back in place, the mechanism wouldn't complete the cycle. Following several attempts at removing and replacing, I found that if I backed off one of the fixing post screws 1/8 of a turn, everything would work.
Then. replacing the lens mount and aperture ring took me ages due to the weird system of little clamps that need aligning and fixing via screws behind the aperture ring and mount so it's almost impossible to see what's going on. Good thing I'd stocked up on booze to see me through it all.
After much kerfuffle, I finally got it sorted and collimated. Need to test it with film next.