Topic: I just picked up...

[Francois]

I got this thinking I would hack it into a pinhole camera...but when it arrived, it was too cute!
Seems to work, just now working my way through the first roll of film.
It has a secret cable release socket under that little lever on the left...

 

I'd definitely keep it. In a French magazine years ago, they said that the Beirette was a bit of the 35mm equivalent to the Holga. You might be surprised at how good it really is (in a bad way).

[astrobeck]

That's really interesting.
It has more controls,  3 dials!!!
Tripod socket plus bulb. That's deluxe in my world.

Pix later this week....

[thatguychad]

On the Leica, definitely plan on replacing the mirror - if you've got it apart there's no reason not to. The shutter and speed mechanisms are not bad at all to service, provided you don't need new curtains. Clean everything as thoroughly as possible and lube sparingly where necessary. Needle oilers are your friends. Don't adjust curtain tension at all until everything else is done - usually you can get away without touching it once everything is clean and lubed. Slow speed adjustment can be fiddly.

On the lens, I hope for your sake that that Summitar has the round aperture and not the hexagonal one shared with the Summar. If it's the latter, start saving for the therapy sessions and medication (or booze) now. The glass is comparatively soft, so be gentle. I can't recall if those are prone to flaking black paint on the optical groups, but check it and repair as needed.

Thanks for the tips!

I ended up only pulling the rangefinder cap off. I cleaned everything inside with 70/30 alcohol, as well as the top cap. Someone used some kind of lubricant for the mechanisms up top in the rangefinder area that got everywhere and turned most of the top cap a yellow hue. This included the rangefinder, so I cleaned it heavily, but didn't re-lubricate yet.

I'm going to mess with the lens when I get more time and see if I can put those (round) aperture blades in.

[thatguychad]

02Pilot, do you have any links or something that would show me how to install the aperture blades? I got the lens in pieces and I haven't messed with lens disassembly much.

[02Pilot]

Ronsonol (naptha) is the preferred solvent for cleaning up oil and grease - it will make your life easier.

I don't have anything immediately at hand for the aperture blades. If they're the usual curved blades it's just a (relatively) simple overlap pattern (you'll have to orient the pivots correctly - need to find a reference for that); if the blades are sort of angular, then it's the crazy hexagonal domed setup - I don't know where to start with that one.

[thatguychad]

Ronsonol (naptha) is the preferred solvent for cleaning up oil and grease - it will make your life easier.

I don't have anything immediately at hand for the aperture blades. If they're the usual curved blades it's just a (relatively) simple overlap pattern (you'll have to orient the pivots correctly - need to find a reference for that); if the blades are sort of angular, then it's the crazy hexagonal domed setup - I don't know where to start with that one.

They're the curved blades, I'll take a stab at it when I get a chance.

[thatguychad]

They're the curved blades, I'll take a stab at it when I get a chance.

Well I don't envy the next poor bastard that has to do this. I got the blades installed after a *lot* of tedious work, but then they didn't feel right.

There's two ways the blades can be mounted, one end has a pin more in the center of the blade, the other end has it mounted toward the outside of the blade...difficult to explain.

Since I didn't take a picture of the blades when they were out, I disassembled the lens again once I figured out the correct orientation for the benefit of people in the future. Here it is for your viewing pleasure (this is what it's supposed to look like, once the blades are correctly installed):



It's actually a very simple lens to work on and, once you know the correct orientation for the blades, the blades fall into place very nicely (unlike when they're flipped the wrong way).

I have triumphed over the Summitar!

[02Pilot]

Looks good. You're very fortunate it had the round aperture....

[Francois]

Oh yeah, aperture blades are always a bit of a pain to assemble. I just did that to a Rikenon lens and believe me, I spent more time trying to put them in than I did taking the whole lens apart to individual pieces. And I think I took more time fitting them back together than I took to put most of the lens back together!

[thatguychad]

I think I dumped the blades out of the lens a total of 5 times to reset and try again. Now I can do it in a fraction of the time, though.

[jojonas~]

I got this thinking I would hack it into a pinhole camera...but when it arrived, it was too cute!
Seems to work, just now working my way through the first roll of film.
It has a secret cable release socket under that little lever on the left...

 

that is cute!

I've seen them as non black versions but didn't pay much notice. now I see the lovely shubby way it looks with its rounded corners and everything

ah, and I see it's got that old ISO-shutterspeed and weather symbols-aperture thing going on that I've loved from the Smena 8m I had


EDIT: found this text on a version of this camera but basically the same

"A sweet and handsome little camera again, with completely disappointing optics. The lens hardly shows any traces of sharpness, and high or even medium contrast performance is catastrophic, with massive fogging - especially if one has in mind, it is a coated simple triplet. Metallic silver lens interior is obviously the cause.
I'd say it's the worst camera I've ever used - as far as camera design and quality are compared to image quality."

Now I really want one!

[Francois]

They made quite a few models with various features. The latest ones even have electronic exposure!

[Bryan]

I just dropped a whopping $15 on two cameras.  The first is a Kodak Brownie Starmite, a 127 roll film camera that I picked up at a garage sale for $5.  I probably paid too much for it but it was in the original box.  The second is an Asahi Pentax K1000 from a thrift store for $10.  I just put new light seals in it and everything seems to function as it should, shutter speeds are good, light meter works, I just need to run some film through it.  I already have a K1000 but this deal was too good to pass up.  My other one doesn't have have the Asahi logo on the front so it may be one of the plastic Chinese versions. 

Kodak Brownie Starmite by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

[jharr]

I just dropped a whopping $15 on two cameras.  The first is a Kodak Brownie Starmite, a 127 roll film camera that I picked up at a garage sale for $5.  I probably paid too much for it but it was in the original box.  The second is an Asahi Pentax K1000 from a thrift store for $10.  I just put new light seals in it and everything seems to function as it should, shutter speeds are good, light meter works, I just need to run some film through it.  I already have a K1000 but this deal was too good to pass up.  My other one doesn't have have the Asahi logo on the front so it may be one of the plastic Chinese versions. 

I have to say that my K1000 never disappoints. It is somewhere in the middle ground between a high-end SLR and a cheap hunk of plastic. The lenses are obviously pulling it toward the former as they are all pretty darned good. The sound of the shutter on the other hand always makes me think something isn't quite right and everything is going to be way over exposed. But that hasn't happened yet. It is as reliable as the day is long.

[Bryan]

I have to say that my K1000 never disappoints. It is somewhere in the middle ground between a high-end SLR and a cheap hunk of plastic. The lenses are obviously pulling it toward the former as they are all pretty darned good. The sound of the shutter on the other hand always makes me think something isn't quite right and everything is going to be way over exposed. But that hasn't happened yet. It is as reliable as the day is long.

It has everything I need in a camera plus I have a good set of lenses for it.  I tend to stay away from SLR's that have a lot of bells and whistles, a built in light meter is a luxury as far as I'm concerned.

[Sandeha Lynch]

I wanted something to play with so I got myself a Soho Reflex.  It's an SLR, but for 6x9.

It's getting a clean up at the moment but it works fine and carries a Ross Xpres 120/4.5 which is nice and clean.  As is the mirror, which is quite surprising since the lens, and presumably the camera, dates from 1926.  I have to adapt a roll-film back but I hope to have it running by the weekend.

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Soho_Reflex

[Flippy]

I've been looking for a Firstflex for over five years. In that time I've only seen one other one come up on ebay, and that without the lens. (Not counting the one in SA with a $400 BIN that's been up for over two years). I was afraid this one would be bid up to a ridiculous price, but I guess the dent in the pentaprism kills collector value. Only two other bids, and I got it for a decent price. It's currently in customs, can't wait to get my hands on it.

[Bryan]

I've been looking for a Firstflex for over five years. In that time I've only seen one other one come up on ebay, and that without the lens. (Not counting the one in SA with a $400 BIN that's been up for over two years). I was afraid this one would be bid up to a ridiculous price, but I guess the dent in the pentaprism kills collector value. Only two other bids, and I got it for a decent price. It's currently in customs, can't wait to get my hands on it.

Why the interest in this camera, is it because they are rare?  The shutter speed of 125 is quite useable, that's the speed I most often shoot at. 

[Flippy]

I've been looking for a Firstflex for over five years. In that time I've only seen one other one come up on ebay, and that without the lens. (Not counting the one in SA with a $400 BIN that's been up for over two years). I was afraid this one would be bid up to a ridiculous price, but I guess the dent in the pentaprism kills collector value. Only two other bids, and I got it for a decent price. It's currently in customs, can't wait to get my hands on it.

Why the interest in this camera, is it because they are rare?  The shutter speed of 125 is quite useable, that's the speed I most often shoot at.

My general interest in primitive SLRs. Of all of them, Pilot 6, Great Wall, Ensign Roll-Film Reflex, this was the hardest one to track down though. Interestingly it boasted both an instant return mirror and automatic aperture operation before either Pentax or Nikon did. But it is supposed to be very similar to an Exa in basic operation. I've always found it something I needed to get in my hands and see for myself, but they're very hard to find. Rarity is more of an annoyance in this case, and I'm happy I found one at all, even with a dent.

[Bryan]

I've been looking for a Firstflex for over five years. In that time I've only seen one other one come up on ebay, and that without the lens. (Not counting the one in SA with a $400 BIN that's been up for over two years). I was afraid this one would be bid up to a ridiculous price, but I guess the dent in the pentaprism kills collector value. Only two other bids, and I got it for a decent price. It's currently in customs, can't wait to get my hands on it.

Why the interest in this camera, is it because they are rare?  The shutter speed of 125 is quite useable, that's the speed I most often shoot at.

My general interest in primitive SLRs. Of all of them, Pilot 6, Great Wall, Ensign Roll-Film Reflex, this was the hardest one to track down though. Interestingly it boasted both an instant return mirror and automatic aperture operation before either Pentax or Nikon did. But it is supposed to be very similar to an Exa in basic operation. I've always found it something I needed to get in my hands and see for myself, but they're very hard to find. Rarity is more of an annoyance in this case, and I'm happy I found one at all, even with a dent.

it looks like the model they made before this one is an Exa copy.  From what I read about the Firstflex 35 the mirror is the shutter, maybe that has something to do with the one shutter speed.  It also uses the Exakta bayonet mount so there are plenty of lenses available for it. 

[Flippy]

The previous model had a leaf shutter, so while outwardly it looks like a deformed Exakta, it has little in common with one. You can read a little about the cameras on this page: http://retinarescue.com/firstflex35.html

[Kai-san]

......... a very nice Yashica ML 35mm f2.8 for 45 Euros on evilbay.

[Pete_R]

......... a very nice Yashica ML 35mm f2.8 for 45 Euros on evilbay.

A good price.

On the C/Y front, here's my latest addition. A 50/1.7 with an 88xxxxx serial. Some say these late ones were improved. Maybe the coating was, I'm not sure about the optics.

[cs1]

The small town garage sales season has started over here and I found some really nice stuff: a Canon F-1 (the first model) with the standard prism viewfinder, a Canon 100mm f/2.8 lens, all in the original carrying case, a Ricoh XR-P with the Ricoh 28-100mm f/4 P Macro lens. The F-1 is in nearly mint condition (I only had to replace the light sealing and the foam mirror dampener). The Canon 100mm's aperture blades where stuck due to oil but I was able to fix it and now everything is clean, without scratches or fungus. With a 675 hearing aid battery the meter seems to work nicely. I took a few pictures with it today and I just love it. It feels very sturdy and reliable.

The XR-P seems to have some issues. The shutter gets stuck after release (something I saw with another old Pentax SLR, too). However, the lens is fine. I got it all (Canon + Ricoh) for 55 €. The Ricoh's lens is in a very good condition and I'm probably going to sell it again because without the Ricoh's body it's of no use to me (I have no other body with the Ricoh/Pentax mount) and the body doesn't seem to be worth repairing (at least I'm not that much into Ricoh SLRs to put a lot of money/time into it). It'd be a shame to just have the lens lying around in a cupboard.

[jharr]

500 ft of 4" stock of Kodak Recordak 4462. It is microfiche film. Orthochromatic and pictorial, but I have no real clue on the iso. I cut 4 sheets so I can narrow down the speed. I did a dev strip test in dilute parodinal (1:50-ish) and it developed in a matter of seconds. It cleared in Ilford Rapid Fix in about 15 sec.

[Francois]

Seems like it still gets good blacks.
But do expect pretty high contrast and don't use a red filter

[Bryan]

James, are you going to cut it down or use it as 4x5 film?

I love funny looking rangefinders so I had to get this Ricoh 35.

Ricoh 35 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

[jharr]

James, are you going to cut it down or use it as 4x5 film?

It's a giant roll, so I will probably slit it down for use in 616 and maybe 120. Often the edges of these rolls are more fogged than the center, so slitting helps.

Seems like it still gets good blacks.
But do expect pretty high contrast and don't use a red filter

The blacks look darker than they are in that digipic. The emulsion on this (and the 35mm Recordak) is too thin to get much density, but for scanning it seems to work just fine.

[jharr]

I love funny looking rangefinders so I had to get this Ricoh 35.

I really like the 'robot' range finders too. The Kodak 35 and the Graflex 35 are both on my list to buy. That Ricoh looks to be in very good condition. How is the finder on it?

[16mman]

I just picked up this little Bolsey B2 at an Antique store. All the shutter speeds seem to be functioning and I was so surprised that such a little camera has a built-in rangefinder! Looking forward to shooting a roll this week!

[Bryan]

I love funny looking rangefinders so I had to get this Ricoh 35.

I really like the 'robot' range finders too. The Kodak 35 and the Graflex 35 are both on my list to buy. That Ricoh looks to be in very good condition. How is the finder on it?

I have a spare Kodak 35 if you want to negotiate a trade.

[Bryan]

I just picked up this little Bolsey B2 at an Antique store. All the shutter speeds seem to be functioning and I was so surprised that such a little camera has a built-in rangefinder! Looking forward to shooting a roll this week!

I have a Bolsey B22 which is basically the same camera with the added Set-O-Matic flash computer.  It's a rugged compact camera but the lens is just ok, not sharp in the corners.

Bolsey B 22 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Aslito Field Ruins by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

[jharr]

I have a spare Kodak 35 if you want to negotiate a trade.

PM still seems to be non-functional. I sent an email through the forum system.

[cs1]

I just picked up this little Bolsey B2 at an Antique store.

Interesting looking little camera. How big is it? Do you happen to have another pic with a 35mm film can next to it for scale? I've never seen it in Europe before.

[Bryan]

I love funny looking rangefinders so I had to get this Ricoh 35.

How is the finder on it?

I forgot to mention, the finder is really good on it.  The rangefinder patch is nice and bright plus it has an amber tint.  I thought I would have to do some rangefinder calibration and shutter work but everything seems to be functioning good on it.  It's a very heavy camera for its size though. 

[Flippy]

Altiflex by Berang Berang, on Flickr

Strange Altiflex.

[chris667]

Autofocus haul.

A Canon EOS 5. On Freecycle!

I remember being terribly excited by and wanting one of these back in the day.

Not really my bag. But it will be nice to try it out.

[AJShepherd]

Just picked this up, a Bencini Koroll II. Two aperture settings, two shutter speeds plus B, and scale focus. It's a half-frame medium format camera, wind on the film until the number appears in the left window, then wind it on until the same number appears in the right window. Totally fake thing on the front to make it look like it's got a selenium cell which it hasn't.

[jharr]

Just picked this up, a Bencini Koroll II. Two aperture settings, two shutter speeds plus B, and scale focus. It's a half-frame medium format camera, wind on the film until the number appears in the left window, then wind it on until the same number appears in the right window. Totally fake thing on the front to make it look like it's got a selenium cell which it hasn't.

HA! I don't think I've ever seen a fake meter window. It looks like there was another version of the Koroll II that made it look like an integrated flash.

[16mman]

I have a Bolsey B22 which is basically the same camera with the added Set-O-Matic flash computer.  It's a rugged compact camera but the lens is just ok, not sharp in the corners.

Oh, that's a little sad. It's okay though, I sometimes enjoy the soft edge look.  I'll keep that in mind when I'm shooting with it.

[Sandeha Lynch]

My Benicini Koroll was the first camera I used to reverse the lens.  You just unscrew the ring in front of the glass and the lens drops out.  Could never make up my mind if it was sharper right-way or wrong-way around.

You do realise that the body casting is probably aviation-grade aluminium?   

[AJShepherd]

Might have to give that a try after I've given it a test run as is!

[cs1]

I found a nice Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2 today. It's in good shape as far as I can tell (shutter works, times feel right, aperture moves nicely). It came with the small add-on viewfinder that allows to "shoot from the hip" and with the original leather case. I hope to be able to try it tomorrow, it's a beautiful looking machine.

[Klaus]

... at London Photographica ... a Yankee dev tank (under £30) and 35mm film for £2 a roll, not bad at all. Can now tackle some pinhole photography as I acquired a 5x4 format box previously.
Forgot to check the thread on here so I missed the get-together, actually left before 11.30 as I had some other errands to do whilst in London. Anyway, nice show and useful for supplies, good spread of gear from all periods but don't really want to buy more cameras.

[MiguelCampano]

A Canon EOS Elan 7, comes with box and everything, from Goodwill... $30 + shipping. 

[AJShepherd]

Early 1950s Ensign Ful-Vue II, cost me eight pounds fifty. Been thinking about one for a while. This one came with a case, though the press-stud for the strap that goes over the 'ENSIGN' label has worn a bit of the crackle finish off in one spot.

[Kayos]

A Canon EOS Elan 7, comes with box and everything, from Goodwill... $30 + shipping. 

Would look nice next to a 3.......

[Francois]

Early 1950s Ensign Ful-Vue II, cost me eight pounds fifty. Been thinking about one for a while. This one came with a case, though the press-stud for the strap that goes over the 'ENSIGN' label has worn a bit of the crackle finish off in one spot.

I understand why you had a weak spot for it

[MiguelCampano]

A Canon EOS Elan 7, comes with box and everything, from Goodwill... $30 + shipping. 

Would look nice next to a 3.......

That is very, very true...

[Bryan]

I got this in a trade with James.  Fed-3 with a Jupiter-8 lens.

Fed 3 by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr