Darnit...

[brians]

Ahh, today, I experienced a really sweet joy when I got up and found a package at my door. It was a package from the Russian post, specificially from a guy named Mikhail from the Bay, and yes, it had the infamous twine on the outside of the package. Once I opened it, there was a mini matroshka doll keychain. Then under that, a black plastic bag from a shopping centre, with some form of STICKY foam that kept that bag in the box in place! Although it was a pain to get the camera and the neverready case out, it was quite relieving to know that the camera stayed in place for the thousands of miles it took to get to the SF Bay Area. Underneath all of the foam, plastic and uninteresting articles of soon-to-be-garbage was a Zorki 4.

This Zorki 4's a beaut, but there's a few problems. The viewfinder's a bit muggy, seems like dust has gotten into it, seems like I'm going to have to get a CLA on this bad boy, and three, the Industar 50 lens that came with it? The aperture ring is loose.... seems like the grease inside evaporated or something. Everything was clear and ready to use until I decided to be an idiot:

I noticed that Matt Denton (the guy with the vintage camera page), Albert (the dutch guy with the ACP page) and a bunch of RFF members clean and relube their lenses. So I went to the ACE hardware near my house.... and picked up some lithium grease, some precision screwdrivers, and lighterfluid.

All in all, my lenses ended up a big greasy, messed up piece of junk. The aperture diaphragm inside somehow got messed up when I was unscrewing an element, and it turned out to look like a fan rather than a ring..... :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

Lesson learned: If you don't know how to do something.... pay someone to do it for you...... Now I need a 50mm Leica-thread mount lens.....

(So I'm thinking... I have the bottom elements of the lens which is the mount and the focus ring.... would I be able to make a pinhole out of this? Let me know if anyone had any success doing something like this. Thanks!)

 

[ChrisN]

Oh dear. Now that is annoying. However - you now have the perfect excuse to buy a Jupiter 8!

BTW, is that Albany - NY, or Albany - Western Australia?

 

[brians]

Neither, Albany, California, near Berkeley 🙂

Yeah, J8's sound great, but I just spent a lot of money on some other stuff, so it'll probably be a while until I scrap some cash together.

But right now, i'm going to try to convert this into a "pinhole lens" if that's possible.

 

[rover]

I had a stiff J9 which I thought about "repairing" but decided not to for fear of messing it up. I have picked up a couple "broken" lenses really cheaply with the intent of taking them apart and experimenting. The first will be an Auto Yashinon DX with a stuck aperture ring. Sounds like it should be easy to fix, we shall see.

 

[brians]

Made it out of a Goldfish crackers cardboard box. Just placed cardboard over the front element... I think I poked a hole that's too big though. There's also a big nut (not a legume or a treenut) held in place by scotch tape. I don't know if this will work, but I think its worth a shot. I've got some film in the fridge, and I guess I'll take 24 exposures tomorrow.

And yeah, Rover, I totally should have done what you're doing -- on a broken set of lens rather than duking it out on my only lenses for the old zork.

Attached is a picture. It looks pretty janky, but that's okay. I've never done pinhole photos before, so I guess this will be a new experience (if it works!)

 

[atelier7]

why not splurge out on a pinhole bodycap? then again, it's probably cheaper to buy a J8!
on Ebay: 7536666447

 

[Pherdinand]

rover, the J9 (at least in the kiev mount) is not too hard to disassemble (and reassemble).

 

[darkkavenger]

I-50 is very easy to clean / disassemble / reassemble.. try doing that with a J-9 ... and I noticed after a week that I had a M39 J-9, the one made for Zenit 3M M-39 mount slr 🙁

Ah well.. good luck, and give a check to J-12 !

 

[reagan]

hey brians ~ sorry to hear about the aperture blades turned fan ... 😕 ... but thanks for sharing and allowing me a huge laugh at your expense. My hat is off to you and others here who aren't afraid to just bail in there and try something! Good for you! AND ... hey, that's a really nice looking Zorki 4. You did good there. And other lenses will come in time.

Also thanks for sharing your desire to make a pinhole. Please keep posting here your successes/failures/adjustments/experiences with it. I too plan on concockting one of those one day.

Have fun!!

 

[brians]

Thank you for your suggestions and encouragement. I'm glad some of you were able to get a laugh or some kind of reaction, whether it was a "what a dumbass..." or a "hahahah, nice" type of thing 🙂

So I took the camera with the makeshift pinhole "lens" with me to church. People were asking me, "why's there cardboard on there?"

I took a whole bunch of pictures outside, and in situations where light was coming through the windows indoors. I measured the hole. It's about .1 inches which rounds off to 2.75 mm, which is pretty big. I'm guessing that the aperture is around f 100 something. By the way, it's "mounted" on a 50mm lens (former IND-50 i believe...)

I'm going to get the pictures developed tomorrow, and I know it might be a bit crappy, but.... bear with me! More updates tomorrow.


PS-- I'm getting a FED4 with the panda colored industar-61. The guy said the focus ring was stuck, so he gave it to me for 6 bucks total, otherwise, everything's mint. Got any ideas or any suggestions as to how to correct this problem WITHOUT having me make another pinhole 🙁

Thanks!

-Brian

 

[pshinkaw]

Brian:

It's only a an Industar-50? If you're willing to pay the postage both ways, I will be happy to take a shot at putting it back together. provided you have all of the parts of course. I have all three styles of Industar-50 to use as a template/example. It may take3 me 4-6 weeks, because I'm a little busy tring to get the kids ready for school.

I just hate to see a perfectly good piece of equipment go to waste.

Just PM me if you're interested.

-Paul

 

[Apostata]

So I took the camera with the makeshift pinhole "lens" with me to church. People were asking me, "why's there cardboard on there?"

First rule of camera subterfuge: paint if black, and no one will notice.

😉

Matt

 

[brians]

Update

The pinhole sucked.

I apparently made it wrong or took pictures that were too closeby. Now I know that my camera's pretty lightsealed and everything works, but.... I made a fatal mistake in designing that pinhole "lens." I put a reflective silver nut in the center of it, while it should have been an opaque black. The guy at the photolab wrote underexposed on the packet, but I definitely think they were overexposed and too closeby.

Wasted a roll of 400 ISO film, but there was no charge. He let me keep the negatives, but kept the pictures 😡

Brian:

It's only a an Industar-50? If you're willing to pay the postage both ways, I will be happy to take a shot at putting it back together. provided you have all of the parts of course. I have all three styles of Industar-50 to use as a template/example. It may take3 me 4-6 weeks, because I'm a little busy tring to get the kids ready for school.

I just hate to see a perfectly good piece of equipment go to waste.

Just PM me if you're interested.

-Paul

Paul, I totally killed and scrapped it... I know it was a dumb mistake, but I got white lithium grease on the lens element and it might have been abrased by me trying to clean it off................. I really appreciate your kindness, but in a frustrated effort, I threw it away 🙁

I do have an Industar 61 which has a jammed focus ring, do you know anything about that?

and Matt, I totally would have done that. Except it would have been so very ghetto and janky that it would have even more of a reaction 😀

EDIT!

I found the lens element. I opened it up using a rubber glove. I'm going to attempt to fix the aperture ring and regrease them (lightly...) Lost a lot of screws, but will improvise.

 

[Rodinal Addict]

Hey Brian!
Try again making a pinhole, this time out of thin aluminum, like a soda can. Use a large needle to punch or drill a hole, taking care to keep the hole as circular and clean as possible. You can mount this on the cardboard you already have in place. Enlarge previous hole, center new metal pinhole over this old hole, hold in place with black tape. Think about light leaking in around cardboard, you'll probably use more tape. Report progress to class, displaying photos on the chalk rail.

 

[brians]

I think I'll forgo the pinhole for right now, but my main concern is the positioning of the aperture blades inside the I50. There are 7 banana shaped bars with an embossed peg and a peg popping out on opposite sides. How would I put this together?