henry_finley1

I have one of the original old Beseler 45M enlargers and it came (to me) without a Resistrol unit. I have found a Resistrol belonging to the Beseler 45MCR enlarger. Attached are photos of it. Will this work on my 45M? Thank you.

 

 

Thanks. Apparently that was a part of the problem because it's acting better now. I woukdn'tc all it dependable, but at least the problem has been proved. I'll deal with it and everything else once I open it up. I have other questions. I've notice that I see no evidence of parallax correction of the viewfinder as I focus. Is this true? And does it really matter, since most photography is done 5 feet and beyond? Secondly, this camera came with a Carl Zeiss Sonnar 50mm/2.0. Was there any modification to the camera to take this lens, and will this lens cooperate with the rangefinder throughout its range?

I have a Nikon S2 here, and the shutter speeds are all the same. I don't know what speed its running, other than pretty fas.t Changing the setting changes nothing. I'm a pretty good camera repairman but have no experience with these. Is this liable to be a tough situation to lick? Thank you.

They're just cheap Dollar Tree Sunbeam alkaline batteries, which I've been buying for years. They're really not a bad little battery. No they weren't bulging or leaking or anything. I might say that the MD 2 was not turned to any off position and the manual doesn't say anything about having to switch it to any "off". I guess I always assumed when it wasn't being used it WAS off. Not until I discovered this situation that a bell rang with the brilliant idea that even if the motor isn't advancing, a solenoid might be still charged the whole time unless you DO switch the thing off. Suppose that's it? Duh...

I just got out my Nikon F2 with MD2 and MB1 Battery pack which I hadn't touched in 2 or 3 months. It was sitting alone in is bag with nothing else touching it or putting pressure on any switches or buttons. The alkaline batteries were last known to be fresh. But I discovered it a little while ago to be dead as a doornail. I mean totally slap dead with .101 volts at most apiece. What might have caused that?

When in doubt, a good blanket, or if available a sleepin bag helps a lot...

That's what I thought.

Because if you let the motor drive do the work you end up with a cocked camera, which is great. But when you've shot your last photo of the day (without knowing it would be your last), the camera can end up being put away cocked, which is said to be a big no-no on F2's. I have a very bad history of shooting people and catching them at the exact instant their eyes were closed. With 4-5 frames per second, that problem can be nipped in the bud. From there I might be shooting still things and do it manually. And F2 carried aroud with its drive is quite a piece of beef, but it's all that heft that keeps it rock solid hand-held. Plus when the last shot on the roll is done, the film gets rewound like a dream. On top of all that, a Nikon F2 alone is the best of the best in 35mm. And with the MD-2 is the baddest of the super-bad.

The only cameras I have are film cameras. Very nice ones too. I don't worry about thievery since I couldn't stand on a street corner and GIVE them away. As for Dregslist, it's totally worthless. And not only has the computer destroyed many crafts and professions, and channeled that money to left coast political militant lunatics, it has become a den of thieves. Totally annoyed when I read of incidences such as this.

Thanks. I was sitting in my armchair last night experimenting with an empty cassette, just to see of the reel in the cassette would adequately block the hole in the camera bottom minus the key. No, it doesn't entirely block it off. But it does block it off a whole lot. I am switching over from my MD-3 to my MD-2 semi-permanently attached to my F2. I had been using the MD-3 which is also fitted with the 10 cell battery pack, for the expressed reason that it can be attached and removed at will. For most usage except mirror lockup mode, the MD-3 is almost as fast. You barely notice the difference. But the MD-3 doesn't rewind. And rewinding a Nikon F2 Photomic with the crank is not exactly pleasurable. I don't really use the motor drive much, but I do leave it attached and do most shooting with the regular wind lever and shutter button. Because you're not supposed to leave an F2 cocked overnight, they say. And the big meaty drive plus its handle is very good for holding the camera more steady.

As far as I know, the MD-2 motor drive was not meant to be removed or attached to the Nikon F2 with a roll of partially used film in the camera. An MD-3 can. But back to the MD-2, which requires the latch key be removed from the bottom of the camera, leaving a hole for light to get in.So obviously you don't want to be attaching or removing the motor drive while standing in the sunshine. But what if you duck into a closet? A typical closet in the daytime will not be dark enough for doing things like loading 4 x 5 film jolders or developing tanks. But I would think it would be OK to take off the drive from the camera and slip the latch key back in, or add the motor, as the case may be. Opinions?

Well it's done. Everything Nikkormat in my house is on the auction sites. I still admire the Nikkormat line on several levels. But when I compose in the finder, that's what I mean to shoot.

Thanks orsetto. but when I was pointing my F2 around the room picking up reference points to compare with my FT2, I saw in a stark way I had never seen efore just how much the Nikkormat was cutting off. It was dramatic. Further, I've got Nikkormatts lying all over the house because I overhauled them compulsively. I'm a Nikkormat repair expert. I don't need all these dadgum cameras. I have a very nice F and extra-nice F2. 35mm cameras didn't come any better that these. Top-level equipment. Why now would I fool with other cameras? The Nikkormat is a Tiger Tank of a camera. But remember, when you're dealing with a negative hardly bigger than a postage stamp, you need all the area you can get. A graflex viewfinder is nowhere near what the film gets. but you've got a square mile of film area there to enlarge out of. With a Nikkormat you have to enlarge 15% more to get what you saw in the finder, compared to the Nikon. 15% bigger grain, 15% bigger dust...

Ben Hutcherson, there's no need to do your tests. I just did my own. Apparently in 2013 when I did my testing as described in the above "link 2", my math was faulty. It HAD to be.Thanks to this thread I just did an armchair test, literally in my armchair, pointing at reference points around the room. With my FT2, ELW, and F2. What I clearly saw, the FT2/FTN was totally unacceptable in both directions, up and down. The ELW was some better, although the shutter speed scale at the left of the viewfinder covers up its entire amount that I could see in the F2 finder, and was reasonably close up and down. This means the ELW finder is not truly centered. That is unacceptable to me.

I was shocked and disappointed in these findings.

For 35 years I have been a Nikkormat fan. All that is shot down in flames. Now, all my Nikkormats are out the door, and not fast enough. So that means my F and F2 are now front and center, instead of being kept away for special occasions. Thanks to everybody who participated on this thread. The one thing that irks me is that the F2 can't be left wound, whereas it didn't matter on the Nikkormats. The F2 must be tripped off at night, as per the instructions. As far as I know, the F isn't so strict on leaving the shutter wound.

Those are the specs Nikon claimed, in reality its less. I dug thru some old magazines til I found a review that measured: the mechanical Nikkormats have the most heavily cropped viewfinders of any name-brand SLR. Perhaps this was intentional at the time, to highlight the then-unique 100% finder of the more expensive Nikon F.

 

Honestly I never really noticed until I chanced to be using a Nikkormat FT3 in tandem with an FM and the same lenses: the dramatic cropping of the Nikkormat suddenly became quite apparent, to the point of ridiculous (it gives a framing with the 35/2 that is much closer to 45/2.8). At first I thought that particular FT3 might be an anomaly. but when I pulled out my whole Nikkormat collection (FTn, FTn Apollo, FT2) they all matched the FT3. By comparison, both my FMs (and dead FE) had finder coverage MUCH closer to my Fs and F2s: the compact Nikon bodies do indeed approximate an average slide mount. But he Nikkormat FT series are hopelessly off: fine for non-critical shooting, but likely useless for serious macro, copying, or accurate portrait positioning. Admittedly this is academic at this juncture: no one is doing any of that on 35mm film anymore (and if they were, a now-affordable F, F2 or F3 beater gives 100% framing). An old thread on these forums once discussed whether a Nikkormat EL prism could replace a Nikkormat FT2 prism, and the answer was no: the EL prism is slightly bigger. I'm hoping that means Nikon enlarged VF coverage in the seven years between the first FT and EL.

I'm having a hard time accepting these revelations in your post. Referring to the following first link, I am sure the write-up is just parroting the published material But in the second link is a test I conducted myself. See post 6 in the second link. I'm having a hard time believing I could have gotten it so wrong, as you imply.

Nikkormat FTn Camera, 1967-1975

 

Viewfinder Coverage

Yes, that kind of brought everything full circle, didn't it? Contax came up with this display for the RTS by "stealing" and enhancing the EL meter readout with LEDs, then some years later Nikon "stole" the RTS revision back to put in their own FG. Ironically the cheapie plastic FG is a heckuva lot more reliable than the scads more expensive RTS was: the rise of cheap flexible printed circuit boards saw to that. Popular Photography used to always publish illustrated "repairability" addendums to every camera review: the inside of the original RTS was a horrific rats nest of hair thin wires (worse even than the Nikkormat EL).

 

To this day, I think the FG had the most astounding viewfinder I've ever experienced in a 35mm SLR. Picture-window huge, even larger than Olympus OM1, but much contrastier and easier to focus across the field. You could get lost in the FG finder, its a shame they didn't have the same finder in other more-desirable Nikons. Once you've looked thru an FG, returning to the F and F2 (never mind FM/FE) is a bit of a letdown.

 

Getting back on topic: has anyone compared the framing accuracy of the Nikkormat EL series vs the mechanical Nikkomat FTN, FT2, FT3 etc? Much as I love the bulletproof mechanical Nikkormats, they have terrible framing: the finder crops a good 20% off the actual film image. Awhile back, I had need of shooting both a Nikkormat FT3 and an FM with the same lens (Nikkor-O 35/2), and this was really noticeable: the view thru the Nikkormat was closer to 45mm while the FM was a more realistic 38mm (of course my F2AS would have been dead accurate). Given ELs now sell for even less than FTNs, I might pick one up just for the AE option.

Nikkormats show 92% of the film field, which is about the same as a slide mount or a negative carrier plus easel. Are you sure 20% might be an exaggeration?

Rechargeables often give better performance under high current drain conditions because of their lower internal resistance. This is especially true with flashes, where your'e basically trying to pull as much power into the cap as possible, and lower resistance makes that possible. Motor drives are hit and miss-many 80s ones(and their 90s cousins with built-in drives) had dedicated Ni-Cd or NiMH packs available, and on pro cameras the rechargeable pack would often buy you .5fps or so. For something like a winder, the lower voltage would probably be a detriment.

 

The battery used in these cameras is not common in Nikon land-AFAIK it was only used in the EL and EL2. With that said, it's a fairly common battery in the world of photography as a whole, and I've never really had any issues finding one. Among other things, all the Canon A-series cameras(which had the distinction of the worlds most popular SLR before the DSLR era) used them, as did the New F-1. Outside of Canons, my Minolta IIIf meter uses this battery. I had a BUNCH of Bronicas that used it-the EC, EC-TL, ETR/ETRS/ETR-C, and SQ/SQ-A all used them. It's also called the PX-28 and 4LR44. In a pinch, you can even stack 4 LR44s together and it will work(you might need a bit of aluminum foil to take up the slack-but yes I've done it). Silver isn't super common these days, but alkaline and lithium both work fine and I don't think the EL is overly picky about voltages.

Thanks for the reply. And you hit on the crux of my problem. A question nobody can answer first hand because being a 43 year old camera, most of the guys from those days are either dead or not on here to see my question. I CAN tell you that the Nikkormats FT series are totally dependent on battery voltage and life for meter accuracy. The Nikons F and F2 were also. A couple tenths of a volt off, and meter accuracy was decidedly altered. they had no regulation of any kind. I wonder if it is like that in the EL series too. Becaue if the EL series does have some kind of regulation you can use whatever battery you want. Alkalines, silver, lithium, whatever. Try putting an alkaline PX625 in a Nikkormat FTN instead of a mercury and letting the battery run down a bit. No way. It will overexpose like hell.

I have a winder for mine and it IS slow. I had to go in and install a brass gear because the nylon one was bad. On alkaline batteries, which are 1.5V it's slow. I wonder if its any faster on rechargeables, knowing full well rechargeables are 1.2V apiece. But oddly enough, electronic flashes recycle faster on rechargables than alkalines. I bought the camera dented and with trash on the topside of the screen. I remember how hard I worked on this camera to solve these problems. and yes I can tell you first hand: when you take the top off this camera it's a nightmare to work on anything. But I DID get this camera freshened up, sheet metal straight, and winder right. I was about to sell it last weekend when I suddenly asked myself what the heck I was thinking. But I'm still deterred by hard-to-find expensive 544 silver batteries. And when they go out you have a big fat nothing.

The only thing I have against it is that you either have to flip the shutter lock or pull out the wind lever to shoot it. Pentax ES meter was off till you pressed lightly on the shutter button. I wonder how the EL battery hold up to walk around shooting with meter on all the time.

I'd like to hear reports of battery life and opinions on how well yours has held up in service. Any other opinions welcomed. Thank you.BTW, I'm not interested in the EL2, although I'd certainly read with interest anyway.

That video turned out to be a top notch reference. Excellent work. You don't often see that level of presentation. Thank you. I noticed in the first few seconds of it a screen shot of a Kodak shutter manual on the Supermatics. I wonder where I can get my hands on that. Regards, HTF

Very nice video. But I have a problem. I've done my shutter and I have no slow speeds. Remembering mine is Medailist II, but the shutter is not all that different. I've done everything right, but the escapement just zips through. Doesn't make sense. I've gone over my work umpteen times and it's perfect. Come to think of it, I can't say if I had any slow speeds before my work. I didn't have the camera long enough to know.

Well after a few days on working on this, it turns out a smaller percentage of the stiffness was in the linkage and the greatest amount of the stiffness was shutter related. I've worked out my problem, but it sure would be handy to see that video hunter was working on. Thank you.

Yes, that mechanism is indeed limber. I'm ever more sure this is a shutter-related problem. But this view is tainted by something I recalled reading once, concerning the Ken Ruth fellow (I believe). I remember reading that one of the things he used to do with the II models was to remove the sync mechanism entirely, and just set the contacts for perfect X only. This was said, as I recall, to make the shutter action much more limber.

Thank you for the reply. With no ingratitude, I need to differ. Tha camera linkage is not that complicated, and the parts are all quite limber. I really do believe this is after the last point where the linkage goes ito the ring at the back of the shutter that cocks one way and actuates the other way. I will be looking forward to your video.I think this problem has something to do with the sync mechanism (which the Medalist doesn't have). That, and possibly stiff action in the aforementionedring at the back

3rd photo