ralf_j.

Great presentation - 2-8m appears to be its sweet spot.

Great resurrection of this post - enjoyed revisiting some of our commentaries and OP's writings. @chuck - hope you are well and not too cold in good old Deutschland

Hi Rick - Hope you are doing well, and very glad to see you. Have been away from forum for some time but do check on things from time to time. Miss seeing some of your work and hikes in towns or rural areas. Hope above helps, as it seems common with this line of cameras.

Agree - I just checked the electronics and they seem to be working within reason - albeit the lens mounted on this is one of the two lenses in referenced in the manual that won't work properly. It works fine in Stop down mode and meter is responsive including correct shutter value based on set aperture.

And the bottom part with issue circled.

Quick trip to a local open air market, and I found this unit. Probably long forgotten as it was not functioning properly. Mirror flipped up and lens exposed to whatever with tiny specs on front element. Some research on Pentax Forums yielded the fix and wanted to share with you here as it is super simple: - Open base plate with four Philips screws (The ones around tripod socket are smaller) - Remove circuit board (3 Philips screws) and remove it from slot, as you would remove a memory module from a computer. - With exposed mechanics you can see the pin to the left of the tripod socket which is stuck. - I freed it and mirror came down, cleaned goo from the mirror bumper cushion - Used electronic cleaner to clean old grease in the channel where mirror arm moves and one drop of watch oil to lubricate - Good as new now. See photos for the issue part. Hope this helps anyone having trouble with this.

Great photos - love classic cars, and motorcycles. I would love to ride that Motorcycle with that matching sidecar.

Thanks Rick - shooting at F/8 helped too, but with focus peaking and magnification assist it makes for an interesting rig. Had a hard time with A6000 getting the magnification setup but in the end it worked well.

A few months back a US made Falcon type F arrived to my doorstep in poor shape. Attempts to fix the focusing helicoid were in vain as it snapped in several pieces. Front standard was good however , optics cleaned nicely and shutter is solid, although for my purposes only T mattered. i adapted to a fotasy helicoid m42 to sony e mount using a c mount ring to fix the lens on the adapter. Makes for a fun shooter, and flare galore, I may fashion a hood of sorts at some point. Lens cap is from a protein shake carton. Samples and combo below

An oldie but goodie

My corner of the Balkans was invaded on April 7, 1939. There was some resistance, but our aged carcanos and steyr manlicher were no match for Mussolini's planes.

Thank you so much Rick and KMAC. @rick I am impressed you found these images, search engines were hesitant to provide these lovely detailed images. This camera had set untouched for a long while as the lens is completely fogged out and the spool inside is a metal spool. The spring button allows the catch hole to fully open up thus releasing the back. I finally took the courage and applied a bit of tug and pull and got into its belly :-). Although an interesting puzzle, I am not sure why Foth would make this so inconspicuous :-). Thanks again.

I found one of these and based on web information, it dates from about 1927. It is pretty interesting, especially the preset focus mechanism, but for the life of me I can not figure out how to open the back, and I am afraid of damaging it. I thought of all the usual suspects, hinged button under the hand strap, hidden bump on the leatherette, even pullout of bellows and front standard outside of the body ala Kodak style but no luck. I am looking carefully at the seams and there seem to be a gap between the bottom plate, with a spring lever inside the body, but it doesn't seem to release anything. Any Ideas anyone? Thanks

Very informative, thanks, crude sums it up well enough.

Indeed, very hefty chunk of metal, no cheats on this one, back from the time when things were made for real and not mass produced :-).

Indeed, I do not think it was made for consumer markets and must have been expensive with the electric motor fitted on the lower right chamber.

Hi Chuck - I have not messed with it much, just wanted to show it to you guys, but may get around to using it just for kicks, the shutter is simple and the lens has a lot of crud on it but may clean up, thanks for the generous offer and glad to hear from you as always.

I was off by 20 years :-).

A passport photo taker? A school yearbook camera? I would guess this monster would be from late 40s or early 50s, raptar lens is coated. Made for Camerz corp. It set me back 5$, and the spider webs were free…

Thanks Rick, good to see you. Had fun with these series. [uSER=2409759]@chuck_foreman|1[/uSER] - thanks budd - look forward to exchanging messages in the future.

Took the recently restored Brownie to the Shore and had some fun with it. Below are some quick snaps on Ilford HP5 developed in a nearly exhausted D76 at 8.5 minutes.

@chuck - good attempt - What Conrad says sounds intriguing. Good to see you JDM hope you are doing well :). My Brownie came together without any notable hic-ups and it is ready to shoot - had to re-glue the mirrors as in boneheaded attempt i placed them on the frame of the camera instead of having them glued on the wooden block that supports the shutter and aperture mechanism. I have loaded it up with HP5 and will see if we can get some interesting exposures out of it.

Nice find - it may be useable if you can retrofit a spent 126 cartridge. I have done with instamatic 500 with no issue. The lens looks like a 3 element optic.

Hi folks, good to see you here. @ Rick - I have mirrors cut to size from a gentleman on eBay who sells tlr mirrors so that should address that issue. @chuck, this one you have posted here may be a little more involving and require your will whether you want to proceed as the outcome can go either way: shutter plate is held with 4 nails from what I see; I have messed with this before prying nails out and reinserting them but obviously the camera had no sentimental value to me. Your choice, my friend :-).

Most of these box cameras or other mass produced cameras are in terrible shape when found these days. As a pleasant surprise to myself, most of these can be resurrected more often than not. It is only a myth that these are riveted shut "light tight" boxes with cheap meniscus type lenses. Careful examination of of seams and screws will yield pleasant result most of the time. The Brownie No. 2 is one such beast old lady. Disassembly in full display below.