Convert M8 to analog

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Rotarysmp

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The shutter died on my M8 a couple of years ago. It has lurked in my sock drawer ever since. Too expensive to dispose of, too expensive to have fixed.

Since I have a pretty decent machine shop, it just came to me that maybe the best future for my M8 would be to convert it to analog 35mm. 🙂 Or maybe to Instax Mini.

Has anyone ever done something like this? It would be a big and brutal job to butcher the M8 frame, and install a horizontal traveling shutter, wind and rewind mechanism, and shutter speed control.

Even bigger job to transplant that wonderful view finder to a DIY body to shoot Instax Mini.
 
Any type of Frankensteinian transmogrification to allow film in your M8 will far exceed the cost of any shutter repair.

For 35mm film, you would have to add the transport mechanism (takeup spool, wind lever, sprocket cylinder) and you have to create a cavity for the film canister, plus create an exact film plane.

Instax? You’ll need to create the chamber for the cartridge and the mechanism to eject film through rollers.

The only way your M8 can serve as a camera, without having the shutter fixed, is possibly a digital pinhole camera.

Were the camera mine, I’d sell it for parts and buy a Leica IIIc with the money.
 
I already have an M2. I have a perverse attraction to a *******ised tranmogrification of the M8. It is a love/hate camera. The most expensive I ever bought. The greatest "look". The most limited. The early death.

Paying €1000 for a new shutter in it does not see like what it deserves. 🙂
Mark
 
What happens when you try and take a picture?

If the shutter were jammed open and the camera was attempting to take a picture I'd try adapting a 35mm leaf shutter lens onto the camera and see if it would take a shot that way.

Pretty likely this isn't how it failed though.....

Shawn
 
Why not just use it for a bookend or a doorstop? I always joked that if I had "F you money," I would buy a brand new Leica then pry the back off just so I could stick some film in it as a sick joke. Granted, my M8 and M9 were some of the worst "investments" into cameras I ever bought; let's say biggest mistakes. But really, taking the unreliable shutter from an M8, with all its interdependent systems, which act as electronic interlocks, and then using it as a kludge shutter to expose any kind of medium, is the ultimate expression of polishing a turd.

Phil Forrest
 
Rotarysmp said:
The shutter died on my M8 a couple of years ago. It has lurked in my sock drawer ever since. Too expensive to dispose of, too expensive to have fixed.
Click to expand...

Worth something for parts, especially if the rear screen is working.
Take it to the machine shop and you could be left with a pile of recyclables and an orphan film transport if you fail.
 
Rotarysmp said:
The shutter died on my M8 a couple of years ago. It has lurked in my sock drawer ever since. Too expensive to dispose of, too expensive to have fixed.
Click to expand...

I bet this would do ok on eBay if the sensor isn't corroded and the LCD still works. Do not underestimate the value of a non-functioning camera to someone else.
 
I just looked at M8 sales on eBay and discovered that a faulty M8 recently sold for 819 Euros. At those kinds of prices, I'd sell the camera as-is!
 
Wow, if I could get €800 for it, I'd sell. The screen is fine, and the sensor too, at least it was when the shutter failed. It is not failed open. It seems to be failed With the first curtain open, as the white exposure meter stripe is not visable.

I also consider buying the M8 to be a dumb decision. Although I got it used, and there are way more expensive cameras now (most cameras new). That CCD sure does have a unique "look" though.

Ripping the digital guts out and putting in a fabric shutter from a Leica III (or maybe a Zorki) has a certain perverse appeal.
Mark
 
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