Cameras – Page 8 – Foxes Den

Werra 1

A piece of art-deco / Boho styling from 1966

These cameras were produced from the mid 50s until the late 60s. I’ve done some research on this particular one and the lens number and case number tie it to the year 1966.

I tend to buy cameras I like the look of, I just wish that I’d read into them a little deeper to find out the issues. This camera was so good looking when up against the boxy cameras of the 60s, it was a trailblazer in that the winder for the film was incorporated into the lens. A quick flick of the wrist on the inner lens ring and the film was advanced. Impressive….when it worked and didn’t jam!

You can find out more about this camera by visiting Camera Wiki.org by clicking HERE

This unit is in great cosmetic condition apart from a little age related tarnishing. It has some rattles, the lens needs cleaning and the view finder needs attention. The lens rings are stiff so a little lubrication may be required.

When cleaned I will run a film through it to give a test, I may even reskin the camera to really bring some attention to it.

Please keep an eye out for updates as I will be commencing work on this really smart little antique very soon. It’ll give me a break from working on pesky Sony Discman players 🤦‍♂️

Be happy, be wise. Stay safe

Halina A1 Reflex…it’s a wrap

I have tonight added a new gallery to complete the Halina A1 Reflex renovation I completed in August of 2023. The gallery can be found by using the links in the margin or by clicking HERE.

As I don’t have the correct mask for my scanner I have had to go about getting the photos on the site in a peculiar way. Firstly I take pictures on my phone and then invert them to get a positive image, an action that I discussed in a previous article that was posted HERE.

Please don’t expect anything too fantastic, it was a test roll and mistakes were made, but a lot of enjoyment was had getting the results.

And that’s this project put to bed.

Thanks for passing by.

Neat little trick – Viewing negatives on a smartphone.

Following on from yesterdays post regarding fogging on negatives. If you remember I’ve lost the mask for my scanner so I’m currently unable to utilise this service.

However I had some time and took to the internet to find out if there was a way to view in the short term until I found the mask for the scanner. It appears the phone you have in your hand can more than likely do the deed without having to down load any apps.

Now I have an iPhone, however the same is also available on Android but I’ll stick to the iPhone route. It’s all about inverting colours

Firstly venture to settings, Accessibility, Accessibility shortcut and then choose classic invert. A tick will appear by your choice and then just come back out to the Home Screen. Now every time you triple click on the side home button the screen colours will invert.

Now if off you triple click again the colours go back to standard. Well I’ve tried this on the same negatives above from yesterday and it gives you a good idea of what you are going to get. These pictures are direct inverts of the negatives at the top of this post with no cropping or adjustments, I just wanted you to see the possibilities you have available to you in your hand. If you use a light box and some glass I’m sure you’d get quite acceptable results.

Great little tool for those old negatives you have laying around that you were thinking of getting printed but weren’t quite sure.

Have a lovely day, thanks for passing by.

Halina A1 Reflex – Test roll, it’s foggy out !

Hey hey, I’m back. Well, after my previous rant I thought it best to get back to normal or as normal as can be achieved so here we go.

If you remember a few posts back I took on an old Halina A1 Reflex cheapo camera from the 60s. It was in a bit of a state and had seen better days. It had a full refurbishment with lens fungus removed, shutter mechanism repaired and a new leatherette finish put in place to tart it up. It looked quite nice and I was quite pleased with the outcome.

However that is all well if you want to use it as display piece or a bookend, but I wanted to see it work.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had a roll of 120 B/W film (Rollei 100 RPX) sitting in it using it once in a while whenever the weather was right, and light conditions sufficed. Seeing that I’d replaced the light seals I wanted to check whether there were any issues there and as a result of todays development of the roll this could be an issue.

When exposing I’ve forgotten to wind on a couple of times, but in general i seem to have got it right. The wind on is ok and the displays in the window are visible. Barring some double exposures the settings on the lens seem to have done their job, I seem to have set both lenses up correctly so I’m happy with that.

The film has an over all visible darkness that points to fogging. I think I might be responsible for this to be honest, I was a bit too impatient to get the roll loaded into the Paterson tank, I had a duvet over my head but the strong summer light was evident for the first time in ages in the East Midlands, and I shouldn’t be able to see the developer spiral….but I did briefly. Not good.

That being a problem I really do need to run another film through the camera to 100% check the light seals and then develop in the appropriate conditions.

I was silly here but another lesson learned. Be patient, don’t rush things and just do things properly.

I’m pleased the camera works, I’ll be able to get some pictures off the negatives and what I can see through a Lupe looks promising.

My 120 mask on my scanner has gone missing, so the pictures might be a little while before they make an appearance. I have another roll of film though so I’ll get that in the camera this week and get busy, and when it’s dark I’ll develop the film….properly

Have a wonderful day everyone thank you for passing by, stay safe and smile it uses less muscles than a frown 😂

Bilora Radix 56 – breakdown

The Bilora Radix 56 camera circa 1950 has arrived today and the condition is for once very close to the original description that I read on line prior to purchase. Makes a pleasant change to be honest. No big surprises this time.

I’ve broken the whole camera down to its smallest parts, I love to do this as it gives a good insight into how the camera was originally put together. It’s lovely to see some good old mechanics instead of a plethora of electronic components. Only one piece of wire on this camera and that’s to the flash synch on the side of the body.

I’m going to clean the winding mechanism, get rid of the old oil deposits and re lubricate. I’ll also do this with the workings on the base of the camera that allow only one of two available exposure settings. That’s a “B” exposure or an auto exposure of 1/50-1/60 of a second. Not much use with the faster films that are available today. Focal length of the lens is 38mm 5.6 – 16.

The shutter works fine, I’ll probably maintain that with some graphite when I’m in there, the lens seems free of fungus but I will dismantle this anyway to clean the optics within.

There is rust on the backplate, and this will need removing, I’m planning on sanding this down priming and repainting and a new skin will be put on the body. There are only 4 small pieces on this camera so this shouldn’t be an issue. Some lubrication, spotting and a good Polish will then hopefully complete this refurbishment.

I’m considering purchasing a second Karat cassette so I can sell this on as a complete camera. I may even try it out myself someday with a small length of black and white film.

Pop on back to see a post for each stage of the refurbishment.

Thanks for visiting, you know it is much appreciated. Thank you.

Bilora Radix 56

In my search for the unusual have come across this fine specimen that I have purchased for less than the price of a fish and chip dinner.

Remember the battle between manufacturers back in the days of Betamax and VHS? Well this is the film makers battle between Agfa and Kodak, with Kodaks 35mm winning out. The Agfa cassette (known as Karat) was 35mm without the spool and you needed two cassettes to use these cameras. I have one here and hope to be able to use it at sometime.

I like this example as the metal is not too pitted. There is rust but I can work on this, the covers are damaged but this can be replaced. I might go for a totally over the top refurbishment or may keep it as close to original as possible. I’ll make that decision once I can check the optics and shutter.

You can find out more about these cameras at the following link: Camera wiki .org

Thanks for passing by, always appreciated 👍

Minolta Dynax 5000i – Phoenix from the flames

It lives, it lives!

Phew, the donor camera arrived costing me the grand total of £3 sterling. It was badly damaged and I was doubtful that it would be any use due to its state.

However the pcb area and the lcd screen looked ok and after much cursing and burning of the fingers whilst de soldering and re soldering I put the battery in and there it appeared as if by magic…all clicked and clunked as it should and the battery indicator appeared on the screen.

I put the case back together and secured all the buttons to the frame and then connected the lens. Turned it all back on and hey presto all working fine. Focus’s well, flash works as it should, all counters and indicators doing what they should.

I’m happy with this camera now, just going to give it a wipe over and I now have a super little SLR for my collection. Will run a film through it when I get the time.

I can now say this camera is complete and in perfect working order.

Job done👍

(As an aside to this repair, the original owner was so surprised I got it working that he has asked if he can buy it back? That would be rather cheeky of me so I’ve just asked him to refund the cost of the battery and the damaged donor camera. He wants to get back into analogue photography, everyone’s a winner here, and a camera destined for the bin gets a new lease of life.) I’m happy 😃 👍

Minolta Dynax 5000i – Dead in the water

Well that’s annoying. I’ve stripped down the Dynax 5000i and found a terminal diagnosis for the power PCB and display screen.

There is a short circuit, severe corrosion from an old battery as well as the display screen being damaged where some of the fine contacts are destroyed rendering the unit useless at this stage.

Ok. I can strip down to individual parts, gain another 150 or so new screws and some parts that I may be able to use or sell on – or I can be a total numpty. I’ve decided to head down the numpty route and purchase a donor camera to repair this one. I’ll still get a load of spare screws following this route.

I’ve purchased a unit, it has cost me next to nothing and fingers crossed I can get one of them working and gain some spare parts for future use. I didn’t really want to pay out more but I take issues like this as a challenge and I’m committed to get this up and running.

My wife calls me gullible, what would she know bless her 😂

I’ll let you know exactly what arrives when the postman pays a visit.

Stay safe 👍

Bilora Bella 44 – 127 – Now Complete

I have been waiting for some leatherette to complete this camera. I had some left over from my last project so why not use it here?

This is a lovely looking camera that I fell instantly in love with, great design made of tin pot metal basically and uses old 127 film.

It has been completely stripped down and rebuilt and is a lovely specimen in my eyes.

I have today made templates for the new skin and these have gone on lovely.

So for now I’ve done all I can do on this little beauty, it will now be vacuum packed with silica gel and put into my collection for use at a later date maybe when I get a roll of 127 film. Been a pleasure working on this camera, she’s taught me plenty and I am already putting that to use. Knowledge is king 👑

Now I’ve reached a point that I can now say, time to wrap this job up and put it to bed.

Job done 👍

Halina A1 Reflex – New Leatherette

Today I watched a program on TV and a guy actually restored an old camera, he fitted some new leather to an old Kodak camera and it seemed relatively easy. Now I always try to do things the difficult way and look for perfection in every thing I do, that’s my down fall at times as I can sometimes set my personal barriers too high. Perfect is good but not always achievable, sometimes you just have to do your best, what more can someone ask of you?

What I’m getting at here is that this is a task I have been putting off, putting more time into planning what I’m going to do rather than just getting on with it. As I’ve stated a number of times on this blog, you only learn by your mistakes and as this is my first time doing this task, I’m just going to do my best and learn – knowledge is king 👑

After removing each old worn piece of leather, I made a template. Using a glue stick I was able to position the templates on the leatherette trace around it and then cut out using a craft knife and scissors.

I shouldn’t have worried as the whole process went really well, the leatherette was easy to manipulate and cut well. The one learning point is that in the future I will source a punch to do the circular pieces that went on the external wheels as it’s a bit cumbersome trying to cut perfect circles with scissors, though not impossible.

I am really pleased with the new leatherette, it’s totally changed the look of the camera. The fact it is clean and lenses are functional and shutter works as it should is testament to the hard work I’ve put into this camera. I plan to run a film through it shortly as I do have a couple in the fridge at home for this purpose.

Today I’m looking at cleaning the case and polishing it up. I doubt I will do much more than that and then I can put this project to bed. Once the case is done I will put final pictures up here on the site.

A quick run through….

Once again thanks for dropping by. You know it’s greatly appreciated 🙏

A piece of art-deco / Boho styling from 1966

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