alspix stuff

Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim Repair

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:24:17 +0200

The vivitar ultra wide and slim is a great camera, small, lightweight and generally pretty robust for what it is. It does however have one nasty design flaw. The wind-on mechanism relies on a "keyed" shaft rotating in a cylinder to drive the take up spool, and allow the spool to rotate freely when rewinding. When you wind the film on, all the force is taken by this tiny key, a little lump of plastic less than a milimetre wide. It's no wonder that winding on aggressively causes the little thing to snap off. When this happens, the wind-on wheel can no longer drive the take up spool. There's a sinking feeling as you feel slight resistance on the winder, then just as you're thinking "I wonder if this is the end of the roll?" there's a tiny *click* and suddenly the winder carries on winding no matter how much you turn it.

Many users are avoiding 36 exposure films to reduce the stress on this part, others have used 36 for ages with no problems. It's probably down to how carefully you wind on, and a big helping of luck!

The other day one of my vivs suffered this dreadful fate, so rather than trash it and seeing as I have some experience of viv surgery I thought I'd see what, if anything, could be done. I'm happy to report the patient is out of surgery and has made a good recovery!

NOTE: This procedure won't restore your viv exactly how it was before disaster struck. It involves glueing the rewind mechanism and providing a different method to allow the film to be wound back when the roll is finished. But it should get you snapping again!

Here's what to do if you want to get your viv back into service! You'll need:

- a very small philips screwdriver
- a craft knife and/or small file
- some superglue!

Here's what to do.

Open the back of the camera. Remove the film rewind knob by pulling it while squeezing the bits that go into the film canister. Or if you want to be more gentle with your viv, remove the small screw in the centre of the winder and take it apart that way.

Undo and remove the three screws from the positions shown below. Note the smaller screw goes in the side of the camera.

Remove the silver part of the case. To do this you need to push in the little rewind button and hold down the shutter button. Start at the rewind knob end of the camera as show. Opening is a bit tricky, be patient and don't force it, it will come apart eventually!

Now, this may be as far as you need to go. When I fixed mine, I went further, but looking at it with hindsight it might be better to do the repair here. Note the picture below, the arrow is pointing to the area where the damage occurs, There's a tiny plastic key that locks the inner shaft and outer cylinder together when winding on. I continued to dismantle the mechanism in order to repair this, but I think it may be better (and easier) to glue it together at this point. Note that I haven't actually tried this though!

First you can remove the little wire spring by the rewind button, it will serve no further purpose. Next, and very importantly, ensure the rewind button isn't pressed in, i.e make sure the wind mechanism is in the normal position and that the camera IS NOT in "rewind" mode. Then, CAREFULLY drop a SMALL ammount of superflue (make sure it's fresh and runny!) onto the point marked with the arrow. Make sure it only runs in here, not around the outer cylinder or things! Leave for a few minutes. Test all is OK by operating the winder and pushing on the take up spool gently. The winder should still turn the take up spool. If it does, hurrah!

Now, here's the actual method I used. Remove the 3 screws shown below:

Now remove the camera mechanism from the body. Remove the two screws retaining the plate which covers the winding mechanism. TAKE CARE! It might spring apart. Mine did, I spent ages working out how to get the bits back together. Remove the take up spool and wind on wheel. Dismantle, and remove and discard the spring. Reassemble sticking the whole lot solidly together with superglue

Then reassemble the camera mechanism. and screw it back into the camera back.

This method has advantages; there's no chance of glue totally sticking up the mechanism and you can make sure you get plenty of glue in so the whole thing will be really strong, but on the negative side there's more work involved and also I found that when reassembled, the winder wasn't exactly central to its slot in the case and it rubbed, which meant cutting away some of the plastic on the case so it moved freely. But, as mentioned, I haven't actually tried the easier method of dripping glue in without removing the winder. It's up to you which method you try!

With the rewind wheel glued solid its no longer possible to press the rewind button to allow the take up spool to run freely, the ratchet on the winder wheel prevents the film spool turning that way. In order to rewind the film, it is necessary to lift the ratchet. Here's how the rachet mechanism can be reched from outside the camera. Cut a small notch in the silver plastic case as circled below. When the camera is back together, this allows you to poke something (a pin, cocktail stick or something into the camera and lift the ratchet locking arm shown by the arrow.

Finally, it's difficult to get the case back on because the rewind button can't be pressed in any more. To solve this, I just hacked the top off the button as it's no longer required anyway. Putting the case back together is still a bit fiddly, but once it is on, replace the screws and put the rewind lever back into place.

Now you should be able to load, wind and shoot your viv as before. When the film is finished, push a cocktail stick into the small hole, and lever slightly until the lock is released and the rewind wheel can be turned in the "wrong" direction. It's a good idea to practice this before you load up! Hold the stick in this position while rewinding the film.

Comments

Opening a Polaroid 600 camera

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:18:36 +0100

Depening on how you look at it, these Polaroid 600 cameras are either a wonder of great design, or a right pain in the arse. The are assembled without any screws whatsoever! Getting inside one was a bit of a challenge. Apologies for the dreadful photos, but hopefully this will help anyone who has the unfortunate need to get inside one of the "rounded" Polaroid 600 series cameras for some cleaning/surgery. I have no idea how much, if any of this applies to other Polaroid models

Step 1.
This is probably the worst bit! Open the front of the camera and pull of the rectangular lens surround. I didn't really find a good way to do this as it's tricky to reach the tab points to prise it out. The only way seems to be to place your fingers at the top, grip as best you can and pull until the front plate comes off. Not very elegant, but effective.

The viewfinder lens will probably drop out, so don't loose it!

STEP 2
Open the film door. Undo the velcro on the strap. Grasp each side of the cover that extends forward under the lens, and pull at each side until the tabs release themselves ( again, this requires reasonable force)

Draw out the front section

STEP3
Use a flat blade screwdriver to disengage the inner lens plate in the position shown on each side of the camera. This will allow the inner surround plate to be pulled forward...

...Release the pop up flash arms and remove the inner lens surround

STEP 4
Carefully remove the shutter button mechansim and spring. Keep these parts together so that they can be slotted back in together during reassembly

STEP 5
Unhook the hinge between the flash unit and the camera body. Take care not to stress the ribbons, these are noew all that connects the flash to the main body of the camera.

STEP 6
Time for some more brute force. Place your hand inside the camera (i.e where the film goes in) and upwards inside the camers taking a firm grasp of the camera's internals. Pull and wiggle outwards, eventually, the tabs will pop from their positions and the entire mechanism can be withdrawn from the case.

And that's it, one heap of polaroid camera bits. Fixing anything from here on is up to you! It might be time to go to ebay and search for "Polaroid 600 camera - full working condition"

REASSEMBLY
Reassembly is pretty much the reverse process. Drop the camera internals into the body first, but don't worry too much about clicking everything back into position. Put the upper film cover plate in position, then put the back of the camera on a firm, soft surface (e.g. a carpeted floor) and push down on the front cover. Everything should click back into place, so that there is no gap between the front cover plate and the main body

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Praktica SLR Light Meter Circuit

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:03:12 +0200

There's been a bit of discussion lately on the flickr Praktica group about light meters, batteries, accuracy, repair etc. If you've got an old Praktica SLR - a TL3, MTL3, MTL5B, TL5 in fact pretty much anything with a TL in the name and you want to know more about the metering, read on...

A while back I compared the light meter performance on one of my old Prakticas with a hand held meter and a couple of other cameras and found it was quite a long way out. So I took the old East German beast apart to find out if it was possible to adjust it. Getting access to all the metering components is very easy. First, remove the battery cover and battery. Then unscrew the four small screws on the base plate and carefully remove the plate. The meter circuit PCB is exposed in all its glory!

On the PCB are the battery contacts, the switch contacts and three variable resistors. Wires go from the PCB to the LDR (light dependant resistor) sensor, the meter and the combined film/shutter speed control. All three variable resistors affect calibration, so it's not just a matter of tweaking a single adjuster until the meter reads correctly! I traced the schematic from the PCB......

The circuit is a Wheatstone Bridge. Basically, two voltage dividers are placed across the battery. The meter connects between the two dividers and indicates the voltage difference between them. The film speed/shutter speed selector forms one voltage divider, the other is a resistor and a light dependant resistor (LDR). When the two dividers are balanced, the voltage difference between them will be zero, so the meter needle will stay at the centre point on the meter.

The wiper contact of the speed selector switches out of circuit at the extremes of the dial. This explains why the meter doesn't operate at certain ISO settings and extreme shutter speeds. With the ISO set to 50, the wiper travels the full distance of the selector between B and 1/1000s.

If your meter isn't working at all, first check the meter switch contacts actually close when the button is pressed. The PCB may be loose (1 screw holds it down) or the contacts dirty, either would lead to poor performance.

I'll edit this again soon when I've worked out how to do the actual calibration !

Comments

C-41ophobia - The Irrational Fear of DIY Colour

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 22:08:21 +0200

Pretty soon after starting to do my own B&W film processing I started wondering about colour. Is colour film processing at home possible? How easy is it? Can I do my own films cheaper than the lab? Googling showed the questions had of course been asked many times before, but the answers given on the usenet groups/discussion boards varied a fair bit. The opinion of at least 50% of the respondants seemed to be "No". No, it isn't easy, no you can't get good results and no it is definately not cheaper than getting the lab to do it, the chemicals expire so fast you need to be processing many rolls of film every week to make it cost in. Reading between the lines though, these opinions generally came from those who'd never actually tried colour processing themselves. Those who had tried it weren't quite so negative. In addition there was much talk about not achieving perfect colour balance. At that time I'd been deliberately putting ancient film in my cameras to get shifts in colour balance, so I decided there was little risk in trying some DIY C41 - indeed, perhaps I'd screw it up badly, mess up the colours but get some cool results because of that!

There's not a lot of choice left in the market, far less choice than B&W, but at least this made selecting a product easier! Nova produce a dry "press" kit for around £12, with a stated capacity of 12 rolls of film. In March 2006 I ordered a kit, and started stockpiling exposed films so that I could process them all in a single batch, within the very short stated shelf life of the prepared developer and blix.

I decided I would attempt to split the kit into two batches capapble of processing six films. The chemicals were mixed, then divided. One half was placed in my film freezer for future use.

The first six rolls went without a hitch, the negatives looked fine and scanned with ease. With the kit now "exhausted" I decided to waste a little of my stash of cheap expired film to see how the results would change as I put more and fim through the ageing chemicals. Another six rolls. Six more films nicely developed, no real signs that the chemicals were loosing their power. The instructions indicated a shelf life of 2-3 weeks for part used chemicals. Mine were twice that age, dark and murky, had developed twice their maximum capacity and were still alive and kicking! I stopped counting the films I put through the chemicals at this point, but by the time I started using a fresh batch they had sucessfully developed at least 18 rolls of film of various speeds and types (including some cross-processing)

I didn't bin the old chemicals, but instead kept them (stored at room temperatures regularly >30C during the summer), ocasionaly testing them out on a test roll to see if they still worked.

Could the chemicals survive a whole year? In April 2007, over a year after first mixing the 500ml of 2-week shelf life chemicals, I tried again. My test isn't exactly ideal, I used ISO100 film which expired in 2004! To compensate for this I rated the film speed at ISO50 for the test roll, shot with a Praktica SLR.

The standard developer time is 3:15. To compensate for the chemical's age, I pushed this up to 5:30. No science behind this adjustment, just guesswork! The normal blix time is 3 minutes which I doubled to about 6 minutes. Perhaps this time the film would deliver some wacky colours? Nothing very exciting I'm afraid, just perfectly scannable negatives with a yellow cast.

The following examples are scanned using an Epson 4180 with everything at default, no enhancements or adjustments made.

I then scanned again, with the scanner's colour restoration feature checked, just to see the effect of simple colour correction:

Finally here's one of the test scenes shot with my Canon A70, default automatic setting.

So why am I posting this?

These days those photographers still using film, or coming back to it, are often looking in other directions than simply producing the ever sharper and more computer-controlled imagery that modern technolgies are enabling. The attitudes towards the difficulties of colour developing come from a time where, for most people, the sole aim was to strive for sharpness, correct colour control, repeatability. A time when the only way to get your colour image to paper was through the unforgiving world of the wet darkroom, where inconsistant negatives can cause big headaches.

If you're using a Holga,Lomo LC-A, Diana, pinhole, box brownie, etc etc, my guess is you probably won't be shot down by your editor if your colours and exposure aren't 100% spot on accurate. Otherwise you wouldn't be using that plastic lens toy camera, expired film, or cross processing, eh? So don't take too much notice of historical opinions on the practicality of home processing.

Perhaps my standards are too low, but I think the scans I've achieved here are OK. Certainly good enough for me. If you'd be happy with processing results like this then the following statements are all true:

It's easy. In many ways EASIER than B&W.

It's fast. Your film will be drying in less than ten minutes

It's VERY cheap

You don't need special gear - A cheap digital thermometer and a plastic washing up bowl on top of your existing B&W kit.

The stuff lasts FOR AGES!!

I've put the sludgy dark liquids back in their bottles and in the garage cupboard where they have been for 12 months. Let's see what they can do after 18 months.. maybe 2 years? With a bit of luck, the damn things will finally start producing crazy results, so far they have been a bit too well-behaved!

What DOES kill it !
Update, Auguest 2007: I left one batch in plastic containers that weren't full and didn't have all the air squeezed out of them. In a matter of a couple of months the developer (I assume) became totally ineffective, because after processing the film came out with no image as if it hadnt been exposed, but without the sprocket area markings. So make sure you use containers that can be squeezed to expel all air and make sure the lids are very tightly fitting !

Suppliers:

In the UK
www.novadarkroom.com Nova Prospeed C41 kit. Powder kit, 12 film capacity

Europe
Fotohuis Amaloco K54 C41 kit, liquid kit, 4x6 kit, 24 films in sperate batches of 6.

Comments

Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim Multi-Exposure and "B" Mod!

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:07:46 +0200

Here's a mod that will turn your Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim into a multi-exposure, low-light shooting, blur soaked Lomo killer!

The multi exposure mod lets you re-cock the shutter as many times as required without winding on, the "B" mod lets you leave the shutter open as long as you hold your finger on the "control"

All you need is:
- A Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim you don't mind hacking with a little
- A match (you may have some spare after building the matchbox pinhole ) and/or a scrap of plastic, about 1mm x 2mm x 20mm
- A small screwdriver, and some tools to cut a small slot in plastic...

First you need to get your Viv naked. There are five screws which hold the front of the camera on, positions shown below. Make a note of which screw comes from which hole as the sizes are different.

Seperate the two parts of the rewind lever and remove them from the camera.

The easiest way to sperate the case is to start at the shutter button end. Depress the shutter button so the two halves can be seperated at that end of the camera, then press in the little rewind button so that the case can be seperated at the other end. There's do need to pry at the case with a screwdriver, you'll only damage things - keep trying - it does come apart easily with practice!

The good news is we don't need to mess with the camera's mechanism, just the front panel!

This is a good time to examine what happens when the camera is wound on and fired, you need to understand what you're trying to do when operating the modded camera. To wind on with no film in the camera, open the back and turn the lower sprocket wheel to the left until it stops. Watch the mechanism under the lens at the front of the camera while doing this.I could try to descibe it, but it's best to watch it yourself, you'll get the idea.

All you need to do is cut a slot in the front panel so that this mechanism can be interfered with when the camera is assembled. The slot needs to be 10mm long, and wide enough so the match will move along it. The centre of the slot should be 18mm down from the centre of the lens hole, and start 5mm to the right of the centre of the lens hole.

Try to cut this slot as neatly as possible (i.e. neater than mine!!) Use whatever method you feel safe with to cut this, but don't sue me if you slice you fingers off doing it!!

Check that the match fits into the slot and slides smoothly up and down. Yeah, raunchy stuff, but don't get too excited here. It's time to get Viv's clothes back on!

Remember to press in the rewind button and start at the rewind button end when re-assembling, then push the shutter button down and re fit the two parts together. As with taking it apart, don't force it, be patient, it will go together eventually. Replace the screws and rewind lever.

Don't put film in just yet, practice operating the thing first without film.

Get your match. Use a sharp knife to cut a taper at the end, this will make it much easier to use than a square-ended stick.

For multi exposures, take one shot as normal. To re-cock the shutter, insert the match on the left hand slide of the slot. Slide across to the other side of the slot, you will hear the shutter being cocked.

Remove the match, and shoot again!

The match doesnt work very well for the "B" control, it's not flexible enough. Hence the plastic, which can actually be used for re-cocking the shutter too.

Cut a piece to fit the slot, about 20mm long, and taper the end as with the match. Bend the plastic slightly as shown.

For B exposures, wind on, then fire the shutter with your hand over the lens. Now insert the tapered end of the plastic into the right hand slide of the slot. It should wedge in place and stay there. Do this with care to avoid opening the shutter while inserting the plastic. To open the shutter, push the plastic to the left across the slot, you'll here the shutter slide open. Hold it there for as long as you like, then release it, it should spring back, closing the shutter! Watch out you dont get your fingers in the way of the lens doing this, it's very easy for your fingers to get in the photo with the vivitar's wide angle lens.

Make sure you remove the piece of plastic before winding on.

OK, so it's not exactly the most elegant solution - but it works, and triples the functionality of the already great Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim

Update: Here's some hastily produced example shots, expired 100ASA film and expired C41 home development kit!

Multi Exposure
There's three exposures in this one...

B Mode
I took a few shots of cars going by, not really very sucessful as the road was quiet and I undestimated the exposure time required with this old 100ASA film.

Multi exposure and B!!
What a mess! But it proves it works

Comments

Lens Reversal Macro

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:54:44 +0200

The other day I thought I'd try a little macro experiment with my new Pentax dSLR. Many years ago I bought a M42 reversing ring for just such antics on my Praktica film SLR, and I'd just bought a pentax k -> M42 adapter, so sticking these two onto the camera body along with a 49/52mm adapter enable the standard lens to be reversed. You can of course buy a k-mount reversing ring, but the three seperate gadgets have other uses too!

The lens used is the standard 18-55mm kit lens, set at the 18mm position which gives greatest magnification

Spotted a gnat on the bathroom wall I thought would make a good subject. The lights were dim, tripods/flashes etc were in the other room and being lazy I popped up the internal flash, even though I knew it would probably be useless, flash is usually way too powerful at such close range.

However, things worked out quite well! The flash was blocked by the lens so the gnat was in shadow from the direct blast. The reflected light off the walls was just about right.

To control depth of field and get a bright enough image in the viewfinder to focus, adjust the aperture manually by holding one finger on the lever sticking out of the lens. This takes a bit of practice to get the right exposure!

Comments

Redscale Technique

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:30:51 +0200

Here’s the results of an experiment using the “redscale” technique. This involves exposing colour film backwards, i.e. emulsion side away from the lens.

It's actually very easy to expose the film backwards. Using a spare film canister, film can be wound from its canister into the spare the wrong way round. The film is then put in the camera, exposed then processed normally. Instructions here

I actually did this by total accident a while back but didn't catch on to how it could be used as an effect.

There's a number of photographers shooting this way and producing some interesting results, seeing this as an alternative to cross processing.

So I thought it was time to try it out properly. I used some very cheap unbranded 400ASA print film in a cheap plastic panoramic camera, with the panoramic insert removed (makes a rather nice toy 28mm wide angle camera). One bright sunny Sunday afternoon I went out and clicked away....

The results came out very red, and very under exposed, much more so than my previous shot produced with 100ASA film. Not what I expected!

There were also some crazy "light leaks"

So what makes it work and what's going on? My guess is it’s the anti halation layer at the back of the film acting as a very dense filter. Some films are denser than others, with different filter characteristics. To test this out, I held some unexposed bits of both films up to a bright lamp. The lamp was clearly visible through the 100ASA film while the 400ASA film almost totally blocked it out.

So it's worth looking through the leaders of a couple of different films before selecting one to try this technique with!

As for the light leaks, any light managing to creep around to the reverse side of the film, reflecting off internal surfaces would hit the emulsion.

Comments

35mm Sprocket Counter Clicker

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:14:23 +0200

The Clicker.... or should that be Clickr...

I've read a few posts on flickr where people have tried using one of these plastic clickers to count sprocket holes but it has failed. Once you know how to make one, they work really well, so I thought it would be worthwhile documenting it properly here. The key is to ensure the clicker plastic only goes through the sprocket hole by a small amount, and it seems to work best with the clicker very close to where the film comes out of the canister.

It was time to reload my matchbox pinhole for the summer, so I took the opertunity to take some snaps of the process.....

First tip: Carefully wind back most of the film leader into the canister (don't go too far!!!) - this gives you extra film to test the operation of the clicker.

Note that the plastic ( I use a small bit of very curved plastic cut from a document binder) only protudes through the sprocket hole very slightly

Before reloading, genly pull the film out a couple of sprocket holes. The clicker should ride on the back of the film smoothly and make a click as it drops into the sprocket holes. It does? Good! It doesn't? Remove the tape, wind the film back into the canister again try repositioning the clicker slightly.

Snip the leader off as square as you can. Now splice the film with tape. Make sure everything is square....

...both sides. Trim off all excess tape carefully

Wind some film through to tighten the canister against the box, hold it there and wind a couple more clicks to make sure the clicker is still working.

Now tape it. Tape it good. Tape it reaaal good.
Note the end of the clicker plastic is left visible. When the film is finished, grab this with some pliers and pull the clicker right out. Now you can safely wind the film back to the original canister.

Comments

Filmbox Pinhole Camera

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:50:19 +0100

Here's another 35mm pinhole camera, this one was actually made before the matchbox pinhole, but the construction principles are very similar. Read the instructions for the matchbox pinhole first.

This one requires even less stuff to build it! :-) For this, you need:

- A roll of normal 35mm film in a box
- Some black tape
- A bit of aluminium foil, or a piece of aluminium cut from a drinks can
- A pin
- A black felt tip pen
- Either an empty 35mm canister or a roll of the cheapest 35mm film you can find (in this case, pull out all the film and cut it off two inches from the canister)

Very conveniently, a 35mm film box is just the right width for 35mm film! :-)

Open both ends of the film box, very carefully so that the card doesn't tear. Colour the inside of the box black with the felt tip pen (or use matt black paint) This will help stop internal light reflections spoiling the pictures.

Carefully cut a small hole, about 10mm square in the centre of the front of the box. Make a very small pinhole in the middle of the foil, aim for about 0.25mm (0.01"). Stick the foil over the hole in the centre of the box.

Thread the film through the box, and attach to the film "stub" on the empty canister. Then close down the flaps at each end. One flap at each end will lie on the back of the canister so and will help protect from light leaks.Wind the film to tighten up the canisiters against the box and get to work with plenty of black tape! :-)

(Note: in the photo above, both canisters have the sticking-out end of the spool pointing upwards. This is because for this one I took the canister apart and replaced the spool upside down. Normally, one will point up, the other will point down)

Build a shutter out of card to fit on the front.

A wind on clicker can be used for this design too, just allow 12 clicks between each frame.

I've only tested this camera once so far, and unfortunately I got the exposure calculations wrong and totally overexposed all the shots. This was about the only one that came out at all!

Comments

Olympus Trip - Manual Modifcation

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 18:39:06 +0100

I wanted a small, cheap 35mm shooter with manual controls. One of these days I'll get myself one of those nice little 70's compact rangefinders but they cost more than a tenner!! ;-) so for now, I'm making do with an Olympus Trip 35, very common and very cheap.

The downside with the trip is the lack of manual control. There's a "flash mode" that gives aperture control but fixes the shutter speed at 1/40s. The camera is capable of 1/200s in auto mode, it would be nice to be able to access this manually - especially as the auto mode on my £2.50 Trip doesn't work!

After reading the excellent article at Zeropoint.six-something.org, I set about finding a way to manually control the shutter speed, and came up with this little mod which allows both speeds to be selected at will, and doesn't require as much dismantling as the above method.

You need:
Olympus Trip 35 camera
Miniature crosshead screwdriver
Plastic cable tie, about 4mm wide type
A small needle file or hacksaw blade

Now although you don't actually need to strip the camera down, it may be worth doing so so that you can see what you're aiming at; it isn't a difficult job. If you want to do this follow these instructions.

Inside the camera there is a tiny brass flywheel that controls the shutter speed. In order to get the faster speed this wheel must be held in it's "wound up" position. Attached to the wheel is a cam, which when prodded will push the wheel to the fast position. The following picture shows the cam highlighted in red.

The idea is to make a control rod from the cable tie which pushes this cam to select the fast shutter speed. Moving the control rod away reverts to normal 1/40s mode.

This photo shows the view from the side, showing the bit the control rod has to hit (highlighted in red). The area to aim for is between long brass lever and the spring pivot point.

So here's how it's done. Remove the top cover screws (one by the strap lug, two under the film rewind lever. Take off the top cover.

Neatly trim the locking end off the cable tie and thread onto the tie, about an inch from the end.

The locking bit will sit inside the camera body to stop the whole thing being pulled out when you switch between speeds.

File a 5mm deep slot just wide enough so the cable can move through it easily, in the position shown on the camera top cover

Now the tricky bit! Push the cable tie into the mechanism so that it pushes against the cam shown highlighted in the above diagram. This isn't easy beacuse now the camera is assembled you can't easilly see what you're trying to hit!

You should feel very slight resistance as you hit the cam, and the tie should then push in another three millimetres or so. Try the shutter - you should hear if it's operating faster.

Obviously, don't force things. If it doesn't feel quite right, pull out the cable tie and try again. On my first attempt I ended up with the camera stuck in 1/200s mode; it turned out I had dislodged the return spring on the flywheel.

The lock of the tie should be in a position where it just hits the metal casting when the tie is pulled out enough to select 1/40s mode. If it's in the wrong place, slide it off and re-thread.

Finally, replace the top cover with the tie poking out of the slot in the top cover. Trim the tie so it doesn't stick out too far.

That's it! Olympus trip with full manual control! :-)

Wonder if it's possible to add a "B" setting....?

Resources:
K. Praslowicz Photography
Olympus Trip 35

Olympus Trip 35 Flickr Group

Comments

Matchbox camera Shutter

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 23:16:17 +0100

Here's a couple of photos of the shutter I'm currently using. It's made from a couple of bits of scrap card. One has a quite large hole cut in the centre which fits over the pinhole (I didn't cut this very neatly - you can do better!) The other piece acts as the shutter and slides behind this, covering the pinhole. I stuck some black tape on the back of this shutter card.
Shutter closed.....

shutter open.....

Comments

Matchbox pinhole - some colour shots!

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:58:04 +0100

Here are some results from the first roll of colour film through the matchbox. I used some Kodak Plus 200 "free" film.

Here's a couple of close-up images, the huge depth of field really helps here !

Comments

Matchbox Pinhole

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:32:32 +0100

My first couple of 35mm pinhole cameras attempted to be panoramic, wide angle affairs, but this time I thought it would be nice to get back to the classic square format.

Here's my latest contraption which uses 35mm film to provide square images of 24 x 24mm. Using this size means that you can get up to 50 exposures on a standard roll of 36 exposure film. Now that's what I call economy!

The image edges suffer from distortion that gives a "Diana" quality to the pictures. In fact, the images look very "toy camera" like indeed, except that the pinhole allows some really good close ups due to the DOF of the pinhole.

It's also costs pretty much nothing to build - certainly a lot cheaper than a $100 Diana off ebay!

So far I've only run a single roll of colour film through it, which I then developed in B&W chemicals,so the results are a bit odd but they did prove it worked.

I'll be posting additional photos (colour too!) onto my flickr, check it out.

All you need is a matchbox, an empty roll of 35mm film, some new 35mm film, some black tape and a bit of foil!

First, mark out a 24mm square exactly in the centre of the matchbox tray, cut this out with a sharp knife as neatly as possible. Or make it messy if you like, it's up to you. This provides the image frame, any rough edges or card fibres will appear on the image obviously.

Now get a black pen and color the tray black. Also stick a pen inside the front of the sleeve and colour that black too.

Cut a small hole, about 6mm square, in the centre of the sleeve. Try to do this as neatly as possible to avoid fluffy fibres appearing in the image

Now for the pinhole. The very short focal length means that the optimum pinhole size is small, less than 0.2mm. Make a pinhole in a bit of foil/drinks can using you favourite method (wont go into it here, search the web), and stick it over the hole in the sleeve.

To work out how far to wind the film, I make small "clickers" from bits of plastic (here that stuff used to bind documents). Cut a very thin strip and make a point at one end

Now take the full roll of film. Stick the curved plastic to the back of the canister so that the pointed end pokes through a sproket hole by about 3mm. As the film is pulled out of the cansiter, the plastic will jump between holes and make a clicking sound. (some more detail on this here)

Now thread the film through the box sleeve. Then, push the inner tray in so that the base of the tray with the hole in in presses against the film, pushing it flat and proving the square frame.

You also need an empty spool to take up the film. Ideally, this will still have a bit of film sticking out, otherwise you have to carefully open the canister with a bottle opener, fix the new film end to the spool and re-assemble. I've done this but its much easier to use a spool with some film sticking out!! Splice the film together with clear tape. Then, wind the film into the take up canister so that both canisters fit snugly against the matchbox. Make sure no film is visible at the back - you will use tape to seal this joint so you dont want to be sticking tape onto the film! NOTE - make sure you dont wind the film back into the full spool at any point, the "clicker" plastic may rip the film.

All that remains is to make the thing light-tight. Wrap tape around the joints between both canisters and the box. Make sure all sides are well covered. The tape does a suprisingly good job at keeping the whole thing together and stable!

Place a small piece of foam on the underside of the takeup canister then wrap tape over it. This gives some tension and stops the film unwinding withing the canister each time you wind on.

Now make a simple shutter, a bit of tape will work, but I prefer a sliding card shutter. The camera's now ready to take pictures! Find something suitable to wedge into the top of the empty spool to act as a handle to wind the film on, and count 6 clicks for each frame.

Check out www.mrpinhole.com to calculate the optimum pinhole size, and work out exposure times for the film you use.

Mine worked out at around f90, which gives fairly short exposure times with ISO100 film, a second or two in daylight.

Make sure you don't wind the film back into the canister with the plastic "clicker" attached - it will rip the film.

Here's some more images from my first test - note I didnt get the hole exactly square!

If you make one of these cameras there's a flickr group called Matchbox Pinhole - Please add your photos to the pool! :-)

UPDATE: New (and hopefully better!) instructions are now available at www.matchboxpinhole.com

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