Originally posted by Nesster A real beauty - I loved mine till the advance froze
Originally posted by arnold Sorry to hear that. These "A" models do eventually wear out the cocking rack teeth half a century on. I sent a 1A for repair, as they do make new racks supposedly better than original. My 2A had already been serviced when I bought it.
Yeah I read about the cocking rack being one of the most vulnerable parts of the Retina's, Mine's seems to be fine so far...
Nesster, did you get any warning signs before the advance froze or was it sudden?
Mine did need a bit of cleaning on the rangefinder as well as a rangefinder adjustment (the image was out vertically).
Originally posted by Argenticien I have that very model as well and agree on why it's great (what you said, plus, no ugly selenium meter). Possibly the most beautiful camera around. Were you fortunate enough to find one that is fully working without needing repair? (At least as far as you can determine before the film comes back?) Mine had a problem with the film advance, so I could tell without getting a roll developed that there was trouble. Couldn't get all the way through a roll without shredding some of it.
These are superb travel cameras. When I'm forced to bring my work computer and documents on vacation
so that eats up much of my carry-on bag space, I'll bring the Vitessa and a Super Ikonta for medium format. Foldable, small, but still reasonably fast lenses.
--Dave Looks like I have been lucky, I got the Vitessa in an "as is" camera lot on ebay for 50 Euro's shipped.
(The lot also contained a very nice Komine built close focussing Vivitar 70-150mm f/3.8 M42 lens and some other stuff I will be selling on so probably I will have the Vitessa and the Vivitar for free in the end
The Vitessa seems to work just fine, just have to wait for the negatives to confirm...
In fact I was a bit nervous shooting the first roll because the advance and cocking with the plunger felts so easy and smooth I was not really sure it was actually transporting the film. I felt relieved when I finished the film and felt the resistance when rewinding.
Also waiting for the first test roll from the Yashica Lynx 14e, I'm curious how that huge 7 element 45mm performs...
Originally posted by stevebrot ...or so they say! Most run a little slow.
Steve
At 61 years old they deserve running a little slower :P