| Author | Message | ||
     Tony Duell Rating: N/A |
The Tomosey book I've found the most useful is the 'Repairing the Great Collectible Cameras' one -- the one that covers post-WW2 devices. His other books (I think there are a total of 6 so far) are worth reading, though. I've found things that I prefer to do a different way (I am not afraid of removing things to make access easier..) though. Another book, now alas out-of-print I think is 'All you need to know about the design and repair of Russian cameras'. Since Russian cameras were often clones of others, there's a lot of info in that book that applies to the Super Ikonta rangefinder, the Contax shutter, and so on. In fact the description of the Contax (or Kiev) shutter is the clearest I've ever read, and I found I could actually understand what was going on... I will second the recomendation to buy 'junk' cameras and have a play. I've bought many, and either got them working or still have more work to do (I've not made any worse :-)). Models I've picked up for <$30 a time include : Several L-series Prakticas (vertical metal shutter) including a VLC (interchangable prism...) Several Werras (Prestor shutter, which I think is one of the most ingenious leaf shutters of all time) A couple of Pentinas (Prestor Reflex shutter, which turns a bug in the Prestor into a feature) Several Feds/Zorkis (Leica-like shutter, and a lot cheaper than a real Leica, good to practice on) Konica Auto S2 Several Kievs (Contax-like shutter, not simple, but worth understanding) Examples of most of the common leaf shutters (Compur, Prontor, Epsilion, etc) Pentax Spotmatic Several more modern electronic SLRs (Nikon, Pentax, etc). Even a battered Rolleicord.... |