This camera was Kim's Dad's camera. Produced in late 1962 through to early 1963, it is a 35mm Rangefinder.
A Selenium Cell surrounds the Yashinon 45mm f1.9 lens. This measures light and converts that measurement to obtain correct exposure. The light meter however, is not operating and looking through the light meter viewfinder, it is not showing the marked lines that indicate optimum or over/under exposure. I don't require this though; I can use a light meter to ascertain correct settings.
I have had this camera sitting on the shelf for a few years now. It had been kept in an leather camera case all its life and is in good condition. When I first got the camera, the shutter wouldn't open any wider than about f16. I was a bit stumped and started to search on line about fixing this problem. One thing I read was that sometimes a stuck self timer can also cause problems for the shutter. I didn't want to start pulling things apart and thought that this might be a good enough place to start.
I checked the self timer and, sure enough, the spring would not wind all the way back when cocked.
Isopropyl Alcohol was my first attempt at loosening things up inside. I gave it a good soaking! The timer would wind back to the start and the shutter opened up wide at f1.9 for a little while but then would jam up again. I figured I had nothing to lose and so I hit it with some CRC (an electrical cleaning solvent). This worked a treat! I set the timer and let it wind down numerous times. I also put the shutter speed to bulb and opened the shutter right up to f1.9, continually winding on and then releasing the shutter to clear any dust that may have blocked it up. I have been doing this for a few weeks now, just to make sure things didn't go backwards from non use and, it has paid off.
The shutter is now working at all aperture settings at all speeds. The fastest shutter speed is 1/500 second. The ISO settings range from 10-800.
I have replaced the light seals just today and hopefully won't get any problems in that respect.
I have loaded up with a Fomapan Classic 100 film which I found to be a nice sharp film, low grain and a very nice exposure latitude (see previous blog post about Bronica ETRSi and Fomapan).
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