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Author Message   David_nebenzahl Tinkerer Username: David_nebenzahl Post Number: 261 Registered: 12-2009 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 07:48 pm:    Warning: You are entering a non-opinion-free zone. After completely rebuilding my Aires 35-IIIL, I'm now running a roll of film through it. And while I'm looking forward to seeing the results (I've heard that this camera has an exceptionally good lens), it's probably the last time I'll use it. This camera is destined to become a shelf queen. Why? Because it's such a pain in the ass to use. At least for me, using my usual technique. The Aires III was built around the idea of using EV (or LV, not sure which) numbers for setting exposure. The theory was that the user would either take a light-meter reading, or guess the exposure, then use the resulting EV number to set the camera. After so setting, the user could then choose any shutter speed/aperture combinations for this EV setting by simply rotating the front lens ring. Sounds good in theory. Problem is, I don't have a light meter that reads EV numbers, and I don't think that way anyhow. Which makes it really annoying to use this camera. The EV number is set by pulling the frontmost ring away from the camera, turning it to the desired EV number against a line on the shutter-speed ring, then releasing it. If one wishes to set the camera in the "conventional" way, by setting shutter speed and aperture separately, then one must turn the ring to set the shutter speed, then pull the frontmost ring forward as described, set the aperture, then release it. Two problems here. One, depending on where the camera is currently set, you may have to move the rings in more than one iteration, say if you're going from a high EV to a low EV setting or vice versa. And I've found that setting the aperture (by pulling the front ring) sometimes upsets the shutter-speed setting, so you have to go back and re-set the shutter speed, then re-set the aperture ... So it's a very pretty camera, very well-built, and still working well after all these years. It's just a shame it isn't as functional as I had hoped.