Canon New F1 review and how to buy one well

[jim_bielecki1]

30 minutes ago, gwhitegeog said:

Hi - any one have a picture of what this set up looks like in practice? Best Gary

386 silver oxide batteries are small.  CRIS, and others, have made a housing the size of an old 1.35V battery.  You slip the 386 battery into the adapter, then put into the camera.  It looks like CRIS is no longer making these, but Kanto Camera, in Japan, is.  You can buy them on Amazon, etc.

 

[gwhitegeog]

I checked this out. The Kanto device is available on Amazon.com (US) for about $30 but is not available on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon in the EU (where I live). 

I can see how it was useful in the past, but now seems like a 'solution to a problem that does not exist' - surely far simpler to use one of the PX625 metal adaptors and fit a 1.35v zinc-air LR44 sized cell inside?

Best

Gary

[John Seaman]

A while back I did a thread about the PX625 and Mercury batteries, which might be of interest:

 

[gwhitegeog]

Thanks for that

 

[jim_bielecki1]

4 hours ago, gwhitegeog said:

I checked this out. The Kanto device is available on Amazon.com (US) for about $30 but is not available on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon in the EU (where I live). 

I can see how it was useful in the past, but now seems like a 'solution to a problem that does not exist' - surely far simpler to use one of the PX625 metal adaptors and fit a 1.35v zinc-air LR44 sized cell inside?

I stopped using zinc-air batteries because of their short shelf life.  While I shoot a lot of film, I may not use my F-1 for months.  Zinc-air batteries just don't last long enough for me.  Silver-oxide batteries do, plus they have better cold weather performance.

Another option is to buy authentic, new Mercury batteries.  Apparently 1,35V Mercury batteries are currently being made in Russia.  You can buy them on eBay.

[gwhitegeog]

Yes, I agree about the zinc-airs but I only need them now in my F1 now as my Nikon F and Canon EF can use 1.5 v cells with adaptors (see above). Thus I buy lots of zinc-airs and change as necessary, they are a lot cheaper now (the LR44 sized ones) than they used to be....

[gwhitegeog]

Thanks, the technical article from the Dutch guy (Buktus link) was a good read. In summary, with zinc-airs now $1 a throw (or less) I have the following regime: PX625A's that are 1.5v and alkaline, I use in my Nikon F (which is converted to run on 1.5v cells). Though alkalines do have a voltage drop as they age, the ones I have in the meter head are 6 months old (and still giving a stable 1.5v when discharge tested with my multimeter), so I'll just monitor them and when they die, replace them with 1.5v silver oxide LR44s with PX625 adaptors. My Canon EF can take any cell that will fit (1.5v or 1.35v). My Canon F1, I use the Wein 1.35v zinc-airs or other zinc-airs with adaptors. Attempting to buy 'old new' mercury cells (still apparently made in some parts of the world) is nonsense and pointless: leaving aside the mercury issue, could I trust their provenance or longevity in my precious old cameras, even if I could source them? Zinc-airs are the way to go, if they last less than a year, I can live with the cost! 

[Farkle-Mpls]

I think someone else referred to this earlier in the thread but I will call it out anyway: when I had my F1 or F1n (the first two versions) serviced, I asked the technician to convert them to take 1.5v batteries.  It must be a minor bit of surgery as the work was always done (and I tested it afterwards) at no additional cost.

[gwhitegeog]

Yes, I think it is actually just a case of recalibrating the meter.