raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
Great! Thank you fireblade. I'm confused though: my camera just has a viewfinder - no rangefinder - unless the top-plate is common to other models with a rangefinder and is shared with the Contina-matics?
That button is a curiosity and mystery. I have it on several other cameras and there is nothing to its function to be found in manuals - although it appears in image views.
Attachments
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
Ok, mystery kind of solved: I was able to unscrew the button with my fingernails. It uncovers an access hole (cover and washer) for a tiny slotted adjustment screw. I am guessing maybe to null the internal meter for calibration/adjustment?
My Contessa has a similar "exposed" small slotted screw right below the meter area. I am guessing the same? You can see it to the right. Interesting.
My Contessa has a similar "exposed" small slotted screw right below the meter area. I am guessing the same? You can see it to the right. Interesting.
Muggins
Junk magnet
How about the box the Barnacks live in?
Shawn
Brilliant! Love that!
shawn
Mentor
WJJ3
Well-known
Wow! That's some negative real estate
Ambro51
Collector/Photographer
My only “new” camera
ChrisLivsey
Mentor
Recently acquired in lovely condition.
The received wisdom I understand is:1968: From #3,029,230 the rewind bearing is made of black organic polymer. V-shaped lock on camera back.
This camera has a serial of 3029635 and still has the original shaped lock and metal rewind bearing. This pushes out the change point by a few hundred cameras.
The Zeiss lens serial is correct for 1968.
Added following conversations with Ferdi Stutterheim of <a href="Rollei 35 User’s Site." rel="noreferrer nofollow">rollei35.eu</a> on the "hard" serial number cut off for the change and reproduced with his permission:
The way the cameras were produced makes that (the precise serial number) rather difficult. I have visited the Brunswick (Braunschweig) factory on several occasions in the 1980s. The production process was more like a craft than industrial. Imagine 5 rows of twinned desks with a transport belt running between the twinned desks along the 5 rows. On each desk a number of parts are built on to a camera body. Then on the belt to the next desk. Etc. They produced only a small number of cameras each day. When I was around 20 TLRs per day. At the start of production the technicians check their stock of parts and when necessary they grab a hand-full to supplement their stock. That includes the top covers with pre-printed serial numbers. These were not stored in sequential order. The numbers were printed by a machine on the covers by the hundreds and dropped into a basket. All in all it is quite possible that a technician had ample stock of metal bearings but needed top covers (with higher numbers) than his colleague who needed more bearings and ended up with black ones but had enough top covers (with lower numbers). Needles to say that finished cameras did not pass final inspection sequentially numbered and there probably was not a hard transition from metal to black bearings.
The received wisdom I understand is:1968: From #3,029,230 the rewind bearing is made of black organic polymer. V-shaped lock on camera back.
This camera has a serial of 3029635 and still has the original shaped lock and metal rewind bearing. This pushes out the change point by a few hundred cameras.
The Zeiss lens serial is correct for 1968.
Added following conversations with Ferdi Stutterheim of <a href="Rollei 35 User’s Site." rel="noreferrer nofollow">rollei35.eu</a> on the "hard" serial number cut off for the change and reproduced with his permission:
The way the cameras were produced makes that (the precise serial number) rather difficult. I have visited the Brunswick (Braunschweig) factory on several occasions in the 1980s. The production process was more like a craft than industrial. Imagine 5 rows of twinned desks with a transport belt running between the twinned desks along the 5 rows. On each desk a number of parts are built on to a camera body. Then on the belt to the next desk. Etc. They produced only a small number of cameras each day. When I was around 20 TLRs per day. At the start of production the technicians check their stock of parts and when necessary they grab a hand-full to supplement their stock. That includes the top covers with pre-printed serial numbers. These were not stored in sequential order. The numbers were printed by a machine on the covers by the hundreds and dropped into a basket. All in all it is quite possible that a technician had ample stock of metal bearings but needed top covers (with higher numbers) than his colleague who needed more bearings and ended up with black ones but had enough top covers (with lower numbers). Needles to say that finished cameras did not pass final inspection sequentially numbered and there probably was not a hard transition from metal to black bearings.
Attachments
largedrink
Down Under
I repaired this Minolta Hi-Matic SD today, it had a stuck shutter mechanism. A bit too much plastic for my liking but it's kinda cool, with its 38mm 2.7 lens and manual date printing function, though the years can only be set from 1979 to 1992 
largedrink
Down Under
A couple more recent acquisitions: Fujica Mini and Ricoh FF-1. I'm looking forward to putting a film through the Ricoh, the lens has a good reputation.
Deardorff38
Mentor
Closed, it's not much bigger than a cell phone.... but love the Color-Skopar lens and 6x6 neg. Voigtlander Perkeo ll
