My first Olympus 35 RD works mostly fine but from time to time perhaps in 5% of all shots the aperture blades remain closed at f=16. This happens also in manual mode. That makes me beleave that the aparture mechanism is sticky and not the meter needle or the capture mechanism.

Recently I bought a second 35 RD with a sticky shutter. The aparture worked fine. I removed the front lens element and cleaned the shutter carefully. After some retries everthing worked fine. I let the camera open for some days to let it set. After some days the aperture hang at f=16. The shutter remained fully working. I cleaned the apature blades. After drying everything worked again. But after 1 day the aparture stuck again.

Is the 35 RD more prone to sticky apartures than other cameras of this type, f. ex. Canonet QL or Hi-Matic 7sII? I have the impression that not the blades are sticky - they are very clean on both cameras - but the hinges of the blades or the internal aparture setting mechanism. Is it possible to clean them without disassembling the aparture completely?

The Oly 35 RD has a very particular meter construction. The meter is at the bottom and the movement is transferred mechanically to the needle in the finder and the capture mechanism. Could this construction become sticky and influence the aparture setting even in manual mode?

Your feed back is appreciated.

By Winfried on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 12:03 am:

I don't think that it's the special design of the meter capture mechanism which makes the apertures stick on the 35RD. But it is true that the aperture mechanism on this camera is a bit weak. There is a spring which provides opening the aperture to the (either manually or automatically) selected value of the aperture. The only advice I can give you is to open the front of the camera and clean the aperture mechanism whereever possible. Opening the 35RD is quite straigtforward, the front assembly is connected to the body only by the meter cell wires.

BTW the aperture mechanism is similar in the Konica Auto-S/S2/S1.6, and these cameras are also known for sticky apertures. This was observed on the Revue400SE, too, which is a close clone of the Hi-Matic7SII.

By rick oleson on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 11:16 am:

i haven't serviced a 35RD, but from your description of the meter arrangement, it sounds like it might be constructed similarly to the 35RC, which i (finally) posted sketches for here, in case they're any help:

http://members.tripod.com/rick_oleson/index-134.html

rick =

By Reiner on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 12:49 pm:

I have cleaned the open RD (with the front lens element removed)again and aperture and shutter work fine now. I applied much more lighter fluid as the first times and sukked the liquid with Q-Tips from the aperture blades. Fortunatly nothing creeped between the lenses of the rear lens element.

I shall let the camera open for some days, test again and again - place it overnight in a cold room and try it the next day. When everything is ok I shall re-assemble it. The sporadic problem of the second RD will be addressed later.

By Winfried on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 10:49 am:

It's true that the basic layout of the 35RD is similar to the 35RC. The needle capture mechanism is quite similar.

But the shutter is somewhat different. It is a 5-blade shutter (compared to the 2-blade design of the 35RC), and the speed escapement is located behind the lens barrel on the rear side of the front assembly plate. This would have made it easy to design a shutter dial similar to the 35RC. But the shutter speeds are set with a conventional dial around the lens barrel. Movement of this dial is transferred to the escapement via a rack on the inner circumference of the shutter dial and a small pinion. It LOOKS like a normal leaf shutter but its design is quite different from others.