mwmcbroom

I own a P and I agree, it's a wonderful rangefinder. I really lucked out with mine. It has some cosmetic wear, but the shutter curtains are mint! Very unusual for a P to have non-wrinkled shutter curtains. I bought mine from one of the Japanese sellers on eBay. It was worth paying the extra shipping charges to get a good, clean example.

Ben, you've just reminded me of something else. I "met" a fellow in one of these forums I participate in, who actually cuts out part of the acrylic plastic of old glasses of his for this diopter. I think I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn't find a proper diopter lens for my Bronica ETRSi and he suggested hacking up a pair of glasses for the eyepiece. Yeah, I reckon if you've got a dremel tool and cutting wheels, this would work. Only problem I see with his advice now is it'll get kinda tricky for me to find the best spot on the lens to cut the eyepiece from because I wear progressives. I suppose I could make a mask that would block off the lens except for the required opening, then hold the mask up to my glasses and move it around until I find the right spot, then mark it and cut it. Probably would have to do this while peering into the viewfinder of a camera though to make sure the acomodation is correct. Complicated.

Ben beat me to it. Another possibility, if you don' care too much about looks, would be to get a +2 eyepiece for Nikon (not the HP, I guess), remove the glass from it (with a small spanner, I'm assuming), then take the glass out of the Canon eyepiece and insert the Nikon glass in the Canon eyepiece. I'm asuming it won't fall through. If it doesn't, then you can use super glue gel to secure it in place with the ring. If it does, you can still probably fit it inside the Canon ring using the super glue gel's gap closing properties -- or another glue, say an epoxy for example, that might work a bit better because of its highly viscous properties. Hey, where there's a will, there's a way.

Huh, that's rather ironic, considering that -- I think at least -- the moly disulfide grease I have is sold as a bearing grease. I guess it must be the -disulfide ion breaking down into some sort of sulfur acid (sulfuric? sulfurous?) when exposed to moisture.

Do you have a manual for your GA645Z? I found one over at Butkus's manual site: http://www.cameramanuals.org/fuji_pdf/fujifilm_ga645zi.pdf Just glancing through it, that camera appears to be a fairly complicated one. Hope this helps.

For years, I've simply used molybdenum disulfide grease, which can be found at auto supply stores. In my experience (over 25 years) it doesn't creep or run. I have a tub of the stuff I bought over 25 years ago and it is just as stable now as it was when I bought it. Keith S is correct when he states that you use the stuff sparingly. Just the finest of films is all that is required. I've never used it on a Hasselblad lens, but a focusing helical is a focusing helical. They all work the same way and have pretty much equally tight tolerances, even the double ones designed so the front element stays fixed. I'm not necessarily recommending moly disulfide grease -- just mentioning that I've used it for years with good success. I note that there are several sellers on eBay who sell a variety of helical greases. Perhaps one of these will suffice for your needs.

Being an old user of the early Bronicas, Ray's question piqued my curiosity, so I googled "bronica s2 35mm back." I got no hits for the S2, S2A, or the EC or ECTL. But I got loads of hits for the SQ and ETR series. It doesn't appear that Bronica made 35mm backs (or adapters) for the S2 or EC series cameras. Personally, I've never really seen the need for them. It's easy enough to have a 35mm camera handy when I'm shooting with one of my medium format cameras.

Regarding JDMvW's last comment, I totally agree. I use what folks now refer to as a 'hybrid darkroom.' Meaning I develop my film in a light-tight tank, but I scan or dupe my negatives or slides. This is so much more convenient that a full-blown darkroom, plus having the images digitized makes it so much easier to share them on the web. I have an Epson 4990, which was their top-of-the-line scanner prior to the V7xx series. Like all other flatbed scanners, including the V850, the resolution numbers are entirely overblown. My 4990 touts 4800x6400 pixels per inch resolution, but in reality it tops out at about 2000 ppi. The V7xx models top out at about 2200 ppi, this despite their claimed resolution of 6400 ppi, and although I'm not familiar with the V850's specs, I doubt seriously its resolution tops 2500 ppi. The Nikon Coolscans top out at around 4000 actual ppi, however, which is what makes them so desirable. I get perfectly adequate scans from medium format negatives and slides with my Epson 4990, however. I set my Epson's resolution to 2400 ppi because this is more than it actually puts out and is plenty good enough for medium format because of the size of the negative or slide. Prints from these scans are plenty good all the way up to 16x20s. For 35mm, I've found my Epson wanting. So I turned to my digital camera and decided to start duping my slides and negatives. Currently, I'm using a 24.3 mp NEX 7, which delivers 4000 x 6000 pixel images -- which are the same as the Nikon Coolscans, but at a small fraction of the price of one of those Nikon units.. So far I haven't tried duping my medium format images, mostly because I haven't really felt the need. But I would like to dupe my MF images one day, so here's what I've planned. I have a light box I built out of an old wine bottle box (made from wood). One side is a large, translucent piece of white acrylic. Its light comes from a couple of fluorescent fixtures with daylight balanced bulbs that I've mounted inside the box. I've been using it for examining slides and film strips, but it occurred to me that I could also use it as a light source for duping medium format film. Ed's idea of using an iPad is a good one. I have an iPad Air, so I could use it instead of my light box. I also have a copy stand, so I can set my light box (or iPad) on the copy stand and mount my camera with macro lens to the copy stand. To hold the film in place, I will use the medium format film holder from my Epson 4990, and then just push it around to change from one image to the next. People complain that these film holders don't hold the film flat. I personally haven't found this to be a problem because my Epson's lens seems to have sufficient depth of field. And when I shoot dupes with my macro lens, I set it to at least f/8, which provides me with sufficient depth of field to handle any slight curvature that my film may have. So flatness (or lack thereof) is a non-problem. And speaking of the lens, my macro lens of choice for film duping is my Nikon AIs 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor, which will be mounted to my NEX 7. The only problem I envision with my setup is the light source. Even daylight balanced fluorescents may put out light with suspect quality and the white balance of my digicam may or may not deal successfully with it. If that is the case, and if I'm not able to correct the white balance within my image processing software, then I'll replace the fluorescents with LED arrays. Great thing about LEDs is white ones really are white. Or I'll just use my iPad and be done with it. The only advantage my light box has over my iPad is size -- it's about 4x as big as my iPad.

I have some of the flashes mentioned here, but I don't own a GS-1. I have an ETRSi, but I have a Metz SCA300 module that I use with a Metz 45-CT4 for TTL stuff. Not strictly necessary, however. The CT-4 has a thyristor circuit though, so it can meter exposure without the TTL mode being used. I also own a Nikon SB-24, which also has simple auto mode for non-TTL work, and a Canon 540EZ, ditto. And a Vivitar 283 and 285. Ditto to both of them as well. And a Sunpak 422D, which is also a nice little flash. Like the Nikon and Canon, it has swivel as well as bounce and zoom. I find all these flashes work well just using their onboard thyristor circuits. And I also own a Sunpak 622 handle-mount flash. This thing is HUGE. It puts out great bucket-loads of light. And of course, its thyristor circuit gets the job done too. Given that you're using a Bronica grip, it seems to me that you could still mount the Sunpack's bracket to the bottom of the grip. It might be a bit ungainly looking once all's said and done, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. The way I see it, any of the above flashes can work for you, depending on what sort of output and or bounce/zoom requirements you may have.

I too use naphtha for general cleaning purposes, although I've never tried using it on cloth shutter curtains. I have used it for cleaning gunk of vertical EOS shutters, where some of the rubberized material at the bottom of the curtains has begun to liquefy, thus gumming things up. I have a couple of old Canon rangefinders, that have "rubberized" cloth curtains. Well, they're old enough that the rubberized parts of the curtains had hardened and cracked. This resulted in pinhole light leaks. One of the cameras had about twelve of them. I decided to try something to see if I could seal up the pinholes. I bought a spray can of Plasti-Dip. Plasti-Dip is available as a liquid in a variety of colors, comes in cans, and as a spray, which comes in an aerosol. I bought a can of the aerosol, in black. The liquid is used for dipping tool handles into so as to give them insulation for work in electrical environments. I'm not sure what the aerosol's intended uses is for, but I've found uses for it with camera and photo equipment repair. Anyway, to repair the light leaks, I found a fairly stiff-bristled artist's brush, then sprayed some of the black Plasti-Dip onto a paper plate. I then dabbed the brush in the Plasti-Dip and then very lightly and sparingly dabbed the shutter curtains with it. I would dab one curtain, then wait about an hour or so for the Plasti-Dip to dry thoroughly, trip the shutter, and dab the second shutter. It soaked right into the fabric and didn't even show, really. Then I loaded up the camera with film, and shot the roll. The first time I did this, the pinholes went from a dozen down to two. Now, I was concerned about adding mass to the curtains, thus affecting the speeds, but the pinholes were still there, so I gave it a second treatment. That got rid of the pinholes, and thankfully did not affect the speeds from 1 second to 1/30, at least. The faster speeds didn't seem to be affected either. I have also successfully used Plasti-Dip to close pinholes in bellows with bellows cameras and bellows units. It works well in these instances because it dries basically as rubber. It's great stuff.

I note that the OP posted his request almost 3 years ago, but in the spirit of continuing to suggest capable street cameras that have at least some manual control, I can recommend two Olympus models: the XA and the Trip 35. The Trip 35 has what I guess I'd call "range focusing" since it isn't a true rangefinder, and that's about the only control you have with that camera, other than the ISO setting. But man does it take great shots. And the XA, which does require range focusing, has aperture and ISO controls, is simply superb. I'm also a big fan of the Canon QL17 GIII, and the Minolta Hi Matic 7sII.

Yay!

Well, I'm glad I was able to help some. I just hope you get it figured out and get it all back together so you can shoot with it. I'd love to see some pics from that camera.

Ah yes, I missed the FL on the "beauty ring." Many years ago (like about 27) I had one of those zooms for a brief time before a guy who loved FL lenses more than I did bought it from me. At the time I also owned a fairly heavily worn FL 85-300 f/5 zoom, a real bazooka, which I also ended up selling. Never got that big lens out of my head, though. About a year ago or so, I ended up buying another, this one in its original case -- both the zoom and case are in excellent condition. I think it's a really cool lens, and I love the craftsmanship that went into building it. (same goes for your lens too) But one of the cool things I discovered was about the case. It's kinda narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. I got to looking at it one day when I had the lens mounted to an old FTb. So, I got to looking at the width of the case at the top and then looked at the FTb mounted to the lens, then looked at the case again, noticing how far down into the case the lens rested. Then I just dropped it into the case, and sure enough, both the lens and the camera fit perfectly. Now that was cool. The earliest camera with lens case I've ever come across. And that's the way it gets stored even now. There's an FTb more or less permanently mounted to that old 85-300.

Hmm, well, this is the first I've seen of this thread and I managed to read most of it up til this moment in time. I appreciate your dedication to the subject. Me, I was much more spotty in my absorption of autofocus tech. You know, when I bought my first interchangeable lens camera -- a Canon AE-1 -- one of the things I liked most about it was the power I had over image focus. To me, this was one of the funnest aspects of my newly found hobby. This attitude remained unabated even after Minolta announced their earth-shaking Maxxum 7000. And when Canon announced they were abandoning the FD mount for the EOS mount, I was pretty bummed. But I soldiered on for a few more years. At which point, I jumped ship to Nikon so that I could maintain a viable upgrade path. Ironically, my first AF camera/lens was an EOS! Which I bought less than a year after switching from Canon FD to Nikon. I didn't buy my first AF Nikkor until a few years ago. There's no denying the usefulness of AF, but I still don't entirely trust it. There is still the occasional moment when I've zeroed in on a subject only for the lens to rack from close to far focus and then stop somewhere in between, then give up. By that point, the moment I was hoping to capture is gone, so any advantage I might have had because of AF has long since vanished. True, this sort of thing doesn't happen very often, but it seems that it happens at that moment when I'm hoping to capture the moment that will make for a brilliant shot. And of course, that's when it decides to nut up. These days if I'm taking an AF camera with me, I will always bring along an MF backup, preferably a mechanical manual one -- just in case.

I'm like Rick: if a motor drive was made for a camera I like to use, I'll get that motor drive. The one exception so far has been for my two Pentaxes that take motors -- the LX and MX. Motors for the MX are rare as hens teeth and, while motors for the LX are somewhat more common, typically I find only the motor for sale and not the battery pack. So I've had to make do with winders for both these cameras. I like motor drives for two reasons. Same as Rick, I like the way most motor drives fit my hand. It makes for easier shooting having that grip to hold on to. But just as important I like using an MD so that I don't have to remove my eye from the viewfinder to advance the film. I can keep my eye on the subject and there's just one less distraction to deal with when the MD is handling the film advance chores. Once I've sort of gotten into the rhythm of how the drive operates in the "C" position, I will usually leave it set to "C," although I'll still be squeezing off single shots. But I like leaving it to C in case I see something very interesting and/or dynamic unfold while I'm following the action, in which case, I may hold the button down briefly so I can fire off a quick 3-or-4 shot set. Some motor drives add a lot of weight to an already heavy system. Me, I don't care. My original Canon F-1 takes the huge Motor Drive MF, my Nikon F2s take the just as huge and just as heavy MD-2/MB-1, and my Canon NEW F-1 takes probably the monster of them all with the AE Motor Drive FN. The Motor Drive MF and MD-2/MB-1 each take 10 "AA" batteries, but the AE Motor Drive FN takes twelve! I bought my first motor drive for my Canon A-1, a Motor Drive MA, shortly after buying my A-1. The Motor Drive MA is actually a pretty cool unit. It powers the camera up to 5 frames per second, has a vertical shutter release, and is not nearly as heavy as the drives for the pro models. I can still recall the first time I used my MD-MA. I had owned my A-1 for only a few months and was out looking for suitable subjects to shoot with my new drive, and stumbled across a go-cart race. A perfect event to try out the motor, I thought. I had a lot of fun with it -- for about maybe eight or ten seconds before things came to a sudden halt. At that point, I realized I'd just burned through a 36-exposure roll of slide film. I think I'd only brought a couple rolls with me. I recall setting the drive to "S" for the remainder of my time at the go-cart track. But what really cinched it for me was when I got my slides back. I might have had one or two keepers from that entire 36-exposure roll, but none of them were good enough to go into my archive. The rest of the exposures were either blurry or poorly composed. Yep, I had a lot to learn. Ever since then, while I might have my drive set to "C" I will rarely shoot bursts of exposures because, more times than not, it's just being wasteful. And nowadays, it's a needless waste of money. My Old School Set (except maybe for the LX): http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/cameras_f-1_f2_lx_1a.jpg My not quite so Old School set: http://michaelmcbroom.com/images/cameras_f-1_f3_lx_2a.jpg

Rick, I dunno how much stock one can place in such incidentals, but looking at the photos for the R-series and FL-mount lenses, I see one difference. On the distance scale, the R lens has feet in white and meters in orange -- same as yours. The FL lens has both feet and meters in white. So, are you sure yours is an FL lens? As I mentioned, I dunno how reliable of an indicator scale colors are -- this could be something that was changed during the production run with nobody the wiser. Still, since it was a difference I found, I thought it might be worth mentioning.

I've never had to rethread a Super Ikonta helicoid, but I've had to rethread many others. Like Conrad says, it requires patience and a steady hand. I think that if you can set the shutter down on a flat surface this may help some. With the lenses I've had to rethread, I can usually feel a light click when the threads fall into position, and I get them to fall into position by turning the top helicoid section in the opposite direction that it screws down into place. I do this same thing when putting a cap back onto a medicine bottle or a mayonnaise jar. I dunno if this technique will work with the Zeiss optic, though, but I don't see why it shouldn't

I'm waiting fro them to (re)introduce slide film.

OK, that makes sense. Not a bad idea, either. Sort of a Tamron approach to cameras instead of lenses.

That new "Reflex" looks like it was designed by a Praktica user. And unless I'm mistaken, that Yashica lens mounted to the front standard is an M42 mount lens. A real blast from the past. I'm not sure I understand the point of it having a removable front standard, though. I do like the idea of it having a removable back, a la many medium format systems. Like Mike, I have many 35mm SLRs that are still in excellent mechanical and electronic condition. I'll continue to use these. But, as Mike mentions, if the makers of this new camera can find a market for it, hey great.

Three volumes? I have the Cooper set also, but mine is only two volumes. I have Cooper's (2 volume?) set for Minolta too -- so I've always thought that the Nikon set was just two volumes. About this whole mount switching business -- I was a hard-core Canon FD shooter when Canon decided to dump FD for EF. Like many others I was pretty PO'd about this move. I even switched systems to Nikon a few years later. But it didn't stick. Shortly after I started acquiring Nikon pieces, I also bought into Canon's EOS with a camera and lens and flash for my wife (to take pics of our new kid), but I ended up using it at least as much as she did, probably more. And even though I sold all of my FD stuff when I switched to Nikon, that didn't last either. Several years ago, I began buying back into Canon FD. I even went on something of a buying spree, while picking up maybe like one EF lens? But you know, it wasn't long after I bought that EOS that I realized that Canon had done the right thing. Canon had tried going the AF route with FD lenses -- remember the T80? A colossal flop. So Canon decided to start with a clean sheet of paper, and I think that was a stroke of genius. A physically large, all-electronic mount -- it's paid them dividends many times over. And it's worth noting that Nikon does appear to be introducing a new mount -- their Z-mount for their upcoming mirrorless offering, is what I've read. This will be a different move from the other mirrorless participants, ie, Canon and Sony. Both have kept their SLR mounts for their mirrorless cameras, which makes it simpler to produce adapters so their SLR lenses can be used on their mirrorless systems.

Exactly. That's one of the reasons why I still shoot film. Especially medium format.

Brian, just another quick note about the 675 hearing aid batteries. You mentioned that you'll look for a pair of 675s next time you're out. Well, because they're hearing aid batteries, and because they don't last a long time (a few months, typically), they are typically sold in bundles of six. As I mentioned above, I buy mine from Costco. You can buy a card of 48 for less than $10 at Costco. That's so cheap that I will typically just drop in a fresh one when I'm ready to take out for a shoot one of my cameras that used the old PX625 mercury batteries.

Thanks for that link, Brian. If you take a close look at the photo that shows the prism by itself, you can see that, at its rear, there are two shelf-like protrusions that are part of the glass, which are for the meter, I believe. This sort of thing is what I was referring to when I was stating that I didn't think that prisms from other finders would interchange with the prism from the DE-1. Prisms from metered finders will likely have these sorts of additions to them that would render them unusable with the DE-1 finder.