a_e_daly

Andy, I'm learning almost to dread your threads - I too love these little rangefinders, and every time you start a new thread I know I'm going to add the camera to my ever increasing shopping list :) This is such an elegant-looking camera. I like the way the leather doesn't go all the way round but is framed by chrome on both sides. And it has manual override, too? Damn...

Patrick, a thread from here was moved to the site feedback forum. It has been closed, but with a detailed response from site admin.

Hi, thanks all for the responses. I actually have several other M42-fit SLRs - I really just bought this because it was really cheap and I thought perhaps the problem might be simple to fix. It's a handsome-looking camera and in good cosmetic condition - but it certainly has some major problems. I wouldn't mind taking it apart for the experience alone. I'll look out for a Spotmatic, though.

Yes, I know this camera is 2 years too young for this forum, but where else am I going to get good advice on it, eh?

 

I bought this in a charity shop for a couple of pounds, it was cheap because it didn't work, I had a look at it

in the shop and, when I saw that the battery compartment still had 2 old PX640 mercury cells in it, I thought it

was a fair bet that it just needed new batteries. It was so cheap I thought it'd be good fixer-upper experience

if nothing else. So, I ordered some replacement PC640A batteries, but it hasn't helped. I don't know if it's a

wiring problem or something wider. Here's the symptoms:

 

1. The shutter fires, sort of - the curtain seems to stick on the return so that the shutter release button only

clicks back up if I open the back and 'trip' the shutter curtain fully back into place. Wind-on obviously

doesn't work until I've done this.

 

2. Mirror lock-up weirdness - the mirror is drawn up when you wind on, and when it's in that 'up' position you

can't see through the viewfinder. Surely that's not normal - you'd have to compose your picture before you wound

on, and then click blind?

 

3. No LED display in the viewfinder. Obviously that means definite power issues but is (3) responsible for (1)

and (2) or is the poor thing just a lost cause?

 

Any advice, as always, gratefully received...

$100 is about 50 UK pounds. I think with a windfall of 50 quid I'd end up hunting for cameras on That Site. I'd either try to get a nice-condition Kiev 4, because I covet one, or I'd be really self-indulgent and get a second Olympus 35RC. They've shot up in price lately, as if the photo.net buzz about them has filtered into sellers' expectations... $100 would just about cover it.

Oh, and it also has a shutter mechanism so simple even I can dismantle and repair it :)

On my Fulvue, the winder knob is on the right hand side, and on the left hand side there's a knob marked lock/unlock, you turn this to unlock then pull on the whole left side of the case, it comes away.

Thanks for posting the link, Tony. Aesthetically and functionally this looks like a lovely camera. I've collected a few compact rangefinders already (Oly, Konica, Minolta) but for some reason hadn't noticed the Yashicas before. Now I really want one of these.

Dammit - that's just added another camera to my ever-growing wish list. The Lynx looks gorgeous and the pics are excellent.

A Zorki 4K was my first non-plastic camera, so I'm a bit sentimental about them. There's lots of articles online about these cameras. Design-wise they have a nice pedigree, the Zorki 1 was a close copy of the Leica II and it evolved from there.

The Zorki 4 is a really nice camera, actually. It's not collectible (there seem to be hundreds of them on *Bay) but it performs well and those Jupiter lens can be really sharp. I say 'can be' because Soviet cameras of that age tended to have uneven quality control. If the camera works, get a new lens for it and try a roll of film. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Funny, I was thinking Cameratiks too but Tim beat me to it. They're the only camera repairers I've dealt with, but they're good, clearly know their stuff and (IMO) charge a reasonable price for the work they do. I don't know how much extra cost it would add to send the camera to them, but it might be worth giving them a call.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. Sounds like (as I half suspected) it's a more complex process than I first thought. If it's not a silly question, why *isn't* it as simple as screwing the lens in fully then setting the focus ring to infinity before reassembling everything? Isn't the fully retracted lens position assumed to be infinity? Or is there just a telling millimetre of so of error either way?

Apologies for the non-technical language, btw. I'm sure all these things have proper names rather than 'that steel ring with the lettering on' and so forth.

 

Overall I'm quite pleased, this is the first repair I've done that wasn't light seal replacement. Even if the focus is off, at least I'll know where to correct it.

Yay! It's fixed - I think. I'll post the details here in case anyone else finds them useful. Bear in mind this fix looks and feels right, but I haven't run any film through yet.

 

If you loosen the 3 tiny screws described above around the foremost lens element (the ring engraved Olympus, D. Zuiko etc.), you can remove this ring - it may take some manipulation but it basically twists loose and then lifts out. (You shouldn't need to take the screws out completely). You'll see this ring has a kind of spoke sticking straight down into the camera. Once you take the ring out, the front lens element is visible and can be gently unscrewed. If you do this and lift out the lens, then look down into the space vacated while moving the focusing ring, you can see the focusing ring internally has what looks like a small C-shaped black clip which is moved back & forth by the focusing. It's clear that the end of the 'spoke' on the outer steel ring is supposed to fit into this groove so that, when that and the lens are fastened back together, the focusing ring will move it and thus turn the lens.

 

You'll see the lens is set in a dark matte black outer fitting. This has a tiny groove running all around the outside. The ends of the 3 tiny screws on the outer ring, once tightened, fit into this groove to hold the lens in place.

 

Screw the lens back in, carefully, then turn the focusing ring all the way round so that it's set at the greatest distance (i.e. the point at which the lens is fully retracted). Lower the outer ring back into place, making sure the spoke does fit into the C-shaped socket (I think this was the cause of my problem). Once it's snugly in place, tighten the 3 screws to join ring and lens. Now, when you turn the focusing ring, the lens should turn back and forth as expected. Voila.

Yes, I know they're really cheap and I'd be better off buying another than

trying to fix one, but this one's in nice condition apart from this issue and

I'd like to learn another repair skill. This Trip 35 has a focusing problem

whereby the front lens element (the one that ought to move in and out as you

turn the focusing ring) seems to come unscrewed as you focus from far to near,

so that it moves out when you focus in that direction but then stays still when

you refocus back the way. You can manually screw it back in again, then the

next focusing turn will work as before, and so on.

 

It seems as if the front element and the focusing ring have come loose from

each other, or out of alignment so they don't stay locked together. It was

cheap enough that I'm happy to have a go at sorting this out. I see 3 tiny

screws around the edge of the front lens element. What would happen if I undid

those? Any advice or experience to share?

Me too - in fact I was thinking of posting a similar question. One of my favourite cameras has had chipped paint for ever, and I'd like to spruce it up as part of a general light seal/lens cap/new case overhaul.

Lovely photos as always, Gene; the transplanted cemetery is a fantastic, eerie subject. You live in a very photogenic place! The camera looks great, too - solid and simple. I might have to start looking for one.

Edit: that should read 5 months there, not 10 (not that it matters to anyone else). Little-known fact, the Oly 35RC can bend time :)

Another vote here for the Olympus 35RC - I've been using one for about 10 months, and it's edged out all my other cameras and become my default choice for most purposes. Its two main attractions (aside from the small size and pleasing solidity) are the manual shutter/aperture settings (not often found in cameras of that class and size), but more importantly the 5-element Zuiko lens. I'm becoming a bore on the subject of this lens, but it really is superb. Beautiful contrast and sharpness, even at wide apertures. There's none of that "oh, it's fine so long as you stop down to f8" stuff that so often has to be said about cameras of this vintage.

 

Although I will say that Luis' resume of the Konica C35 Auto here has inspired me to finally replace the light seals on the one I got a few weeks ago! Luis, how do you find the C35 as compared to the 35RC and other smallish rangefinders?

You people have WAY too many cameras :) Some really nice ones here. Thanks to Susan M. and others who've posted links to their collections - enviable and beautiful. While there are a few I'd want to pick for nostalgic or sentimental reasons (Zorki 4k, my rookie camera; Canon AV-1, first "proper" SLR; Zenit 3M or Yashica 635 for aesthetics alone), if it's down to picture quality and usage I have to go with the Olympus 35RC as well. It consistently gives the best pictures (crisp, contrasty, textured) of all my cameras and has nearly as much flexibility as a good SLR with 1 favourite lens. That Zuiko lens outdoes all my other lenses combined, and is the main reason why, when I take one camera, that's the one. I'm at the stage where I think I ought to buy another RC, just for backup.

 

This is another of those unintended shopping-list threads...

Oh, the Instamatic. Those impossibly vivid little square pictures are so evocative of my childhood. When I was growing up my parents had one, and our photo albums of the time are full of these surprisingly bright atmospheric little photos, with white borders of course, tucked into black photo-corners. I don't remember which one they had, but I got hold of it some years later when they'd bought something else, and I started using it; when it broke I got another one, a 104, and kept using that until it broke, by which time those little film cassettes were almost impossible to find. Sometimes I think the only reason I got interested in medium format was because I missed the Instamatic.

 

The Instamatics always seem to handle light perfectly - all the skies in those old pictures are wonderful. I've a particular nostalgic fondness for those silvery flash-cubes that went with them, too - they made a beautiful sound, and the way the bulbs melted was kind of fascinating.

John, that last shot is really poignant (and beautifully exposed). The children with flag is great too - I like the faint edge of motion blur on the flag. This Canon FP looks like a really nice camera. Thanks for the kind words about my drowners picture. It was taken in the cemetery of a small Scottish coastal community - there were lots of drownings, it seemed, many probably fishing-related.

Yes, I love these places too. Some great images here already (I especially like Alice Cooper and David Griffin's beautiful tree-shadows). Here's an old one of mine. Canon AV-1, Ilford HP5.<div></div>

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