ben_hutcherson

I thought I'd follow up on this one- After doing a bunch of hunting, I finally found a suggestion on a different site where someone discussed using a butter knife to work the pack out. I was able to get it out doing this. I finally was able to finish this one up the other night-it bench tested fine although I've not actually reassembled yet. That part's not complicated. I'm reluctant to tape the replacement back in like the original, but the original also had some adhesive foam rubber around the edges of the pack and I'll likely test fit and add some of that to at least give some security. Not the best photo, but taken on my work bench at around 11:00PM after I'd finally finished everything up and was test charging. The original pack is to the right-my new/rebuilt one is in the blue shrink wrap This one was a bit of a fun challenge. A flat 12 cell pack in a 4x3 grid is easy enough to build, especially after I upgraded my battery spot welder. The really cheap Amazon ones can work, but don't give particularly consistent or pretty welds. I bought a "Glitter" brand 801 series spot welder, another Chinese special but a somewhat higher end model. This one uses a big supercapacitor to make the welds(reading the directions helps-I thought at first it was bad, but when new it just needs ~30 minutes to charge up the capacitor from the tiny little wall wart, but once charged it can make a LOT of welds without draining it down too much and needing a break to recover-I have yet to have to build an intentional pause into a work section). As to this battery pack, though-this is not unusual for NiMH packs, but there were a few temperature sensors that needed to be extracted from the old and transferred to the new. I mangled the original battery pack to board plug trying to get the old pack out. It's a JIS 2.5mm connector, so I just opted to replace it completely. That involved a crash course in learning to crimp these, which isn't complicated. The original pack seemed to use a mix of 28AWG and 24AWG wires-I did the new in all 24AWG since, why not? Quantum apparently saw fit to double up the actual power carrying wires(two positive and two negative-the green and white wires are to temp sensors) so if they thought 2x28AWG was good, and 24AWG will both crimp properly into the connectors and fit fine in the same application, I don't see any downside to using the heavier wire.

I don't find Carousels particularly noisy. The fan is the only constant noise. Yes, the slide change mechanism has its own distinct sound, something you never forget if you've ever sat through a slide show, but I don't find it particularly loud or bothersome. If shopping for one, my two small suggestion would be to look for an Ektagraphic and not a Carousel. The former were more intended for heavy institutional usage, and not occasional home usage like Carousels. The difference in price today is practically negligible, but I find that for a given age of projector Ektagraphics are often brighter and in general have better illumination optics(more even) than Carousels. They also, IME, are easier to find in halogen on the second hand market. I don't remember if any had dual bulbs(like a lot of overhead projectors-for easy swap if the bulb burns out while you're using it) but most did make bulb changes VERY fast and easy. I'd not buy one without a halogen lamp as, aside from being brighter, they are much easier to change as most are a sealed "cartridge" with an integral reflector. More importantly, I find that the change mechanism on the Carousels isn't the most robust and uses a lot of plastic that often will have turned brittle just with age and exposure to hot, bright light. The Ektragraphic mechanism is MUCH more robust. I've found the same true of the focus mechanisms. I'd also not skip autofocus-you still need to get focus in range(and remote focus is also super handy for this) but autofocus handles small slide-to-slide variations and also the tendency for paper or plastic mounted slides to "pop" after a second or two of being projected. Last thing-Kodak was capable of making among the best lenses in the world, but the ones you find on most projectors are not among them. I lucked into a really nice Buhl 135mm lens several years ago-it actually looks a lot like an old 4 D cell Mag Light complete with red annodization on the barrel, but is SO much sharper than the typical Kodak standard lens. With that said, 135mm isn't a great choice for home use-it's a big auditorium lens. A lot of Carousels came with either a fixed 40-50mm or so, or maybe a 30-70 zoom(the zooms are handy but make other compromises-I don't like them) which is a lot more suitable to projecting a big photo in your living room...

I've replaced my fair share of batteries in Quantum packs of different generations, but this one has me stumped and I'm wondering if anyone can offer any insight. The 2x2 uses 4/5 Sub C NiMH cells. I don't actually know how many, but I have plenty on hand to do it(I ended up buying 25). If I had to guess it's either 7 or 8 but don't actually know(the original Turbo uses an 8V battery...). In any case, it's easy enough to pull the "brains" out, but I'm stuck with actually getting the cells out of the case. It uses the same style leatherette type case as the QB1/2/Turbo, although a different size and shape. It seems as though Quantum used a double sized foam tape to secure the pack to the case. I've gone in with a knife and thin straight edge to cut the 4 strips of tape I've found, and have twisted and otherwise manipulated the case any way I can think of. There's no way to get a good hold on the battery pack that I can see short of yanking on the wires, and no amount of shaking or anything else seems to even get the battery pack to want to budge. Has anyone done one of these before themselves? BTW, I'm not a stranger to re-celling in general and once I can get the pack out and use it as a template I'm equipped to "do it right". I have a spot welder, a selection of nickel strips to weld the batteries together, and plenty of shrink wrap for battery packs in different sizes. I just need to get the pack out!

Jim Kasson thinks the 24 MP FX sensor that Nikon used in the Z6 has optical low-pass filter on one direction only (normally there are two orthogonal layers). However, I haven't looked into this in detail. I suspect the Zf sensor is similar to the one in the Z6 I'm fuzzy on details, but isn't this how the D800(not D800E) was done? I remember there was something sort of unusual about it, but I also seem to remember that it made the 800E even a bit weirder since it had sort of an anti-anti-alias filter(if that's making sense-and I admit to sort of glossing over when I read about it) that canceled out the effect of the already weak AA filter on the regular D800. It didn't go away completely until the D810, which practically speaking I've found no more prone to aliasing than the D800(I still have an use both). The only relatively low resolution full frame camera(by modern standards) camera I'm aware of is the 14mp Kodak DCS 14/n and SLR/n. I've not pushed those that far, especially since they're more curiosities to me in 2023 than practical cameras(especially since I can stuff my pockets full of batteries and still be lucky to get 50 photos in an outing...even though on the right subject they sing like nothing else) but they will alias even on things like relatively course weave fabrics. I've been known to use inexpensive bed sheets as studio backdrops and depending on distance I've had a mess before with the Kodak cameras. Thinking back on my DSLR/digital ownership history, I think I've only had one 24mp camera(FX or otherwise)-a D600. I remember taking it to a wedding with me(as a guest) and taking a few hundred photos with it. Not to sidetrack, but it was a cousin's wedding and they didn't have a paid photographer(I didn't ask ahead of time but it was a lower budget affair in a relatives' friend/barn and the liquor budget took precedence over the photographer budget) so I sort of stepped into that role when I was there as much as I could without intruding-something I think they assumed I'd do all along even though I wasn't asked. I mention that because wedding dresses are often one of those places where moiré can show up, and sometimes with a vengeance on places like veils. I remember having to massage it out of 2-3 photos, but mostly the D600 was pretty resistant to it. I have no idea how strong its AA filter was, and considering that I sold it almost 3 years ago I can't do any real tests. The potential 24mp cameras on my radar are a D3x if they ever come in price(yes, tell me how stupid I am for wanting one, but I still love using my D3s but just sometimes find the 12mp isn't QUITE enough and I love the general color rendition of this era Nikon cameras) and for the time comes when I can't resist jumping into the Z system I will likely start either with a Z6/Z6ii or Zf.

Really? "Coolscan cultists" "sucker film shooters" That's pretty darn inflammatory language in my book. In the past that wouldn't have flown here and in fact it didn't, but I guess times have changed... Sharing an opinion is one thing. Veiled barbs and insults(which you will find in nearly everything this individual posts) don't exactly make for a pleasant forum atmosphere. Whatever, delete my post if you want to.

I know I shouldn't expect anything but a nasty toxic respsonse from you(why did the mods ever let you back after you were banned years ago?) but really-cultists? Scanning has its ups and downs. DSLR use has its ups and downs. On the whole I prefer the speed of DSLRs but the ultimate results of scanning. And after using a bunch of different scanners, I still find the Nikons the best. Yes they have their shortcomings. I consider it worth the trouble to keep them going. So thanks but no thanks for your opinion. I can only hope that one of these days that the mods will do right and re-instate the ban that was well deserved 15 years ago and you only managed to get through in a software update.

Hopefully my phrasing conveyed what I was trying to say: The focus limit switch on the lens is .5m-infinity. On my D800, which is what I was using it on(actually used the set-up again yesterday to take some photos for a sales listing elsewhere-my 105 Bellows-Nikkor still looks better 🙂 ) I racked it out to 1:1 manually and put a keyboard key in focus. When I hit AF on, it actually popped out of focus and pulled back to the .5 meter setting.

Just for the sake of seeing what would happen, I racked mine(105 f/2.8G) out to 1:1 in-focus on a key on my keyboard then set the limiter switch. When I activated AF, it pretty quickly popped out of focus and drew back to the minimum distance.

Do you mean on the AF-D lenses? There's no focus motor in them-they use the one in the body. They all use the "rotating barrel" design(that's what I call it-don't know if there's a better/official term). They have a nice, big, grippy focus ring that runs most of the length of the lens, but when the lens is in AF mode this ring is physically locked and can't be rotated. There's a push-button and collar(doesn't totally unlock the rotating VR switch on my 300 2.8...) that allows you to rotate most of the barrel a few degrees. Doing this does a few things-it decouples the focus mechanism from the in-body motor, couples the focus ring to the focus mechanism(unlocking it) and communicates to the body it's now in manual focus mode. I actually really like this design, and it was used on basically everything but moderately wide to short tele primes, as well as most of the better zooms, but I've also heard reports of people having issues with the ring stopping working or getting stuck. It's definitely a big improvement over how it was done on the 180mm f/2.8 ED AF and 300mm f/4 AF(probably others, but just the two I have experience with). On those, you have to move a switch on the lens to engage the manual focus ring, and then use the body switch to turn off manual focus. If you just flip the body switch, you're left without any way to focus the lens, and if you use the lens switch you're either dragging the focus motor along(one of those screwdriver lens no-nos, although it's probably harder on the lens than the body) or if you activate AF the motor has to deal with the additional drag of moving the focus ring. That's not so good either since these have big, beefy focus rings normally and I'd be afraid it would burn out the AF motor if you did it for long. BTW, too, on all of the "rotating barrel" lenses I've used that have a focus lock(at least one of the 80-200s I've had has it) the lock still works in manual focus. I'm curious tonight to go home and try my 105 AF-S racked out to 1:1 and see what the lock switch does. Did I mention though that I like the 105mm f/2.8 AF-D better, though? 🙂 Not only do I feel like it performs better, but I also feel like manual focus, which is super important to me on a macro lens, just feels better and I perceive it as more precise(whether it is or not). I'm not sure if the AF-S version uses a ring motor or not, but it honestly doesn't really feel like it to me. About its only redeeming quality for me to keep it is that I can do automated focus stacking with it on the D850.

That's the point, you can't! I sold mine as it was 'Chromatically' challenged, so can't check..... 🙁 I'll play with mine when I get a chance-maybe this evening. BTW, more and more I seem to go back to older macro lenses. Lately my one of choice, wherever practical, has been the short mount 105mm f/4...which actually is a super useful and versatile lens(and I've mentioned in at least one thread) when used specifically on the PB4 bellows even if it's a bit clunky for non-macro use. On the AF-D Micro lenses, the focus limiter is mechanical lock. It's a switch hanging off the side of the lens barrel that's also easy to snag going in and out of your bag...and I don't think it can be set if the lens is already focused closer than it would allow if on.

I thought that was the case for Z lenses, but as of now don't have any Z system equipment(we'll see how long that lasts) so didn't know for sure. That certainly seems the way of the future. I've written before on here about using the Fuji X system and my reasons for going with that for now over Nikon mirrorless, but to my knowledge outside 3rd party manual focus lenses nothing has a direct connection. I have limited experience with Nikon AF-P F mount lenses, but my experience dictates that they're quite good and I'm sure Z mount is even better(especially in the better lenses). I normally leave manual focus over-ride on my X-T5 off because even touching the focusing ring and moving it an imperceptible amount kicks it into manual focus and it won't go back to AF unless you stop and restart focus. Some lenses-like my 56mm f/1.2-have fairly heavily damped rings, while the 16-80mm f/4 will move if you breath on it. If the Z mount works like I'm use to the F mount working with AF-S/AF-P, autofocus will resume as soon as you let go of the focus ring if you still have it active. Does this sound correct? In any case, I think I see where @mike_halliwell is coming from. My 70-200 f/2.8 VR1 and 300mm f/2.8 VR1 are some of my fastest focusing lenses, and in general on my D5 or D850 especially, but really any newer higher end body, they will keep up well but it can still take them a second to re-orient if they lose focus completely(I remember you talking about having a D5, Shun, and I'm guessing you've probably had either these same lenses and or the older/newer variants of them). Both do have limiters on near focus, which can help re-acquire focus faster since you're not dealing with the whole range, but I'm often using them in situations where I need closer than the limiter allows. All my AF Macro lenses(now probably a kind of nutty number-the 60mm f/2.8D, 105mm f/2.8D, 200mm f/4D, and 105mm f/2.8 AF-S VR) have limiters, which of course can be especially helpful if you're doing non-macro work(and really frustrating if you're trying to use them as a macro lens and realize you've either left the limiter on or have bumped it by accident-super easy to do on the AF-D lenses in and out of the bag). That's doubly so on AF-D lenses since it takes a LOT of turns of the focus motor to get them all the way out. It would seem, in my non-software engineer mind, to be able to specify a focus range on a focus by wire lens. In a hypothetical situation of something like a football game, it would make sense to me, for example, to restrict the range to the near and far ends of the field, or in wildlife for the furthest and closest distance you'd anticipate having reasonable framing. I suspect that was the whole idea behind the ring and lock screw on the old slow focusing first gen lenses paired with early AF bodies...

Guess so.....☹️ I think user defined focus limiters are an aspect that Nikon et al have seriously neglected. It's always just FULL or Xm > Inf. I always want Min > Xm or 2m > 4m for Dragons or 20m > Inf for Raptors etc. Things like the Bike shot, you could pre-set so not to go beyond 2m past the apex, kinda thing. You don't want it to go find the trees down the valley or on the horizon. If they crash out, a simple 'push past' override would be easy. Back in the ancient past, on some of the earliest long AF lenses, Nikon did actually let you do this. The one that comes to mind for me is the 300mm f/4 AF(not the newer AF-S version), an earli(er) AF lens with the fun arrangement of needing to set manual focus BOTH on the body and on the lens, unlike most other screwdriver lenses. In any case, this one quite literally has a rotating ring and a couple of set screws that will let you set both a maximum and minimum distance. I have an early push-pull 80-200 2.8 I've not really used but ended up with along the way that I think has a similar system. On these lenses, it takes a LOT of turns of the in-body focus motor to rack the lens in and out. Even if they don't focus particularly close, especially by current standards, the focus limiters are still your friend if you're trying to do anything moving. That's especially true when you combine them with first generation AF systems that these would have been used on, like the F4 or N8008, that aren't exactly speedy focusing cameras in the best of circumstances and can get "lost" and have to rack the lens through its full range to find focus again. In the days of no actual physical connection between the focusing ring and the lens focus mechanism(are all Z lenses focus by wire?) it would seem to me as though this would be an easy software thing to implement.

I genuinely don't know this, as it's been a few years since I sold the only modern-ish Canon flash I had. I think I had a 580EX or something like that. I recall it not being the current model when I bought it(2014ish?) but it did give full E-TTL, etc, on the Digital Rebel I then had. I know it also worked fine with TTL on my T90, although didn't do rear curtain sync. I never actually remember trying it on my A-1 or any of my other FD cameras. One of the nice things you do get with the "A" and "T" series dedicated Canon flashes(300TL aside) is coupled aperture auto flash. As I think you've said here, and I've seen myself, auto flash(or Auto Thyristor as I got use to calling it since the first flash I owned was a Vivitar 283) in general works great as long as you're aware of its limitations. Coupled auto just is one less chance for a mistake if you're using different apertures, so I like it. I'm also not sure if or when Canon stopped putting auto flash into their flashes. The 300TL I don't think has it at all, but then it was also made to show off the T90 flash capabilities. I honestly don't remember if the flash I had did auto or not. I know Nikon kept up to the SB600/SB800 but cut it on the next generation of flashes. For my use and money, for an old film camera I'm rather fond of the Metz 36CT3 for a shoe mount flash. It's right in that 36m/120ft GN range(at the "normal" zoom setting, 98 wide, 148 tele) sweet spot of a lot of shoe mount flashes, and gives both tilt and swivel. One of my real likes of it is that since it's an SCA 300 system flash, I can use an SCA 343 for TTL-compatible MF Nikons, an SCA 310 for auto-aperture coupling(and flash ready) on A and T series Canons, and an SCA 311, which I have but haven't tested, should give me full TTL on a T90. Back when I still had my Bronica SQ-A, I use to use it in the hot shoe on the winder grip with just the plain shoe. I happened in to the 36CT3 probably 15 years ago at a flea market. It was on a mid-range Minolta SLR and I paid $40 for everything, then turned around and sold the camera on Ebay for $80 a week later. Joe, I know from past comments you're not a big fan of the handle mount Metz flashes, but the 45 series in particular do still have a place for me. If I have to use direct flash(of course avoided at all cost) the off-axis handle mount is less evil than in the hotshoe and a lot less bulky than something like a Stroboframe. A 45 CL4 Digital has been stuck on my D850 the couple of weeks and has done a lot of good work for me, although unfortunately that particular one ditches SCA300 compatibility(unless there's a trick I'm missing to fitting an SCA 300 shoe to it) but also packs a lot into it and is otherwise compatible with most of the other 45-series goodies like light modifiers going back to the 70s.

To add onto that... If one wants an era-appropriate flash, the 299T IMO is the jewel of the era. It functions more or less like the 199A with auto-aperture coupling(it's still an automatic flash-you can't get TTL since the A-1 can't support it) but the head has both tilt and swivel as well as(manual) zoom. For real use, I've basically retired everything that doesn't have a swivel head. In many cases, especially with a high ceiling or one that's not particularly reflective, only being able to point the flash straight up to bounce off the ceiling just doesn't cut it. That's particularly true with a less powerful flash. With a swivel head, you can take advantage of a wall as a bounce surface, or even in a more normal sized room I find that bouncing off both the wall and the ceiling behind me(say flash turned around and angled 45º) can give me a more "natural" look than a 90º bounce. I know you know all of this, Joe(or may have an opinion contrary to mine-just stating what works for me and also taking a lot of photos in casual situations where I can play with this, and on digital where I can see results in real-time) but I think it's worth repeating. Even though zoom heads are often used to inflate GNs, I've found them moderately useful in situations where I might be on the edge of the flash's power in a bounce situation. If there's enough distance between me and the bounced surface(wall, ceiling, or both) even if the head is zoomed it will still diffuse enough to cover the area. I still think that I get the best light quality if I have the zoom set as diffuse as possible-the flashes I use regularly either have wide-angle diffusers built in or I have add-on ones for them-but if it's the difference between properly exposed or getting a little better light quality, I'll choose the former.

Being able to swing the lens can be a real benefit to keeping something not aligned with the sensor plane in focus without needing to stop down ludicrous amounts... And yes, using swing was MUCH less work than actually getting this to stay in place flat without rolling off.

Well, Quantum assured me it was okay and that its output voltage was the same as Nikon's AC adapter, although since it's from a battery and not a wall adapter it should actually be "cleaner." I don't have the genuine Nikon adapter to test this out, but a voltmeter showed me 9V across the pins of the Quantum cord. That is in fact what Nikon's battery spits out. I'd planned on doing some indoor macro work anyway with my D800, and needed to stick around the living room yesterday and today rather than my upstairs office/studio. I've mostly been running the D800 and D850 off EN-EL18s and actually didn't have any charged EN-EL15s, which gave me a good excuse to try this. I'm using the PB4 bellows, which work just fine with the ungripped camera but get tricky with the grip(you need to use an extension tube to hang the camera off the back of the bellows, and when you need both relatively low magnification and high magnification in the same session it can get to be a real pain of shuffling everything around). I'd not necessarily use this combo all the time, but it's nice to have it as an option. Since I was doing a lot of live view, the camera does pull a decent amount of power. The current EN-EL15c is rated at 2280mAh, although admittedly the Turbo doesn't give a ton of extra power with its 3.2Ah battery. With that said, in this situation I would probably use an original EN-EL15 since I've standardized to the A/B/C versions in my bags(the D850 shipped with the A version, and seems to really hit the older ones hard, while the D800 and D810 are perfectly content with the newer ones). The original version is 1900mAh. Here's the current working set-up. It's pretty self explanatory, but it's a D800 on PB4 bellows with the short mount 105mm f/4 Micro-a rather interesting lens that will focus from infinity to I think twice life size or somewhere in that area on the PB4 and if you really wanted to get fancy could use it in regular non-macro use with the limited shift and swing offered by the PB4. Window and incandecent are providing a mix of fill in light, and the bounced flash is gelled to match the ~4600K color temperature I'm measuring on the area being photographed. Exposure is set at 1/60 with f/8 preset on the lens(actual aperture dependent on how close I'm getting) which picks up just enough ambient to help me out. Despite my not-infrequent complaints about it, iTTL-BL is actually serving me well here, even though there's a bit of a lag using live view as the camera has to drop the mirror and close the shutter to fire the preflash, then of course raise it back up and open the shutter to take the photo. Even though my studio macro set-up is more convenient and I generally have better light quality, this is actually sort of nice in that I can normally can only crank the power down so much on my Norman strobes, and often I'll still end up at f/16 or smaller. That's great for DOF, but of course diffraction can kill resolution. I'm usually doing this kind of macro work to see the really fine detail present on the objects I'm photographing, and diffraction obscures what the set-up would otherwise be capable of seeing. Also, just as a matter of convenience, I'm testing a freshly rebuilt NiCd pack in the flash, but I do have the proper cable to run this flash off of the Turbo also. If speed were important, the flash takes 6 seconds to recycle from a full power dump from the NiCd pack vs. about 1.5 seconds for the Turbo on high(or 2.5-3s on low). I have a pigtail splitter to run two devices off a single Turbo pack, or if I really wanted to get fancy I do have two of these packs. And even though I hadn't intended this as a picture thread, I'll share some re once I've had a chance to work them up.

The other day, I bought on Ebay what was supposed to be a CD100 to fit/power cameras that take an EN-EL3/EN-EL3e battery from a Quantum Turbo(original Turbo-the one in the leather/leatherette case). My main interest, despite the bulk, was that even though I have several working EN-EL3 batteries, they are getting on in years. What I received was the CD100 cable, which has the "microphone" plug for the Turbo pack at one end and a 4 pin plug at the other end. Also in the box-and I should have caught this from the listing photos-was a genuine Nikon EP-B5. This is the size and shape of a Nikon EN-EL15, but is designed to be used with an AC adapter. In my mind, I could think of reasons why the combo should and should not work. Even though the Turbo is primarily meant to be a high voltage pack for flash recharge, but can supply low voltage. It does have an 8V battery in it, and the "high voltage" external pack cords for a lot of flashes do have low voltage pins also to run the flash displays/logic circuits(something I sort of wish Nikon had done with the SB800/900/910/5000 and SD8/9 packs so that you don't need the AAs in the flash...but that's a different discussion). Quantum also makes cables that are meant to plug into the Turbo and feed flashes that don't have high voltage plugs. The one thing that gives me a pause is that the EN-EL3 is 7.4V and the EN-EL15 is 7.0V. At the same time, the EP-B5 is meant to work with the Nikon EH-5 series power supplies, which all seem to output 9V. That makes me think that there is a voltage regulator circuit inside it, or otherwise that cameras that take the EN-EL15 don't care if they're fed 9V(and they certainly are okay with 14.4V from an EN-EL18, although I know that it's not a direct comparison since that's done through a battery grip). I would "just try it" but my only EN-EL15 cameras now are my D8xx cameras, all of which I care about too much to try unless I know the combo is safe. I may call or email Quantum later today and get their thoughts, as I've found them super helpful and forthcoming with information in the past. I'm sure Nikon would say no... In the mean time, I'm wondering if anyone has used this combo.

I'm looking for a Mecamat 45-46-the one that works with the 45 CT4/CL4 and a few other flashes from the 45CT series. I'd also be interested in a 45-30 for use with the 45 CT5. Totally unrelated to any of these, but I'm also looking for an SCA 3083 adapter, the off camera adapter that will work with "digital" flashes. In general, I'm also interested in buying various different Metz accessories for the 45 and 60 series lots, and am especially interested in lots of items(including flashes, working or not).

I found a relatively inexpensive SCA 311 on an SCA 300A cord that I went ahead and bought, so I'll see how it works when it gets here. cross The 300A cord...well let's say that my "interest" in Metz flashes may well have crossed into "unhealthy obsession." I've been trying to be sort of organized with this stuff. When I first started accumulating I bought plastic shoeboxes at Wal-Mart to sort all the bits and pieces. I originally had one for cords. That's turned into several boxes of cords, as I have one full of just plain PC cords(and I've realized I need to sort those further as they're not as universal as I'd originally thought...), one full of SCA 300 cords and modules, and one full of SCA 3000 cords and modules, and yet another just for the pieces for the late model flashes(70 and 76). Somehow or another I ended up with enough SCA 344 cords, which are specific to the Nikon F3, that they have their own box, although there are a few other bulkier camera specific ones in there. That by the way just covers sync cords-I have yet another for the 60 series power pack to flash head(those only work with an external power pack) and one to connect various models of 45-series flash to both Metz and Quantum external packs.

Just realized I made a small mistake- I had 8 cells for the high power pack FN in my head. That's common for a lot of higher speed film cameras-I think that's what the motor for the A-1 uses, and the Nikon F2 motor along with the F5 runs on 8 cells. After thinking about it and doing some quick checking, I seem to recall that the standard AA pack uses 12 cells. By extension, the High Power Ni-Cd pack would use the same number of cells, and my stash of remaining tabbed cells that i use to keep for rebuilding these(which I use to buy in packs of 8...) would support that number. That means that a standard AA pack is going to be 12V, and a rechargeable will be a nominal 9.6. As a side note too, if you pull your nickel rechargeables off the charger and they're less than 1.3V/cell, they're probably bad. A 100% freshly charged cell should be higher thanks to charge build up at the electrodes, but one off the charger an hour or so and unused should be at least 1.3V.

I've seen the rebuild on Ebay, or at least seen one offering. If it's the listing I'm thinking of, the seller replaces the thermal diode, which is probably a good thing and is something I would do if I knew the exact specs of it. I understand that back in the day, Metz was pretty good about supplying information when asked(although I don't know if this is something they would have supplied) but they have also been gone since 2020 or so, and I don't know if their schematics and other stuff survived. Apparently when they were still functioning they'd also flash your 3002 adapters to the newest firmware revision(subject to some limitations-I think it was ones that started as M3 and later on Nikon and other brands) but toward the end I understand that the one guy who could/did do it was either no longer there and/or the equipment was no longer functioning. In any case, with the rebuilds on Ebay, at least one seller claims to use Eneeloops cells, which of course many people consider the "best"(not without reason) for NiMH. It's a good selling point, as they are among the highest if not the highest capacity AA sized NiMH cells on the market and also claim relatively low self discharge rates. The latter is a major failing in general, IMO, of NiMH. NiCd is a little better, but not much. In general, primary cells are king when it comes to low self discharge(especially lithium, and that's also one of the few redeeming qualities of carbon zinc) , although lithiium ion is pretty good as is lead acid. Really, though, even though lead acid can sit on the shelf for a long time, deep cycling is what kills them, even in batteries designed to be able handle it, and lead acid can basically live forever if "floated" all the time. I keep maintainers(which are just float chargers) on cars that are rarely driven, although car batteries are again a different animal since they are subject to vibration in ways small portable batteries generally aren't, and also under-hood batteries get pounded with serious heat. Really, really digressing here, but my MG, which does 1000-3000 miles in a typical year, has the battery behind the passenger seat and the last one in it lasted 10 years. I'm hoping the current one makes that long too, and that's for dirt cheap Wal-Mart $50 Everstart-brandd batteries. My much beloved and dearly departed 2004 Lincoln LS(1/04 build) had a trunk mounted battery, and the factory battery died to never come back to live on an especially cold day in January 2012, or almost exactly 8 years and 120,000 miles-that to me was pretty darn impressive for a car battery in a daily driver! Going back to our camera batteries, though, I mentioned above that I rebuild with Panasonic cells that are rated at I think 1600mAh, or maybe it's 1800mAh. When one is dealing with easily replaced individual cells in a conventional battery holder, it's often not a big deal for them to have(relatively) short lives. Obviously they need to at least last a year or two or a few hundred cycles, or Panasonic or whoever would have complaints out the door about their premium $6+/cell batteries, but that's still not good enough for me for something that needs spot welds, soldering, and other work to replace. Being willing to sacrifice a little bit of capacity can usually win a lot of service life. In any case, I am always happy to pay a fair price for dead or nearly dead 76-56, 45-56, and 45-40 packs(plus the NiCd version of the 76-56, 50-40 maybe?). Message me if you or anyone else want to be rid of them!

1.2V/cell is the standard nominal voltage for nickel battery chemistries. At issue in a lot of applications is that nickel rechargeable batteries, and actually most rechargeable chemistries in general, tend to have much lower internal resistance than standard alkaline(or carbon-zinc, and even though the latter have their place in my house in certain applications still, I'm hard pressed to think of a photo application in 2023). Lithium primary batteries(the 1.5V/cell disposable ones, not lithium ion rechargeable, which is a different beast) is even higher in internal resistance. What's at play in many applications is the battery's internal resistance. This is most apparent in photo application when looking at flash recycle time, but can also affect motor drive performance. To give some real numbers I dug up on the internet-comparing D cell batteries since it's the size I found the most complete list of different chemistries for-a single alkaline cell has a resistance of about 100mΩ at full charge, while an NiMH is 20mΩ. NiCd is better still at 9mΩ, and lead acid comes out on top at 6mΩ(bearing in mind that a D cell lead acid is far from a drop in replacement for an alkaline-the only thing it has in common is the size/shape!). Lithiums, by the way, are about 10x alkaline, while Li-ion is similar to NiMH. Resistance does change as state of charge changes, and just how much depends on the battery chemistry. Low internal resistance can be thought of as the battery being able to deliver power quickly, but more practically it also gives an idea of how much the voltage will drop when under load. The lower resistance of rechargeables shows in the real world something that the manuals will all tell us-our flashes, for example, will nearly always recycle faster, often twice as fast if not better, if using NiMH batteries instead of alkalines even though the voltage is lower. Even the plain old Quantum Battery 1, which output 6V and had a cord that could be finagled into an AA battery compartment, would really kick it since the first generation Quantums(1, 2, and Turbo) all use lead acid batteries and the "6V" is an actual 6V(the Quantum Turbo and other equivalent products really do kick it into overdrive since they bypass the internal inverters and just feed high voltage straight to the capacitors). Where I'm really going with this, though, is Canon offered two different NiCd packs for the F-1 motor drive. The standard one used 2/3AA NiCds, while the "high power" pack had 8 AA NiCd cells. Basically it was just a rechargeable version of the standard 8 cell AA battery pack. Even though 8 AA NiCd(or NiMH) cells will deliver 9.6V(nominal) as compared to 12V for AA alkalines, the "High Power Pack" would actually boost the frame rate of the motor drive. On alkalines it will run at 4.5fps, and with the High Power pack it will run at 5fps. In theory, NiMH cells SHOULD be fine in the standard AA holder, but I'll offer one caution/caveat. There's about a dozen pins(maybe not that many, but I think at least 8 or so) that tie the battery pack to the motor drive from what I remember, although it's been a decade probably since I've messed with one. I genuinely don't know this, but it's possible that Canon used a different set of pins to feed voltage from the NiCd pack than from the AA pack. I've recelled probably a dozen of the high power packs-back in college I made good money scouring Ebay for them, recelling, and then selling(I could get $125-150 in those days for a pack, charger, camera battery cable kit, which was good money considering that I was paying $50-75 for dead ones) but it's actually something I never thought to check. It only sort of came to my conscious thought now because of a well known quick/caution on the Metz 45 flashes. Both prebuilt NiCd(and actually NiMH-uncommon but they're out there) and "baskets" for 6AA alkalines are available. Even though the NiCd packs are 6 cells, just like the AA basket, the manual is adamant(as in "all of humanity will cease to exist if you do it" adamant) about not using rechargeables in the standard basket. There are actually 3 battery contacts inside the flash-one is the negative, one is positive for the NiCd pack, and one is positive for the alkaline basket. I've never tried putting rechargeables in an AA basket-I have some pretty junky, need to be put out of their misery, but still working flash guns and might be willing to sacrifice one in the name of science, but there are also posts around the internet about internally rewiring such that you can presumably safely use rechargeables without killing the flash. Sitting back at my parents house, 300 miles from where I am now, is my LA Olympic New F-1 with a motor drive and my last NiCd pack I rebuilt mounted to it. The next time I'm there, I'll grab and actually properly investigate(and potentially recell it yet again, as the replacements I put in it around 2007/2008 would certainly be getting on in years-plus with a decade and a half more experience rebuilding battery packs and also now with a proper spot welder I can do a much neater job than I did back then soldering tabbed cells together and also not be at the mercy of what I could buy pre-tabbed) but it may be a little while so no promises.

Certainly don't mean to reopen a 50+ year debate, especially as now I'm pretty much 99% a Nikon user for 24x36 capture(whether film or digital) but the FD system was my first love and I still enjoy using what I've kept even though I did sell off a lot of my better stuff. The Nikkor lenses are mechanical works of art with such smooth focusing when everything is right, but I've also noticed that they seem to have more of a tendency to gum up than FL and FD lenses. Aesthetics are subjective, but even back in my Canon days I was always a sucker for stuff like the big fluted focus ring along with the multi-color aperture rings and their corresponding lines. I still use a lot of the chrome nose lenses Nikkors. I actually don't mind using non-AI lenses either, or at least not on an F FTN or F2 with "semi-auto indexing"(no manual setting the max aperture like on the other TTL F finders, and no messing with setting to f/5.6 and lining up the pin like on the Nikkormats). The AI system was always a kludge, IMO, although Nikon did at least make ADR work consistently(Canon tried it on the New F-1 with the AE finder, and even though the numbers were bigger and easier to see, it only worked with the new-style lenses). I don't think the body debate will ever be solved. I LOVE the F2, although IMO with the chunky metering finders it can get a bit ugly. I much prefer Canon's match needle metering system to Nikon's center the needle, but like the visibility of the 3-light DP3/DP12 finder plus they are much more sensitive. I'm leaving the F out of the conversation, because even though I have a pretty sizeable collection of them(well into the double digits) and they are still tough workhorses, they are a pain to use without a swinging film door and the metered finders get really chunky really fast(the plain prism version is definitely very elegant looking). The F-1/F-1n, to me, feel much more refined, and especially the film advance. The F3/New F-1 debate I think will last forever. I'm really not a fan of the F3, even though, ironically enough, an F3(non-HP) was my first Nikon camera. The F3 film advance is among the smoothest in existence-it's hard to argue that one. Beyond that, though, my love pretty quickly erodes. I don't like the meter, especially since it's so different from every other Nikon up to then. Canon lets you pick the metering pattern, and most of the time I've used either PC(plain matte partial) or PE(I think that's it? Sometimes I get the screen letters mixed up, especially since E screens are a common choice on Nikons, but I think Canon E screens are split/microprism). I've also always felt that even the bright laser-matte Canon screens had better "pop" than the bright "red dot" Nikon screens. I really, really hate the squinty little LCD on the F3. It's small, dark, tucked up in the corner of the screen, and honestly doesn't even give you that much information. The New F-1, OTOH, had the best match needle meter ever made as far as I'm concerned. It's big, easy to see, and gives you a ton of information at just a quick glance. If it's dark out, Nikon gives you a tiny little light bulb over the LCD/ADR window that turns on when you press the even tlnier little red button on the front side of the prism with the 3rd hand they expect you to have and hope that it lights things up enough to see while your finger doesn't get in the way of ADR. If it's dark and you need help seeing the New F-1 meter, just turn the knob on the back to "light" and you get nice, non-distrating illumination of the meter when you tap the shutter button and have it stay lit up for several seconds after. Of course beyond there you can debate the F4 vs. either the T90 or the EOS 1. I've never used an EOS 1, so really have no idea. The F4 is a chunky ugly duckling that can't seem to decide what it wants to be or do, but I love the stupid thing. All the controls are right where I expect them, and nearly every F mount lens Nikon has ever made can function on it in some capacity. The only ones I'd really even leave off the list are the AF-P lenses since there's no way to focus them, but even something like my newest 24-70 f/2.8E is fine on the F4 as long as I'm okay shooting it at f/2.8(and the camera even recognizes that that it's not capable of stopping down the lens) and of course it's a given that VR won't work. Even the new in 2020 120-300mm f/2.8 should work fine on the F4(as in it will autofocus and give correct exposure) as long as you're okay using it wide open. That's something like 60 years worth of lenses that will work on the camera. I have two F4s, including one with the hard to find in the US 4-cell grip. Unfortunately the LCDs in that one are on their last legs, with multiple bleeds and other issues that keep eating further and further into the working area(the LCDs on my other are perfect).

I have started slathering liquid electric tape on them at the first sign of deterioration. \ It's not the prettiest solution, but it's flexible, won't come off like regular electrical tape, and is tougher than the original insulation. I fixed a 76 MZ-5 with a broken wire at one point by tediously unsoldering everything from the circuit board, cutting it back past the broken wire, rebuilding the insulation and strain relief using heat shrink, and then resoldering everything. The whole job took me a little while and was tedious work(done under a loupe!) but I also enjoy that kind of stuff in a weird twisted way and it did work after the repair. As for those battery packs-I have rebuilt several of the 50/70/76 NiMH packs. They're not too bad to rebuild, although you need to dig into the old one to get the thermal diode out and then placing it correctly into the new cells. I'm also 50/50 on not killing the thermal fuses when transplanting them, but they're cheap and easy to replace. I like having packs that fit and work like the original, although the removable ones do show promise and at least if the cells go bad you can pop them out and replace them. Aside from that, too, when you rebuild a pack it's tempting to stuff the highest capacity cells you can get into it, but often the high capacity ones(I'd put anything over 2000mAh for AA NiMH in the high capacity category) often trade service life and also charging "finickyness"(for lack of a better word) to get there. Most flat top NiMH AA cells, which are what you really need for rebuilding packs(although the 50/70/76 packs are big enough and made in such a way that you can get away with button tops if you want) seem to run 1600-1800mAH and their spec sheets will show that the lower capacity brings with it better durability. Suprisingly enough, Metz seemed to source relatively good quality NiCd cells and I've actually rarely found an original NiCd pack, especially the 45-40 pack that works in all the 45 series flashes, that didn't work at least some. Just the other day, I had a 45 CT-5 arrive with what I'd guess is likely a 45-40 pack of about the same age as it, and the 45 CT-5 had a fairly short run. I haven't dug for a date on it, but I'd guess the pack is probably mid-80s. It takes ~15 seconds to recycle from a full dump, which is far outside what I consider spec(a good, fresh fully charged NiCd 45-40 will recycle in 6 seconds from a full dump in any 45 series flash-something I've tested repeatedly) but to me at least it's something that it works at all. Incidentally, the 45-40 packs are kind of a pain to rebuild I think. The clips holding them together are small and fragile, plus once you actually access the cells you don't have much space to unsolder the wires from the old pack. I've taken to just snipping them, then dig further into the charging circuit and replace them(if any corrosion has set in on the cells, it likely has migrated up the wires at least a bit anyway, so it makes for an overall better rebuild). They also did this annoying thing where tab joining two cells needs to be about 4" long as it bridges a plastic divider. Still, though, I've done a few. Incidentally, you'll find people doing these with NiMH, but I've chose not to and am not sure it's a great idea. Honestly the biggest advantage NiMH holds is capacity/size, which is not insignificant I know. NiCd can handle more charge cycles than NiMH over their lifetime(by a lot-like 3-4x as many) provided you don't seriously abuse them by doing things like seriously overcharging them or letting them run all the way down, which is part of why I suspect so many still work. NiMH is also surprisingly fussy to charge, where NiCd can at least tolerate moderate overcharge without caring, and is also less temperature sensitive. NiCds in general also have lower internal resistance than NiMH, which in theory can mean faster recharge although I doubt you'd notice it in practice(lead acid is probably best in this area, which is also partially why with a good pack the more powerful 60 series flashes can recharge faster than the 45s and also why I suspect Quantum stuck with them for so long, although obviously size and weight are big disadvantages there). The charging issue is why I rebuild 45-40s with NiCd-they really don't have much of a charging "circuit" but just take the 8V I think it is from the charger(the same #728 brick as the 60 series uses) and steps it down then leaves it up to you to time it. There actually is an NiMH version of the 45 series pack, 45-56. It uses the same #970 charger as the 76-56 for the 76 MZ5(and backward compatible with the 70 and 50 flashes...). I have a few of these on the way now, but not in my hands. The 76-56 charges by sensing temperature rise, hence the thermal diode in the pack, which is considered the "best" way to charge NiMH. I suspect that the 45-56 does as well, and in fact if you rebuild a 75-56 pack you'll find that there's a 3rd wire going to the charger(gray in color) and the thermal diode is connected across the blue(negative) wire and this gray wire. Incidentally, the P76 external pack uses 8x Sub-C NiMH cells, and there's a big thermal sensing loop that runs across them. If you recell and don't have this in place, it will pretty quickly cook the cells(like to the point where they physically get too hot to touch) while also not registering a full charge but eventually just shutting down. I learned THAT one pretty quickly when bench testing a P76 rebuild, and actually ended up gluing the thermal sensing loop in place in the one I rebuilt after I killed one set of cells in it! It could be said that Metz probably under-engineered the NiCd chargers and instead just depended on their natural tolerance to overcharge. OTOH, they definitely went all out on the NiMH packs I've seen.

Just to be clear, too, FL lenses are still automatic diaphragm lenses, as are R lenses. All of these lenses remain open for composing and focusing until the shutter is activated, at which point the camera both closes the aperture(via the coupling pin/lever) and raises the mirror before opening the shutter(and then lowers the mirror and reopens the aperture after the shutter closes). Non-automatic lenses for SLRs exist, but they're usually seen more on cameras where viewing is not done by the taking lens, such as rangefinders or TLRs. I also have bellows-mount lenses and have adapted enlarger lenses for such uses-these tend to not have automatic diaphragms. The only SLR I personally own/have used without automatic aperture support is my Hasselblad 1000F. Like a lot of non-auto SLR lenses I've used(even in mounts that ordinarily support auto operation) the focal plane Hasselblad lenses have a "preset" ring where you can set the aperture and then a second ring right next to it that lets you quickly and easily close the aperture down to the point set on the pre-set ring. It's not a terrible system-it just takes a few more steps and of course you can really mess things up if you do forget to close the aperture. It's been a long time since I've played with any of my R mount Canons, but I seem to recall that at least some R mount lenses have a sort of pre-set arrangement available to them even though the Canonflex and the like support automatic apertures with R lenses. I'm fuzzy on details, especially since I've not had that much R stuff(not that there's that much out there even TO have-I think only 3 different cameras models and a handful of lenses) but I also seem to remember that even though the mount itself is compatible, the coupling is different enough that you basically need to use them as pre-set lenses if you want to put one on an FT/Pellix or other FL mount camera. The FD mount really is the FL mount with a BUNCH of stuff added on-namely a lever that communicates set aperture or allows partial stop-down of the lens if set to minimum aperture-which way it works depends on how the body works(and as a bit of an interesting note, at least to me, Nikon's F mount started using a similar system with the FA when it's set to P or S mode, and the F mount cameras still in production are designed to use this for all modes unless an electronic aperture lens is mounted....). The FD mount also has a lug that mechanically communicates the len's maximum aperture to the camera's meter(fun little side note at least to me on that-Nikon's auto-indexing system as used on most manual focus cameras just relies on the camera knowing how far from maximum aperture the lens is set, something a bit limiting and as designed will only allow for a range of 7.5 stops from max aperture-AI/IA-S/AI-P/AF/AF-D lenses all were made with a lug like the one on FD lenses that can communicate maximum aperture, but there were only 5 bodies that could read/make use of it. The older manual indexing system, or pre-AI in common speak, is capable of knowing exactly what aperture is set on the lens but the camera/meter has to be told or "taught" what the maximum aperture is...Canon's way is much more elegant but required a willingness to ditch legacy compatibility). Finally, the FD mount adds an "Auto" position to the aperture ring, which essentially is just the same as setting the lens to minimum aperture, but locks there automatically and has to be unlocked from it manually, unlike other makes where you just set it to minimum aperture and hope for the best, or maybe have a manually operated lock. FD lenses pop out a small pin in the mount to tell the camera they're set to "Auto", and conversely if you have an FD lens on something like an FTb, it's physically impossible to move the ring into the A position, which isn't supported on that camera. Sorry for the rambling-I just love how well thought out the FD mount was... In any case, and to bring this around, the most common failure point I seem to see on auto aperture lenses-especially manual focus ones- across most makes is oily blades. I've seen then on FD, FL, and R lenses from Canon as well as plenty of them on Nikon lenses(some Nikons like the 55mm f/2.8 Micro seem especially prone to them, but I feel like I've also seen a fair few on the common as dirt breech lock FD 50mm f/1.8). Camera techs will-rightfully-say this is an improper and probably temporary fix, but if you can get at the blades, lighter fluid and repeat actuation will often get them working. This problem is especially particular to manual focus lenses because it's often the focusing helicoil grease breaking down and migrating. It's a problem that often shows up along side stiff or frozen focus. I have a 55mm Micro sitting on my desk that I actually use occasionally, but I got it nearly free($30 for it attached to an F3 HP that also had issues at a favorite old camera store hang-out) because of a sticky aperture and frozen focus, and I was able to repair it. In any case, I say JUST cleaning the aperture blades is often a temporary fix because the grease will often continue to break down and migrate. The "proper" fix generally is to split the helicoil the clean and regrease it, then clean up all the grease that migrated other places. Splitting the helicoil is fraught with peril unless you really know what you're doing(and please mark it before you split it! I have an AI-S 135mm f/2 in my parts box that may never get back together because I didn't do that...). I mention this being an issue with MF lenses because AF lenses often run either without lubricant or with a dry lubricant, although I have seen it on AF lenses...