Bessa Lighmeter freezing

[thafred]

Last night I was walking around taking shots with my Bessa R and a tripod. I´ts a cold dezember here (Temps around 0°C) and I was walking for about one hour without gloves till my hands couldn´t move any more (One point for the plastic housing of the Bessa...I think my fingers would freeze after a few minutes on a metal body like a Leica M 😀 )

Everything was working alright untill the Led´s in the Viewfinder began to flicker! First only the "correct exposure" LED flickerd then the plus and minus Led´s began to do the same...after a few minutes the Light meter stopped working at all!! I took the rest of the Roll guessing the Exposure (an all mechanical shutter is a real advantage) and after I came home I gave the camera a few minutes and the meter came back on again!

Has anyone of you noticed something similar? I guess that the Batteries refuse to work under certain conditions. Or is my Camera faulty?

Greetings
Fred

 

[pvdhaar]

0 degrees centigrade should not prove a problem for the batteries. What may have happened is that some condensation formed on the battery contacts. Just make sure they're perfectly clean (both contacts and batteries), so that the contact area is as large as possible.

 

[pab]

I've had trouble with my Bessa R3A at close to 0 deg. C. I read somewhere that SR44 batteries are better than LR44 in the cold.

 

[chenick]

My guess is that your batteries are nearly flat - they generally do not like the cold at all. Once they warm up they work fine again for a while.
I'd bet money that if you replace them with a fresh set all will be OK.

-Nick

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Keep your camera inside your jacket.

Either in a pocket or on a neck strap hanging down between your jacket and your shirt/sweater/whatever.

Or, if you're doing it in a city, take plenty of breaks in cafes and bars. I do.

 

[thafred]

I've had trouble with my Bessa R3A at close to 0 deg. C. I read somewhere that SR44 batteries are better than LR44 in the cold.

A employe here at work told me the same! He said that silver Batteries should be better than Alcaline!

My guess is that your batteries are nearly flat - they generally do not like the cold at all. Once they warm up they work fine again for a while.

Hmm...my bessa is just 2 Months old! but since it was a demo-model maybe you are right, I´ll put new batteries in as soon as possible (i´ll try SR44).

Or, if you're doing it in a city, take plenty of breaks in cafes and bars. I do.

Maybe cameras are just like people, after a while in the cold they need a cup of hot wine to work again! 😀

 

[rbiemer]

Hmm...my bessa is just 2 Months old! but since it was a demo-model maybe you are right, I´ll put new batteries in as soon as possible (i´ll try SR44).
Maybe cameras are just like people, after a while in the cold they need a cup of hot wine to work again! 😀

I'm still using the new batteries that came with mine but I do have a spare set in the bag. The camera is till new enough to me that I'm not sure what kind of battery life to expect.
The manual recommends taking the batteries out of the camera if you take long "bulb" exposures to keep them from draining too quickly. And the cold certainly didn't help. How did the pictures turn out?
Rob

 

[kmack]

Maybe cameras are just like people, after a while in the cold they need a cup of hot wine to work again! 😀

Or, maybe a cold weather camera, like a nice Contax II or Kiev 🙂

 

[thafred]

How did the pictures turn out?

quite nice! Having a mechanical shutter is very convenient!

This picture of the RingTower was done yesterday (when I was a child, this was the highest "Skyscraper" in Vienna 😛 )

 

[rbiemer]

Quite nice indeed!
Rob

 

[shaaktiman]

Just a thought. Were you out in the evening by any chance?

The bessa's meter only has an EV starting at 1. If it got just a touch too dark for the meter while you were walking around it would make it go crazy just like you describe. Especially if you had some fast film in there.

 

[wlewisiii]

My guess is that your batteries are nearly flat - they generally do not like the cold at all. Once they warm up they work fine again for a while.
I'd bet money that if you replace them with a fresh set all will be OK.

-Nick

I'll have to try that as I have been having that exact issue with my VC Meter II of late. We actually are having real winter here right now (after a couple of years of really warm weather.) so this may help me too.

William

 

[thafred]

Just a thought. Were you out in the evening by any chance?

Yes I was, but what I described had nothing to do with the Light meters EV1 Limits. Usualy the Light meter works well with settings of 1 / ASA/100 (1/15th sec for 1600 ASA/ 1/4sec for 400ASA) on settings lower than that I get the underexposure Led as it should be.
Yesterday I was in my apartment checking out the infinity setting again (which I stupidly "adjusted" soon after getting the Camera because the Vertical setting was off :bang: ) With the help of a Bulk loader (5 Frames/Roll) and a ground glass I worked out the close Focus settings and shot my test targets when I noticed that the flickering started again!! (I had all Lights on and was shooting with 1/125 1:1,5 so it was bright enough)
So the batteries might be near empty after all and the cold temps just lowered the power.
(I adjusted again because I always get sharper Pictures with my Orion-15 than with the Nokton wich I figured just can´t be so I found out that with my last setting the Focus with the Nokton was off by 2-3 cm! damn I wish I´ve never touched that infinity set screw!)

 

[shaaktiman]

glad it wasn't the EV. I mentioned it because it happened to me with my bessa. as soon as it was darker than the lowest ev it would fritz out. took me a week to figure it out. with 100asa film it was fine, but when I loaded 1600 at night my ev readings would be more than the meter could translate on its own and it would try and confuse me instead.

 

[thafred]

I have installed SR44 Batteries now and have no problems ever since!

So if anyone has these issues just use Silver 🙂