John Seaman

That's a crazy price for a kit lens. I see B&H have a used one for $75. But yes, look for something better.

Some photographers preferred plain ground glass screens for precise focusing. Some Fresnel screens have a plain area at the centre for this reason. I've got a 3.5F fitted with what I think is the original Fresnel, I find it bright enough. It just has a horizontally split image focusing aid, which I tend to rely on.

I find aperture priority mode works fine. Of course the latest flashguns have fabulous functionality - but they also have instruction manuals running to hundreds of pages. Trying to get my head round the complexity of them makes my poor old brain hurt.

Alas poor Yorick

That's interesting, thanks for the comments. It's worth mentioning that these guns work very well off rechargeable AA batteries, unlike some which need expensive alkali's. I should add that on the 1100D it's necessary to set custom function 2, flash,sync speed in AV mode, to "/200 to 1/60 auto" for the 1/60 speed to show on the LCD. Although the speed is still set to 1/60 even if you don't do this.

I acquired an EOS 1100D a few days ago, but got frustrated trying to get a Jessops 360AFD flashgun to work properly on it. Now I have a couple of old Canon flashes, a 199A and a 277T, which were designed for A and T series cameras probably 40 years ago. So I decided to see how well they worked on a DSLR. There’s a lot of misinformation about this online, so I thought it might be of interest to summarise what I found. First, they are both totally safe on digital, with trigger voltages less than 6V. Second, the non-TTL auto exposure control, with a sensor on the front measuring the light returning from the subject, works very well and gave excellent histograms. Unlike the E-TTL 360AFD which consistently over exposed (and its auto zoom function did not work). Third, they have surprisingly good compatibility with the EOS digital SLR, despite being decades older. They both operate the flash ready signal in the finder. And they automatically set the shutter speed to 1/60. So why use them? Well, they just work, and are very simple to use. On the more powerful tilting 199A you just select the ISO and auto flash range, then read the aperture off the dial and set that on the camera. For example at 200 ISO on the Green range, the aperture is f/8. On the smaller non-tilting 277T, first set the ISO, then you have a choice of apertures via the F.No.SET button. There’s no zoom on these apart from add-on wide diffusers - so what? It seems ironic that a whole generation of film era TTL flashguns, which read the light reflected back from the matt film surface, are pretty much useless on digital. Jump back a generation and it’s a different story. Here are the two guns mounted on the 1100D, the 199A on the right, showing that the speed is set to 1/60.

Olympus OM1

This suggests extra lubricant won't help (although WD40 is a water dispersant rather than a lubricant). By all means pop off the baseplate and try and narrow down the problem. Just watch out for any loose bits which might fall out.

Minolta 70-210 F/4 "Beercan" on Sony A900

Rolleicord

Rolleicord

Nikon Coolpix 5000

I've freed up many stiff focusing 35mm lenses by introducing a little light sewing machine oil on to the helicoid threads where visible. With rangefinder lenses you can often do this without dismantling. With SLR lenses you have to unscrew the rear group.

Minolta 24mm F/2.8 on Sony A900

Thanks for the comments. Kmac, I do have a Rolleicord pressure plate but the method of attachment is quite different. I'm trying to work out how to adapt it. Tom, the button is quite stiff and would be hard to operate accidentally. I should add the camera was bought "as is" and the defects were disclosed. The winding mechanism does seem to work, and feels reasonably robust. The handle turns clockwise full circle to advance the film and cock the shutter. When the counter gets to 12 the handle locks part way around. After making the 12th exposure you have to turn the handle backwards, causing a ratcheting noise, which movement resets the counter to "1". This based on my trial and error, its a shame I can't find a full manual.

Here are more pages from the brochure, describing three alternative viewing systems, explaining why the hood (but not the ground glass) is removable

Some years ago I did a post about the Ultraflex mid-1950's TLR, made in Germany by Montanus: LINK --- https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/486300-fun-with-an-ultraflex/ Yesterday I received its stablemate, the Rocca Automatic, also sold as the Montanus Super Reflex and Edixa 6x6. It's very similar in design and futuristic style to the knob wind Ultraflex, but with lever film advance and automatic shutter cocking. They were made by the Potthoff Company in Solingen, and are rather rare, having been sold relatively briefly. The non-folding advance lever turns forward through 360 degrees, unlike the Rollei style forward and back method. The loaded film is wound manually with the larger knob on the left until the number 1 appears in the base red window, when the film counter is manually reset. The auto mechanism then takes over. and hopefully gives 12 exposures. Like the Ultraflex it has a removable viewing hood, released via a button on the side which also opens the back., and like the Ultraflex it has a glass sports finder window in the top. When I saw the U shaped thing on the side in the auction listing I thought was some kind of flash attachment. It's actually the focusing lever, cleverly designed so that it can easily be operated by the user's thumb. My camera has a badly cracked viewing lens, probably the camera was dropped which has also pushed the lens back somewhat, so focus is problematic. It's also missing its pressure plate, so isn't currently usable. Otherwise the Rodenstock Trinar F/2.9 taking lens looks fine and the Prontor SVS shutter works well on all speeds, except ”B” which stays open for some reason. I can't find the instruction manual, but Butkus does have a rather attractive sales brochure. The makers seem to have been very ambitious for it, it's a shame it wasn't very successful. Here's two shots of the camera and a page of the brochure. That's it for now, and thanks for looking.

Sigma Super Wide 24mm F/2.8 on Canon 6MP D60, slight crop