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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
07-28-2014, 11:11 PM
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To BillM who posted in June 2011 -- thank you!
n).
Here's my story...
I got a Pentax ZX-M on eBay. It came with a near-dead battery. I was able to fire off some shots without film, I thought wow I got a great deal on a lightweight SLR. Then on the next shot the mirror locked in up position. I thought needs a new battery, but didn't have any CR2 batteries and so I ordered a 12-pack from Amazon. Meanwhile, thinking I could test it without proper batteries, I took the camera base off and poked around. I hooked up 4 AAs and then tried a spare 6VDC a/c adapter. None of that worked at all -- total waste of time, except for the "learning experience" !!
Batteries came today. I was not hopeful. But I popped two into the ZX-M and the camera came alive! Wow! Shutter fired, what a difference! BUT, then I loaded some 2002-expired film (which an eBay seller had included in another camera deal) and just like what happened to the OP saab_princess_21, it went to "1" and then rewinded the film! What the what?! I got the film leader out, cut the end and made a new leader. Loaded and it rewinded again!
That's when I found BillM's suggestions -- that little bit of info about the diaphragm actuator on the camera body was the key to solving the problem. I gently pushed that up and down (it had a fair amount of resistance) about 1/4 the track distance. I forget -- maybe it was at the top at first and I left it in the middle of the track. Anyway, put the lens back on and loaded the film and the camera worked perfectly. I fired off 10 shots and opened the camera -- yep, the film had advanced onto the take-up spool.
Now for some real film tests to see if it can actually take pictures... If so, then this is a real find -- one of the lightest SLRs ever made.
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