Customized cameras, anyone?

[Sauli Särkkä]

Yup, the selenium cell still works nicely 😉

I'll check out the latch cover. It might just be an optical illusion, but I'll check it out and re-do if needed. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: The latch cover looked weird due to a reflection on the top part. Whew! 🙂


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[sahe69]

I'm not sure. All those bumps on a stingray skin are bone. You're sure not going to cut it with scissors. A laser might darken the edges a bit. I'd expect some kind of very sharp blades would be your best bet.

How about water jet cutting?

 

[FallisPhoto]

How about water jet cutting?

I have no idea. Water jets didn't come along in time for me to have any experience with them.

 

[btgc]

Sauli, seems you have found your own niche. Your listings really pop out.
Last 7s is my fav, and kids are smart - black cap wouldn't match body.

 

[Sauli Särkkä]

Let's hope the recession doesn't stop people from being interested in "alternative" rangefinders 😉

I'm mostly having fun repairing and re-doing cameras that just need a bit of TLC (and a screwdriver) to get things up and running. There's so little money in it all that I'd have to quit everything else to have enough time to make any serious profits from this hobby.


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[urban_alchemist]

I'd be interested in an RC - if you get another one in, let me know and we can talk leathers (and prices) 😀

 

[FallisPhoto]

There's so little money in it all that I'd have to quit everything else to have enough time to make any serious profits from this hobby.


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Oh, I don't know; if you had a regular production line of them going, and overcharged as much as a certain other person does, who shall remain nameless...

 

[Sauli Särkkä]

Here's a cute little number. The red seems like "the color" for the Trip 35.

My younger daughter picked the color for this one, my older daughter wanted the next one to be covered with a new snake skin leatherette I just got...let's see where this takes me 😉


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[FallisPhoto]

My younger daughter picked the color for this one, my older daughter wanted the next one to be covered with a new snake skin leatherette I just got...let's see where this takes me 😉


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As long as it isn't real snake. Most of the colored snake skins you see are made from paradise snake, which is spongy and not at all durable. Sea snake is supposedly more durable, but I've never tried it and can't vouch for it -- this is because I think lizard leather lasts a lot longer than snake and looks better.

 

[FallisPhoto]

What the heck, I've got this one too:

 

[Sauli Särkkä]

Darn, that looks hot 🙂

What skin is that?


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[FallisPhoto]

Darn, that looks hot 🙂

What skin is that?


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Plain old leatherette stripped off of an old book I found at a used book store. Spent about an hour soaking the paper and glue off the back of it and then started cutting it up. It isn't quite metallic, although it comes off that way in the photos.

Edit: Nobody was selling bright red leatherette that I could find online, so I had an idea and went to a local store that sells used books. I ordered some red leatherette from Cameraleather once, but it was nothing at all like the color in their photos. It was brick-colored and I was hoping for bright red (the photos on Cameraleather looked kind of salmon-colored). Anyway, I just ordered a kidskin hide in dark green, and that ought to look good on something too (maybe a Bessa or an Ikonta). I have a whole box full of black.

 

[Leica All Day]

I ordered some red leatherette from Cameraleather once, but it was nothing at all like the color in their photos. It was brick-colored and I was hoping for bright red (the photos on Cameraleather looked kind of salmon-colored).

may I ask what "red" you ordered from Cameraleather....I have been thinking about this one
http://www.cameraleather.com/colors/G_cardred.htm
thanks, michael

 

[FallisPhoto]

I ordered some red leatherette from Cameraleather once, but it was nothing at all like the color in their photos. It was brick-colored and I was hoping for bright red (the photos on Cameraleather looked kind of salmon-colored).

may I ask what "red" you ordered from Cameraleather....I have been thinking about this one
http://www.cameraleather.com/colors/G_cardred.htm
thanks, michael

This is the one I ordered (seal grain red leatherette -- not leather): http://www.cameraleather.com/colors/sgb_red.htm The red kidskin might be okay. Incidentally, I get all of my real leather off of ebay. These two guys do a good job of photographing their leather and showing the colors right and they sell leather that is thin enough for camera coverings (what you want to get, just like at Cameraleather, are the goat leathers):
http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Fashion-Leather-com__W0QQ_armrsZ1

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/glovecityleather518__W0QQ_armrsZ1

It's good leather and it works out to be a lot cheaper. You do have to get your own glue though. A glue stick will do fine, if you keep the camera dry. A tube of contact cement will stick it down really tight and it's water/humidity-proof. Your choice. I've used both.

Edit: maybe I'll use some of that brick-red leatherette from Cameraleather to releather a few C3s, as a kind of tongue-in-cheek joke.

 

[Sauli Särkkä]

Thanks for those links, I'll be sure to check 'em out. I've been interested in moving away from faux leathers and into genuine ones, but didn't have enough time to investigate and test, etc...but since you have had good experiences, I think I'll give their skins a try. The deerskins look like a fairly exotic material possibility. Any advice on leathers as far as the choice of animal goes, beyond goat?

 

[FallisPhoto]

Thanks for those links, I'll be sure to check 'em out. I've been interested in moving away from faux leathers and into genuine ones, but didn't have enough time to investigate and test, etc...but since you have had good experiences, I think I'll give their skins a try. The deerskins look like a fairly exotic material possibility. Any advice on leathers as far as the choice of animal goes, beyond goat?

I'd stick with goat or reptile if I were you, unless it specifically states the thickness of the leather. Anything above .5mm is going to stick up past the surround of most of the cameras you are going to want to apply it to. If you buy a whole goat hide, the leather will usualy be between .3 and .7mm, with most of it usable. If you want to use the .7mm thick part, you need to apply some white glue to the back to harden it and then sand it down. If it has been thinned for bookbinding, it will usually be a uniform .3 or .5mm, so look for the word bookbinding. The last hide I got from the "glove city" guy had been sanded to a uniform .5mm. The fashion leather international guy states the exact thickness of the skins in his ads.

 

[Sauli Särkkä]

From what I've measured, an RC will handle something in the range of 0.6-0.8 mm. This should hold true for, I think, the SP and RD as well. I have an SP in need of some additional service in the next few weeks and I'm hoping to make it 'special' with a genuine skin covering, as well as some other projects I'm repairing and servicing at the moment.

I can't believe I waited all these years to get into fiddling with rangefinders. It still amazes me how beautifully everything is mostly designed to work on a completely mechanical basis. Even the automation in aperture settings is electromechanical, by trapping the position of an analog readout of a meter needle. Just amazing.

It's almost been two months since I got my hands on a rangefinder for the first time. When the fever catches, it catches hard, I guess.. 😉


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[FallisPhoto]

From what I've measured, an RC will handle something in the range of 0.6-0.8 mm. This should hold true for, I think, the SP and RD as well. I have an SP in need of some additional service in the next few weeks and I'm hoping to make it 'special' with a genuine skin covering, as well as some other projects I'm repairing and servicing at the moment.

I can't believe I waited all these years to get into fiddling with rangefinders. It still amazes me how beautifully everything is mostly designed to work on a completely mechanical basis. Even the automation in aperture settings is electromechanical, by trapping the position of an analog readout of a meter needle. Just amazing.

It's almost been two months since I got my hands on a rangefinder for the first time. When the fever catches, it catches hard, I guess.. 😉


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Well, most of the cameras I work with are folders, so I don't ever want to get anything thicker than .05mm.

Yes, I know what you mean about rangefinders. Most of my serious photography involves nudes. My first serious photoshoot (a nude in a hotel room -- serious to me anyway) was done with a Pentax K1000 SLR. Shooting indoors like that, the light was relatively dim and half the photos were blurry. After that, I decided it was never going to happen again and sarted using rangefinder cameras. I haven't had a blurry photo since. If you need to use a telephoto lens, you use an SLR, but for everything else, rangefinders are better.

Edit: One other thing: Avoid leathers sold as "morrocco" or "russian" leather. Those are tanning processes that often use sulphuric acid as a brightening agent during the dying process. Exposure to atmospheric pollution and/or heat will cause some of the inert compounds containing the sulphuric acid to become active. This starts a chemical chain reaction. More and more sulphuric acid is released, destroying both the leather and the camera. I restored a Franka camera a while back, stored in a russian leather case, and it took me two days to polish and scrape out the pits. It made an impression on me.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I put this in another thread, but can't resist reposting it here. A Zorki-1 with the RF removed and the vulcanite replaced with gray griptac that FINALLY came in from cameraleather after three months! Lens is CV 25.

 

[Sauli Särkkä]

I bid on two of Glovecityleather's listings and now they tell me that they don't ship overseas. Too bad the bidding wasn't limited, like most times when sellers only ship to certain countries. He tells me that he doesn't have licenses to ship outside of the 'states, so 🙁

Oh well, will check out other sellers.

How tall is the gray baby? Toss a matchbox next to it for reference. Certainly looks different 😉


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