Konica Auto S1.6

Anyone have any experience with this? I bought one a while back at a church

rummage sale and finally got around to putting a roll of film through it this

weekend. The built in meter doesn't work so I metered with an external meter.

The prints from a test roll of cheap film were impressivly sharp. A series of

shots of the same subject at progressively higher shutter speeds and smaller

aperatures indicated the shutter is accurate. The viewfinder is large and easy

to focus. And it seems solid in use.

Sharp is a good thing, but are the photos any good?

 

"A series of shots of the same subject at progressively higher shutter speeds and smaller aperatures."

 

Do you mean larger apertures? I'm sure you know what your testing.

 

Pardon being pedantic, but as worded, could cause confusion given the recent posts by others.

 

Good shooting

Konica FS-1 is similar to The Nikon N2000, both very nice shooters.

I have 157 cameras and the lens I use mostly are Leica and Hexanon.The Hexanon in 35 and medium format are very affordable on e-bay. As you said they are impressivly sharp, The Koni-Omega Rapid M with a 5.6 60mm Hexanon will stand up with any medium format camera

that I have used. A well kept secret, just my 2 cents.

To clarify: higher shutter speeds and larger aperature openings. Sorry for the confusing statement.

 

Are the pictures any good? If you mean content and artistic quality - not really! I chose a subject that had a lot of detail that could be examined more closely at low magnification. The main point was to find out how the lens performed and whether or not the shutter was reasonably accurate. I'm pleased with it and it will make a good user.

Any good rangefinder from that era will produce negatives of comparable sharpness. To me it comes down to ergonomics. Which camera just feels 'right' when you are using it. For me its the Olympus SP. The Konica rangefinders are just too big and clunky.

I had one for a while but I did never shoot with it since I've heard (in this forum) that the f/1.8 lens of the Auto-S2 is somwhat sharper.

 

Dead meters on both cameras (they are identical except for the lens) often can be fixed. Remove the bottom plate and the battery chamber, and separate the two parts of the chamber. Inside you find a primitive switch to switch over to bat test mode. Often the contacts are corroded. You may try to clean them but best cure is replacing them by a piece of nickel plated steel sheet. I cut off a small piece from a holster clip originally coming from a tape measure.

The Auto S1.6 and Auto S2 are both excellent. If you want a nice overhaul, send it to Greg Weber [www.webercamera.com]. The rangefinder must be in proper adjustment to get the full advantage of the sharp lenses on these cameras. The Auto S1.6 is an improved version of the Auto S2. It dates to 1968. The extra lens speed isn't bad to have but the hot shoe is my favorite extra feature.

 

I will agree with the comment about lenses for the Koni-Omega/Rapid-Omega cameras. In High School I used the 58/5.6 Hexanon for class photos. The back for the Koni-Omega keeps the film very flat and even wide open at f/5.6 the 58mm Hexanon is tack sharp.

Worthwhile to fix if built in meter is important. I have an S-2 that I bought new in 1974 that the meter still works, but the counter will only reset to 26. My S 1.6 came from ebay for a little over $30 and all speeds and apertures work, but with a battery it goes into battery check mode. I use sunny 16 or external meter.

Fixing the frame counter should not be too difficult. Remove the top plate (the screw of the advance lever has no holes or slots, it must be turned by friction). Due to the size of the Konica body the frame counter components are not very small. Check all the levers and pins when moving the advance lever, and check what's happening if you open the back door. Probably the bearing of the counter disk is somewhat gummed up, this can be cured with a few drops of lighter fluid (and very little gun or watch oil, if necessary).

Hi,

 

Although a little large in the hand compared to many later fixed-lens RF cameras, yes, the Auto S1.6 (1967) and Auto S2 (1964) are excellent shooters. They are common enough to be real bargains on the used camera market.

 

A nice original accessory for both is a "built-in" sliding lens hood, if yours is missing. There's a retaining ring for the hood that uses the filter threads to keep the hood in place, easily removed so they tend to get lost. These hoods are not interchangeable between the S1.6 and S2, since the models have different diameter filter threads.

 

The Auto S2 uses the same Sekonic meter as the Konica TC SLR (1976), and I suspect the S1.6 does too. That meter is highly durable and keeps its accuracy very well. I'd guess 90% or more of the time an unresponsive meter is due to nothing more than the corrosion problem already mentioned, or a broken/loose wire or solder joint. Yes, usually the problems are under the bottom cover, due to gassing off of the batteries, or battery leaks during long term storage.

 

Another somewhat common problem with the S1.6 specifically is the yellow rangfinder patch disappears. What's happened is that the little mirror insider the RF falls off it's perch, when the old glue gives up. It's pretty easy to identify if this is what's happened, first because of the missing yellow box in the viewfinder and second because you'll hear the mirror rattling around inside. It's pretty simple to disassemble the camera, remove the top of the viewfinder and glue the little mirror back in place. The RF will need to be re-calibrated after this, but that's not a big deal either. There is a screw right behind the mirror to adjust the vertical position of the yellow patch, and another underneath that adjusts horizontal positioning. (There's a third, but it's for more complicated adjustment of the RF linkage and very seldom needs to be changed.)

 

While the top cover of the camera is off, it's a good idea to replace any foam light seals around the viewfinder/rangefinder and possibly even paint the inside of the metal top cover matte black. This makes the already big, bright viewfinder even brighter and easer to use.

 

Konica - actually Konishiroku in those days - made a large number of excellent fixed-lens RF cameras. They pioneered a number of features, including automatic parallax error correction and the color overlay rangefinder method. The earlier IIIA (1958) model is highly recommended, especially if you can find one with the superb 48mm f2.0 Hexanon on it. The slightly later Konica S and SII (1960 & '61) also are great and have what appears to be that same lens in some versions. The IIIA doesn't have a built in meter (The IIIM of 1959 did, but was never fitted with the superb 48/2 Hexanon, although its 50/1.8 is darned good too.)

 

The Konica S and SII both have built-in meters, but no auto-exposure mode, just match-needle. The Konica SIII (1963) is pretty rare, but has the lens and body of the later Auto S combined with the metering of the earlier SII. There are no batteries required with these selenium-celled meters, a surprising number of which tend to still be responsive. But most are likely not all that accurate since, selenium degrades over time.

 

A couple things not found on any of those earlier (and usually more expensive) models, the later Auto S-series does offer an auto exposure method... Hence "Auto" in the name. And, many offer a battery-independent manual mode, as you are aware. The Auto S-series also feature significantly more reliable shutters, long term, than do any of the earlier models.

 

In fact, the Auto S1.6 (1967) was the last Konica fixed-lens rangefinder that allowed for manual exposure settings, until the Hexar camera series of the 1990s and later. (Note: There was a Hexar SLR *lens* series in the 1970s & 80s. Besides the name, the lenses are unrelated to the Hexar camera series.) The Auto S1.6 was also the last of the battery-independent RF cameras from Konishiroku.

 

Try it manually with flash, too. The Auto S1.6 was the first of the series to have a hot shoe. Earlier ones including the Auto S2 have a cold shoe and standard PC socket, requiring a corded flash. Thanks to all these cameras' leaf shutters, they will synch all the way up to their top speed of 1/500, so you might be able to do some fun things with fill flash that balances with ambient light. (Flash on these cams requires manual determination and is not as easy to use or just plain as cool as the fill flash method on the Auto S3 of 1975. But that neat little later camera is AE-only and totally battery dependent.)

 

Oh, and the models that have CdS-celled meters requiring batteries were all designed to use the 1.5 volt mercury cells of the day. Today about the closest you can get is a 1.55 to 1.65 volt silver oxide (SR44, 76 and similar, but one might need to put a small rubber o-ring around it to better fit the battery compartment of cameras that used 625s originally). Alkaline equivalents will not work well, due to their steeply variable voltage over their lifetime. Zinc Air (675s) will work okay, but don't live very long. Due to the slightly different voltage of modern batteries when compared to the original mercuries, the meter might be skewed a bit. This can be compensated for with the ASA setting, or have the meter adjusted. After 4 decades, the meter might be due for adjustment, anyway!

 

Want to dress up an Auto S2 or Auto S1.6 more to your personal tastes? There are fancy and exotic skins for them available at www.cameraleather.com and a Google search should find you the site of someone who is painting them black for fun.

 

The same guy who is painting them owns and moderates the konicarangefinder group on Yahoo, by the way, although there doesn't appear to be much recent activity there. We have a larger and very active Konica SLR user discussion group that occasionally chats about the rangfinder cams, too, at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/konicaslr/

 

Cheers!

Hi

 

sorry to butt in here, I'm new to this and so not sure of the etiquette. The issue with the

missing rangefinder square is exactly what I have with my 'new' auto S2. How exactly

do I get the viewfinder and top plate off to refix the mirror, I'm also new to rangefinder

cameras!

 

Thanks

 

Mark