Bought an Olympus Pen EES from Japan

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Not bad for a fifty year old camera

It’s number one son’s fault. He told me about the Buyee site which lets you bid in Japanese auctions. I’ve been after an Olympus Pen EES (with manual focus) for a while and so I took a look. They had one on there priced at 27 quids. Very good condition and with a “working” exposure meter. So I bought it. The price is impressive for a camera like this; although I did have to pay another 27 quids for postage and packing.

The service is very good. The Japanese seller of the camera sends it to the Buyee warehouse in Japan where it can be stored for up to a month. If I bought any other bits and bobs they could have been sent there too and then all combined for shipping. As I was just buying the one camera I had it shipped out as soon as possible. It took four or five days to arrive and the whole process was very smooth. I’ve had orders from ebay which have taken longer. The order didn’t attract any import duty and I was able to use the Japan Post website to track the package all the way to being out for deliver by Royal Mail Parcelforce.

The camera arrived today and (of course) doesn’t quite work properly. The exposure meter isn’t working and the aperture is stuck at F22. But I don’t mind. It will take pictures (although I’ve yet to develop them). Even if I have to spend a few quids to get it fixed or brave going inside and fixing it myself I’ve still got a camera in extremely good condition. The site sells a huge variety of stuff, some of it at very interesting prices. I don’t think I’ll be buying things every week, but it is nice to have the option if I want to get something which is a bit out of the ordinary.

Making Spanners with ChatGPT

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Close but no cigar

As part of the fixing of the Canon Dial camera I needed a spanner to remove the dial spring winder. The spanner is a bit special because it needs to fit between the winder and the camera body. Ivan was kind enough to make me one out of brass, but it turned out to be a little bit too thick. So I thought I’d 3D print one. I’ve been impressed with how tough PETG prints have turned out, and the spanner doesn’t have to be particularly strong, so I was hopeful this might work.

And, since I’m lazy I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to produce the spanner design as a Python program I can run inside FreeCAD. I asked the question and out popped some Python. Which didn’t work. There then followed around fifteen minutes of me explaining why the supplied design was wrong, followed by ChatGPT then producing a differently wrong result along with an explanation of how it had fixed the faults that were still there.

Eventually I gave up and wrote the design in about five minutes or so. These things are very clever, but if they get it wrong it seems that sometimes it stays wrong whatever you do.

The spanners worked a treat, although I had to make a really thin one

Canon Dial 35 Cleaning

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Those tiny little dots in the plastic bag in the middle are the screws that hold the winder in place

I’m not sure if people really want to know the saga of my Canon Dial 35. But it’s my blog. So there.

Anyhoo, today I thought I’d get to the bottom of the the sluggish way that the camera was winding on after each photograph. I was able to take the winder off the bottom of the camera and use a whole bunch of cotton buds to clean muck off the inside. I then added a tiny bit of oil (too much oil is a really bad thing in cameras like this) and then put it all together.

And it works. Go me. The wind on is now very smooth and positive.

Achievement Unlocked - Working Canon Dial 35

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The camera takes half frames across the film

My latest new (to me) camera arrived today. It’s my third Canon Dial 35. An it looks like third time really is a charm. The camera works quite well, although the clockwork winder does chug a little bit after a few frames. The light meter works perfectly for me - I just gave the terminals a bit of clean and off it went. The pictures are lovely and sharp.

The pictures are half the size of standard 35mm ones but this does mean I’ll get twice as many shots on each film.

And now I have to find a new obsession.

A working Canon Canonet

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This is becomming my test shot for new cameras…

I put a film into “Mr Sticky Shutter” today and took him to the University. He is one of my 20 cameras and he shows quite a bit of promise. His shutter is a bit sticky, but only at the slower speeds that I hardly ever use. But the good news is that he looks excellent and everything else, including the light meter, works fine. And, as you can see above, the lens is very sharp

Brickwork is very good for testing the detail that a lens can resolve

Not bad for a sixty year old camera

Adventures with a Changing Bag

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For the last few days I’ve been working on an article about using a Minox camera. I’ve managed to prove two things conclusively:

  1. You can 3D print a light tight cassette to hold Minox film.

  2. You do need to put something in the light trap to stop light getting onto the film.

This means I’ve been spending a while with my hands in a light-proof bag, rolling up film and putting it into tiny cassettes. I was happily doing this the other day when the doorbell rang. I was alone in the house at the time and half-way through a rather tricky cassette load, so I had to walk to the door with my hands in the black bag, find the keys and then open it to reveal two people who asked me if I wanted them to save my soul. Or something. I replied politely that I’d settle for having the films in the dark bag saved and bade them farewell.

I’m kind of hoping they will go back to base with tales of a strange, wild-eyed man who lives at our address and answers the door with his hands in a large black bag. With a bit of luck they’ll skip our house next time.

20 Camera Man

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..all photographed with a phone…

It turns out I’ve not bought 19 broken cameras. I’ve actually received 20. I’ve tested each one and they are all broken. I’ve given them all names.

  • Mr Sticky Shutter

  • No Rewind Boy

  • Just Dead

  • Weird battery guy

  • Stuckee

  • The Battery Flattener

  • The Dangly Back Kid

  • Sir NoClick

  • The one that winds forever

  • The one with the stuck frame counter

  • Flash but no trousers

  • Missing buttons

  • Shiny but bust

  • Only clicks, never whirrs

  • Nothing moves

  • Chinon less wonder

  • Is this the end of Ricoh?

  • T’would be nice if this worked

  • Shiny but that’s it

  • Mr. Dial

The Canon Dial that I really wanted does more than my previous purchase, but there is still something broken about it. I’ve been looking at the repair manuals for these cameras and they are packed full of parts which are easy to break and hard to mend. So for now the quest continues….

Red Rock Cider Police Squad Ads

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I was digging around for information about the Canon Dial 35 and I discovered that it was used to take an award winning photograph of Leslie Nielsen as part of an advertising campaign for Red Rock Cider. I haven’t been able to track down the picture, but I have managed to find a collection of the adverts. Well worth a watch. Back when advertising was clever and funny.

Minox Cartridges - take 2

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Last time I tried to print some cassettes for the Minox camera it didn’t end well. Never one to give up (see Canon Dial 35) I’ve today returned to the fray. I’m using my secret weapon; this time I’ve made my own design for the lids. The one I was using turned out to have a hole too small for the winder so I’ve made a new lid and spool which fits. I’m printing at a much slower speed too. And this time the cartridges seem to have worked - at least I can get them off the build plate without them disintegrating. Next thing is to pop some film in one and see how it works in a camera.

I seem to have bought 19 cameras...

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For reasons that I can’t fully explain I’ve become mildly obsessed with owning a Canon Dial 35 camera. This is a clockwork half-frame camera which dates from the 1960’s. Above you can see my first attempt at purchasing such a camera. It doesn’t look too bad does it? This is how it looked on the ebay listing that I eagerly perused.

..and this is the picture of the back. Needless to say, this picture was not on ebay. It turns out that it is best if your purchasers don’t know that the camera they are thinking of buying has been used to knock in tent pegs.

The camera doesn’t work. In fact it is actually one solid block of stuff. Nothing inside it moves. All the gears have rusted solid. It turns out that knocking in tent pegs might actually be a good use for it. So today, rather than question why I want one of these cameras, I’ve upped the anti a bit by ordering a lot of 19 broken cameras which include a Canon Dial 25 among their number. Most of them are plastic point and shoot devices of little interest but one or two of them might be gems. We shall see.

A chum for the Chaika

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Differently broken

What do you do when you’ve just bought a broken Russian camera? You buy another one of course. While I love the artistic potential of having one picture taken on top of another, it makes the camera much less useful for reportage (i.e. taking pictures of things that look like the things). So last week I waded back into the auction fray and managed to pick up another identical camera (for less than the original and with a case and wrist strap thrown in). From the images of the camera, this one has a complete takeup gear, so it bound to be OK. Right?

Wrong. The takeup gear is fine, the camera loads and takes pictures, the shutter works. But the film counter stays stuck at zero. Bearing in mind you can fit 72 pictures on a single roll of film, a way of knowing how many you’ve taken is kind of important. Wah. So I take the camera to pieces for a look-see.

I love the way that the clear plastic that covers the displays on the camera is actually made from old film.

Turns out there is a tiny cork clutch between the indicator dial and the gear that moves with the shutter advance. I stuck a couple of pieces of insulating tape on top of the cork to make it thicker and more grippy and we are in business. So now I have an “art Chaika” and a “business Chaika”.

Sore Thumb Video Games in York

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This is not a video game shop

Went to York today. Of course we took a picture of York Minster (see above). Of course we had a great meal at Zaap Thai. And of course we went to the Sore Thumb retro video game shop. This is an amazing place. Consoles and games jostle together on crammed shelves and they have at least one of everything. The even had a couple of GameBoy micros but not at prices I could ever afford. I made one small, silly purchase (of which more later) and they let me take some pictures of the place.

If you’re in York you really should go. If you’re near York you should go to York and then go there. A great place.

Tower Block Development

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Hornsea Mere

Another purchase that I made last Thursday was of a rather special film developing tank which can develop three films at once.

It contains three spirals into which you wind the films before putting the whole thing in the light tight tank and pouring in the chemicals.

This is a good idea because if you use large format film with only a few shots per roll you find yourself coming home with multiple films to be developed. Also, you can save up a bunch of films and then do them all at once. I was going to put three films in the tank but it occurred to me that this would be a bad idea if the tank was faulty. So I found an old film which had some pictures on it but had been slightly spoiled when I opened the camera back by mistake. I wasn’t expecting there to be much on this film, so if it didn’t work I’d be quite relaxed about it. However, it worked just fine and I even had some pictures turn out OK, which was nice.

Accidental Art

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I was at Hull University again today so I snapped a bunch of pictures with my new (to me) half frame Russian camera. It is now one of my favourite devices. But not because it works. The drive mechanism for the film is faulty. Some of the pins on the film advance sprockets are worn down a bit, probably by a previous owner rewinding the film without disengaging the drive. A lot can happen to a camera over fifty years. This means that the film doesn’t always wind on properly. So you get one frame overlaid on top of another. And you get pictures like these:

the lens is very sharp and the exposure seems to work fine

No two pictures the same…

Close to working properly…

I had a lot of good times here..

The things you get right are interesting. But sometimes the things that you get wrong are even more interesting. I liked the idea of making images that had two pictures in the frame, but what I’ve ended up with is even more than this. I’ve kind of figured out how to make the film move properly most of the time, but I think every now and then I’ll get this camera out just to see what kind of pictures it creates for me.

The Photography and Video Show

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I don’t have any pictures because I need to get the film developed….

Today finds us at the Photography and Video Show in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC). I’ve not been before. It’s awesome. Loads of familiar brands plus a whole bunch of other interesting stuff. My favourite stand was the Disabled Photographers Society. They collect donations over the year and then put them all up for sale at the show. So there were lots of old cameras to root through.

A little dusty but otherwise perfect

I found the Pentax ProgramA you can see above. This dates from around 1980. I’ve no idea if it works. It was one of the first “battery only” cameras and it won’t do anything until you give it a couple of LR44 cells. I’ll find out when I get home whether or not it works.

Next year the show will be in London rather than Birmingham. I’m definitely going to try to get there though, it was great fun.

Update: I got the camera home, popped in a couple of batteries and everything seems to do what it should. So the next step is to pop a film in it.