Let me first start off by saying that I am completely new to cameras on any technical basis, so maybe some of my questions are fairly obvious to many but not to me.
So I bought this camera earlier this year, it is a Vitomatic II, seems to work great other than the light meter and the rangefinder. So far I've been snapping photos with it but have to just guesstimate the distance. That has worked fine for the most part and has resulted in some very crisp photos but also in many blurry unfocused ones as well. I've gotten these below:
and blurry ones like these:
The light meter doesn't seem to respond to different amounts or intensities of light. It stays closer to the top and i have never seen it move anywhere on the bottom half of its range. It seems to move as i move the camera around but only from the force exerted by my movement, so i'm not sure if its stuck or how to go about making sure it is working properly. Does it utilize a battery of any sort? if so where would i get a replacement battery?
At first we thought the camera was flawed because when taking a picture changing the focus didn't affect the view finder, which in our experience with other cameras, was always the case. With some research we discovered that the view finder would display a double image so that you can adjust the focus until there was a single image and that that's how that works. Upon closer inspection to the camera I noticed a faint glare in the middle of the yellowish circle and that it moved when I moved the focus. I could not see a double image but I could see that it was in the shape of the window area behind and between two objects that I was looking at and i was able to adjust it to its place and find an accurate range. The problem is that it is so faint that you would never see it when outside. Is this common? is there something I can do to make the image appear clearly and easily so that I can use the rangefinder when out in the world? It would be nice to get some clean shots without wondering how they were going to come out.
Also I don't understand how to use the ASA or the DIN numbers or really understand what they do. What do the different VXM settings do they are colored but i can't seem to use the numbers after B in green even when i'm on V (which is green).
The circular knob thing that you use to wind in new film has a bunch of letters on it, what do they do and how do you use them?
So that is all I can think of at the moment, but any help understanding this camera will be greatly appreciated.
