Bad design awards... bring it!

how about the Pentax 67 ?

how about the Pentax 67 ?

... some guy here might recognize this series of idiosyncracies in the Pentax MF Rangefinder the Pentax 67 series....

"..YOU MUST TAKE THE LENS OFF BEFORE REMOUNTING THE TTL FINDER. OTHERWISE YOU WILL BREAK THE METER COUPLING!* There, now I warned you."

and

".. The loading requires you to turn and lock two keys on the spools -- and if you are in a hurry, you can jam and break the advance by not making sure they are properly folded down. The easiest way to load this camera is to load the empty spool on the right. Then load the supply spool on the left, with the paper band still on it. Turn the supply spool until clicks into place and its key folds down. Then and only then should you take the band off, stretch the paper across and work it like a normal MF camera."
 
Keith said:
I must be a German thing ... at least half the Leicas I've bought in the last few years have needed a CLA!
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No, just p**s poor engineering. I see a lot of that these days with the older generation engineers retiring and the complexity of design increasing every day. Obviously, the design was flawed and the individual engineers have to be responsible in the end. It has nothing to do with nationality. One reason I don't buy Toyotas anymore is because of flawed engineering beginning with the first one I bought in '71 and the last one (of many) which went to the junk yard two years ago. Even those refrigerator-like applicances had their problems because of lousy engineering design.🙄

Nowadays, I buy something that I can keep for a very long time and rebuild or CLA as the years go buy. I cannot afford to buy disposables any longer. I consider a camera needing a CLA as an advantage over the disposable products on the market these days.🙂
 
The rear oil "seal" on the BMC A-Series motors always gets my vote. It keeps the aluminum transmission case from rusting. Also, it provides rust protecting for the garage floor.
 
Actually, I don't consider leaking British sports cars as a bad design. As a 40-year MG nut, I rely on the oil spots to keep informed whether or not the engine actually has oil in it without lifting the hood/bonnet to check. Pretty good design, IMO.
 
I note that Zeiss Ikon have rated several mentions, so far—but are all their products really that bad? I don't pretend to be an expert, but did acquire two Contaflexes recently. Super Bs at that. Both needed cleaning to get the shutters and apertures functioning correctly, but then responded by springing back into life, perfectly. What I have seen of the insides looks pretty well made, there's certainly nothing wrong with Compur's shutter assembly, or the Zeiss lenses, the meters of both are working well, and the Super B viewfinder is fantastic. By the standards of the day, the flash sync capabilities offered real advantages to those who valued this feature, in comparison to the performance of period focal plane shutters, and leaf shutters were generally well regarded as being proven, and reliable, mechanisms. Similar circumstances applied to the two Bessamatics I've purchased in the last 18 months. A little TLC and they've swallowed 30+ films between them, with no problems of consequence.

Personally, I don't much care how complicated a camera is as long as it is reliable and works. A 500 series Hasselblad, for example, is a more complex camera, but they do not exactly have a reputation for unreliability... does that automatically make their complexity a problem? Certainly, the Super Bs do not have an excellent reputation for reliability nowadays, however I suspect that has more to do with the fact that most are now pushing fifty years old and need a CLA—hardly the designers fault, or necessarily an inherent weakness.

What do others think? Is complexity an evil in camera design, in and of itself, or only, if it fails to deliver what is expected of it?
Brett
 
mathomas said:
Also available on the air-cooled Porsche 911 models. What's amazing is that it works at all.

🙂
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Jeep CJ's had a heater core that was so undersized that effectively you had no heat. At operating temperatures there was barely enough temperature rise to keep the widows from fogging. Always had to keep a towel handy to wipe off the windshield.

Pneumatic windshield wipers on a 1960 Ford Falcon. Whenever I floored the gas the windshield wipers would pause untill vacuum built up again. What was particularly dangerous was accellerating onto a parkway in a downpour. Basically I could not see and just hoped to be lucky.

Cal
 
Heh, my Willys MB came with those pneumatic wipers, Cal. They don't work when you needed them. Replaced them with hand-cranked ones.
The accessory heating system in those could melt the soles of your boots.

Bad camera design....I've currently got a Perfex 55 in pieces on the kitchen table. From what I've read it is a camera designed to never be repaired 🙁
 
although i kind of agree with pvdhaar (and the cartoon of Keith is also very valid), i do think german engineers have the tendency to overdesign things. A lot.
And i have more than camera related experiences - i work with some of those guys.
 
[As an engineer, I somehow have a lot of sympathy for these so called 'bad designs', because often they aren't. They're brilliant solutions to jump 'managerial' hurldes. I bet a lot of other engineers will sympathize and recognize the following:

First you're sent out to build something according to a completely obscure specification, but you make it all fine and elegant and it works like a charm..

Then the guys in charge start to realize what it was that they actually wanted and seem to think 'hey, why don't we also make it flip backward if we twist its ears?' and after a while, you get it so that it does indeed also flip backwards when you twist its ears.. It's a lot less elegant by now; there are some warts in the design, but it still works so it's still somewhat fine.

At this point the guys in charge become over confident; we're now going to crush the competition, so there has got to be a quantum leap in technology in there as well, and it's got to be ready yesterday.. This is where things go bad.. You'd have to start from scratch to get a sound solution, but there's no time, so you're forced to build warts upon warts.. The most amazing thing is that it stil works and does everything, but don't ever look under the bonnet.

Next time you take something apart, and are amazed at what's in there, think about the poor designers that had to do that job of putting it all in there and make it work..
__________________
Kind regards,

Peter]

Peter, being a mechanical engineer myself I build prototype on a regular basis and can only say you are very much telling the truth 😱
Hopefully I tend to be able to smell how things are built now by just looking at the overall shape 😀
 
I finally remembered the little red button underneath the viewfinder on a Nikon F3 that illuminates the LCD meter readout when and if you can activate it. Its awkward placement makes it kinda unusuable, and then its miniture size makes it hard to actuate reliably. Many times inadvertantly I ended up blowing a frame due to accidental shutter trip.

I ended up modifying one of my F3's to use with my Noct-Nikkor by placing a shim made of a matchbook cover to keep the switch activated all the time. Now the light is turned on whenever the meter is activated. I need to mention that I rely on the batteries on the MD-4 motordrive, and I wouldn't do this on a non motor driven camera due to a relitively high battery drain.

Nikon made this switch non-ergonomic so it cannot be used. Too bad for many because the F3's meter is really-really good for night photography and will meter bulb exposures at night in auto mode. What were the design engineers thinking? Engineers are really problem solvers and shouldn't be a source of problems.

Cal
 
the ER leica cases. The one before the last one.
They added cardboard to the basis so there is enough height so they could put the front attachment under the round window.
It's beautifully made, and adds the height of a winder to a nice, small camera.
Apparently, they hired real engineer to design the last case, and it's great. They simply put the attachment off center, and kept everything small and tight.
 
Co2 Gas powered power winder. Sounds like a joke huh?
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