Conversions

[surlysimon]

I recall seeing a page on the web showing how to convert an Olympus XA to Half frame (the page has gone) and i was wondering if anyone has done a conversion and how hard it is?

I have a couple of Zorkis and the idea of turning one of those into a half frame appeals greatly.


simon

 

[Cale Arthur]

I have a couple of Zorkis and the idea of turning one of those into a half frame appeals greatly.

I've not seen a page for converting Oly XA's to h.f., but from the Zorki's i've seen, it seems infinitely more feasible in terms of space available.. As i understand it, the problem(s) with these conversions is that there usually isn't enough real estate under the hood to properly accomodate the re-engineered film transport (which is a decidely bigger problem than masking the finder/film plane, changing the counter number, etc).

The only people that i know of who do this kind of work routinely are Pro Camera Repair - you could drop them a quick line to inquire, but their list of 'h.f.-able' cameras is at once very limited and boring. They took about 2 months to get back to me (to tell me that it wasn't possible with my Nikkormat), so there's that little nugget of disappointment 🙁. I gave up and decided that my Dial 35's were just as good and enjoyable to use as anything else..

Sorry to not be of more help, but thought at least some details were in order.. you might want to ask around over at subclub.org? They seem to be very d.i.y.-friendly!