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Forum: General Talk
07-30-2020, 11:18 PM
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Fed up with modern tripods festooned with plastic fittings that snap and bend. I have been struggling with a cheap Manfrotto that went wonky for the last 6 months and the sticky pan and tilt finally drove me to put it in the bin .......soooooo went vintage to match my cameras and picked up a nice Velbon VGB-3 for £20 off eBay. Lovely, mostly metal construction and the same as one I had back in the day.
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Forum: General Talk
05-17-2020, 02:56 PM
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My postie asked me why I send and receive so much stuff so I told him about my serious addiction to old cameras. He said ‘oh...would you like some, I have a bag of stuff in the loft at home and no use for it’ so I said ‘no....best to put it in the bin’ :) seriously I said ‘ok..if your giving it away I will have it’ and hola....one big bag a few days later.
In the bag has been...
Yashica Auto Electro 35 GT.....suffering ‘pad of death’ but may be fixable.Looks like it will be hellish.
Minolta XG-M...in a sorry state but fixable.....just spent the last 6 hours doing just that.
Minolta 50mm f1.7...shabby but repairable
Pile of Russian and East German stuff mostly broken but some repairable stuff. Had a look earlier at a repair guide for the Helios 44 lens.....damn its complicated surpisingly, thought the Russi ans always did it simple my oh my what fun that will be to try and fix....no wonder its so heavy its got the workings of a diesel engine inside.
Maybe one day I might actually get to take some pictures but if someone hands me a broken camera the OCD takes over and I feel a compulsion to fix the damn thing.
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Forum: General Talk
03-04-2020, 10:41 AM
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I bagged up a Minolta X700 for cheap......its horrid :)
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Forum: General Talk
01-11-2020, 09:13 AM
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Latest and (hopefully) last is a Minolta XD7. She looked very shabby when I bought her from eBay mainly for the older MC lens she was wearing. leatherette had disintegrated (common problems with early models XDs), shutter speed indicator in viewfinders non working (lying eBayer) and the air piston that slows the mirror down was clogged so she would stutter when taking a pic (common problem with XDs) and naturally all the light seals and mirror damper were perished and she was absolutely filthy- though her finish, ap[art from the leatherette was near mint - all that crud on her had probably protected the unique black finish these had.
On the upside I only paid £23 and got a near mint Rokkor MC1.7 which was the whole point of the buy anyway but I thought I would see what could be done to salvage the camera as the electronics were all running. The MC lens was nicked to allow me to get a full original Minolta SRT101.
So she had a new set of leatherette, replaced the non original film rewind spool, replaced all the seals and mirror bumper, thorough external clean and then she was sent off tom favourite camera tech to have the VF shutter speed indicator fixed, the air piston cleaning and an internal clean including the focus screen and a check that her speeds were running correctly. Voila- for an investment of maybe £80 plus the £23 to get her I now have a near mint beautiful black Minolta XD7 (2nd production batch) - serviced and ready to rock and roll.
Here she is with the correct kit lens she would have been sold with.
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Forum: General Talk
09-01-2019, 01:17 PM
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I needed a Minolta MC Lens in 50mm and managed to bag off one that was attached to an XD camera. Quite a nice buy as the lens will be very fine after a small service and the XD is almost 100% running. Lens and camera for £50 so a good deal as XDs generally go pretty high these days.
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