Shutter always firing at same speed

Hi all,

 

I recently acquired an old Miranda camera, a model F. It's a nice old thing, pretty sturdy and well made and so on. However, it has a fault, which is that what ever speed you set on the dial it always fires at the same speed. It's range is 1 -1/500 and I suspect it is always firing at 1/500, certainly one of the faster speeds anyway.

It's not going to be cost-effective to get it repaired professionally (even if that's possible) so I wonder if there's anything (reasonably straightforward) that I can do to rectify this fault.

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

John

Hi, I'm not familiar with the camera, but SOME cameras with electronically-timed shutters do have a single default shutter speed for when the battery goes dead. So check for this possibility. Best of luck.

Thanks Bill, but the Miranda F pre-dates electronics and is purely mechanical.

I have a Miranda F and when I first got it it did this at the lower speeds - a common issue with shutters than need a clean and lube. Not willing to expend that money on a camera that cost something like ten bucks with three lenses, I just sat there and fired it over and over. Eventually it freed up and stayed that way. It's worth a try. Just put it on a slower speed, and try firing the shutter over and over and see if it remembers what it's supposed to do.

The Olympus Trip 35 was designed with only one shutter speed, 1/200. It was a popular camera. You might look at your camera as a challenge and try to get the most out of it before you spend money for repair or junk it.

I think some of the advice here is good.. ie keep shorting it until it recovers or remembers what it is supposed to do and also try to hoot the camera the way it is just to get something out of it. Open apertures on lenses let you see the bokeh etc. I assume it is a focal plane shutter so it won'T hurt to look around to see how hard it is to access the speed settings and consider what could go wrong that it would be stuck on a high speed. The Contax IIa shutter seems to split the gears I think so the 10,100,1000 are all subdivisions of each other. So you can probably find some info on it on-line somewhere...

Thanks all for the advice. I've fired the shutter several hundred times now with no improvement, so it looks like it's stuck on firing at one speed. So, as I have a couple of other old cameras that are fully functional, this one will be a shelf ornament for the time being.... until I am willing to try dismantling it. :-{