How good is Certo6?

chippy said:
i cant quite see what you are seeing, its late here so perhaps i will tomorrow--the front door is chrome though
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AI am seeing sandpaper swirls in the chrome on the leading edge of the front door. He should have buffed those out. Now look at the paint on the trim above the door and you will see high gloss paint and a sort of semi-flat paint to the left of it. The color doesn't even quite match.

chippy said:
this year and model (almost any welta pre-war is scarce enough at times it seems) doesnt come up that often, though ironically, 3 , in the past few weeks. before that it has been a couple-to 3 years for a 1938 weltax on ebay. and this body of his does appear to be quite good.

i considered buying it just for the body (i already have one though) and asking what he did with the original shutter and lens (or finding a shutter and lens of my own of the correct year to put on it)..i wouldnt care that it was a Cassar lens...just keep it as it was !! it may seem extreme, to a strick user only of camera but these just dont appear every day, there not common! enoy using an old camera for what is--not neccassary to make it something else and misrepresent what it is.
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Well, I'll give you that it could be made quite good. It's a frankencamera now though, and has some (easily fixed) flaws in the finish. As for the original lens, I wouldn't care if it were a Cassar either, since Cassars are quite good, as far as three element lenses go.

chippy said:
if someone wants a weltax with tessar -post war, there are plenty , oodles around. why change the lens from a pretty scarce camera, that ,ok, may or may not fetch a dollar, to a frankenstein camera just to make a dollar..but in the process tell everyone that ita a post war weltax!! just false

some people shouldnt be allowed to touch cameras
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Your question contains its own answer: just to make a dollar. It could be worse. He could have made one of those clown cameras out of it, with the simple addition of one of those blue neon polkadot bellows of his and a little purple snake leather. He could glue some sparkles on it too -- just wait, it's only a matter of time. One day he'll discover paisleys and plaids.
 
chippy said:
anyone that does actually clean lubricate and clean shutter/lens and camera would instantly notice, and know that the xenon lens is different to all the above. its more comparable to the Leitz Summar or Zeiss Biotar in design and result, completly different to 4 element lenses. one really has to consider if this is a compentant and knowledgeable service man or seller

some people should not sell cameras...like ol fashioned medicine sellers peddle untruth, so it is true here
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Without even looking at the camera yet, I was floored by his lens description.

A Schneider Xenon is the equivalent of a Steinheil Cassar? Wow! A six-element double-gauss that's as good as a three-element Cooke triplet? I just have to say that I'm all agog here. Next thing you know, Leica will start aspiring to make a Summilux lens that is as good as a Cassar too!

Now to look at that camera...

Now that I've looked at it, I have to say that (other than the description and the "whoppers" contained therein) I am pleasently surprised. It has rub marks in the chrome and he didn't brass it. This is a new departure for him.
 
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FallisPhoto said:
Without even looking at the camera yet, I was floored by his lens description.

A Schneider Xenon is the equivalent of a Steinheil Cassar? Wow! A six-element double-gauss that's as good as a three-element Cooke triplet? I just have to say that I'm all agog here. Next thing you know, Leica will start aspiring to make a Summilux lens that is as good as a Cassar too!

Now to look at that camera...

Now that I've looked at it, I have to say that (other than the description and the "whoppers" contained therein) I am pleasently surprised. It has rub marks in the chrome and he didn't brass it. This is a new departure for him.
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overall its an aceptable to good camera (a fair bit of natural brassing on the top that will look worse in the hand than it does in the photo). Its just that he has no idea what it is or when it was made (why make BS statments that lead people astray), or chooses to pretend it is post war to gain extra dollars! not knowing the basic differences between lenses for someone that to all apparent views fixes and knows all ...is well....quite suprising?
 
I have sent two cameras to Certo 6 for repairs. Took forever to get back and then my Perkeo IIIe still did not work correctly. Had to send it back and wait more. Total time about 8-9 weeks. Just like the Leica repair service.

BTW, I have a number of folders and the Certo 6 camera is at the top of the list. Truely a little piece of art if you can find one in acceptable condition. The only issue I have is the viewfinder is smaller but still a crisp rangefinder patch.
 
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whitecat said:
I have sent two cameras to Certo 6 for repairs. Took forever to get back and then my Perkeo IIIe still did not work correctly. Had to send it back and wait more. Total time about 8-9 weeks. Just like the Leica repair service.

BTW, I have a number of folders and the Certo 6 camera is at the top of the list. Truely a little piece of art if you can find one in acceptable condition. The only issue I have is the viewfinder is smaller but still a crisp rangefinder patch.
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i think the camera certo six would be a nice camera to use (more than that) and i would appreciate the paralex compensation

the seller certo 6 on the other hand, in all honesty i could not recomend to a friend (i can imagine and live with a long turn around time, but not bs and untruth), i wish i could, but cant. hard to beleive the pekeo E did not work coorectly, its a very straight forward camera to fix and adjust--i happen to be working on one now (mine)
 
chippy said:
not knowing the basic differences between lenses for someone that to all apparent views fixes and knows all ...is well....quite suprising?
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Pretty revealing too. As is his statement, in every ebay ad, that he just throws away 20% of the stuff he buys on ebay. Well, I do camera repair too, and I don't throw away jack. I strip the living heck out of anything I can't use. I don't know of anyone doing repairs who would ever throw a camera away. You never know when you are going to need a screw, spring, cam dial, piece of semitransparent mirror and etcetera. You can't just go to a hardware/camera store and buy a linkage for a 1948 Baldina anymore.
 
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I am working on a C6 camera right now, for another RFFer. Took five days, I think, to get the shutter working again, after the mess he made of it. He was supposed to have done a CLA on the shutter. He didn't do anything but wipe down the shutter blades, with the shutter in place, and only having removed the lens. The shutter had issues with the cocking ring riding up on top of the pawl that is supposed to catch it. I got that fixed and I have about half a trash can full of Q-tips that are in various stages of black and gray that pretty much leave me to believe that no part of the camera was ever opened. I got one really filthy Q-tip by cleaning the GLASS in the viewfinder. He had apparently lost the clip that holds in the little viewfinder lens too. I'm told he charged my client $120 for what he did. I am appalled.
 
wintoid said:
I've just bought a Super Ikonta IV from him directly via email exchanges. ... I ran 2 rolls through and have pretty terrible frame overlaps. Jurgen's take on this is that it's endemic to this model, and that his work has minimised the overlapping as far as possible, and that anyway we all scan and crop so it's of lesser importance. I didn't take the camera on my holiday.
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The frame overlaps should be only about 2mm and should appear only on the first three or four frames. It is due to the way they made film way back then. They used a thicker substrate and backing paper. After the first 3-4 frames, you should get very little, if any, frame overlap. The problem can be avoided almost entirely if you go into a darkroom and put an extra piece of backing paper on the film. If you have more than 2mm of frame overlap, something is wrong.
 
I recommend Charles Fallis, who now has all my RF folder business:

3636919031_b308e2068e_o.jpg


Got it back today and did this quick snap, love it!

Bill
 
chubasco said:
I recommend Charles Fallis, who now has all my RF folder business...
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Thanks! I just wish I had thought to take some "before" and "after" photos of the shutter and rangefinder. If I had done what he did to your camera, I'd be thinking about how to replace it instead of charging you for it.

Edit: BTW, I can handle about anything with a leaf shutter, but my rudimentary shutter speed tester won't work with focal plane shutters, so I can't do SLRs or Leicas.
 
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chubasco said:
I'll be sending you my Ricohflex this fall. Really like the color of this leatherette and comes alive in sunlight! Thanks for the great job well done, Charles.
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I'll be looking for it. This one should be a lot quicker, since I won't have to mold stiff flat leather/leatherette to a rounded surface.

Incidentally, which model is it?
 
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chubasco said:
I recommend Charles Fallis, who now has all my RF folder business:
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Update:

My black silicone bellows repair didn't hold (probably dissolved by the silicone bellows treatment), so I'll be replacing the bellows, and a button snapped off of the back (so much for epoxy putty) and I'll be repairing it with JB Weld. All at my cost.
 
my .02
i've purchased two of his folders, both arrived in good working condition.

about two years later i sold one of it (an agfa 6x9 i hadn't used much) without having had any problems with it.

the other one i used heavily (a v.perkeo II) and about 4years after i bought it, it developed serious light leaks. but i can't really say i was surprised, after all the camera is well over fifty, and i wasn't exactly pampering it.

it remains to be fixed, and it seems like this thread (i didn't read all of it) has some good suggestions for alternatives..


as for overall impression of j. kreckel; i would buy from him again, but not without reasearching the competition.
 
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Bill58 said:
It is nice/ comforting to have someone here at RFF that does any kind of repair work. Kudos to Charles!
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I stand behind my work. I thought I could repair those bellows, but I guess they were too far gone. I said I would fix it, and since the liquid silicone didn't work, I'll replace the bellows.
 
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I'm in no way unhappy with the job Charles did. The shutter works like brand new and all
speeds sound appropriate. So an experiment to patch the bellows failed, big deal.

Thanks again, Charles!

Bill
 
Stradibarrius said:
The mark of a good craftsman is someone, who apparently lik Charles who is proud of their work and stands behind it!
I'm going to see if I can find Charles Fallis' website.
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he certainly is enthusiastic and applies attention to detail. doesnt have a web site though, just PM him.

that poor ol Bessa RF gave him trouble, probably could of done with a donour Bessa 😛, more so now with replacement bellows needed , at least they arnt too hard to do on those (some viotlanders are a real PITA), he had bits in the shutter that needed slight straitening and had to manufacture a way to fit the VF lens because a piece was missing, not to mention cleaning it all..sheeze! oh well its almost a renewed Bessa RF
 
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chippy said:
he certainly is enthusiastic and applies attention to detail. doesnt have a web site though, just PM him.

that poor ol Bessa RF gave him trouble, probably could of done with a donour Bessa 😛, more so now with replacement bellows needed , at least they arnt too hard to do on those (some viotlanders are a real PITA), he had bits in the shutter that needed slight straitening and had to manufacture a way to fit the VF lens because a piece was missing, not to mention cleaning it all..sheeze! oh well its almost a renewed Bessa RF
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That just took some time. What really gave me fits was wrestling the cover onto the front door. Try this sometime: take a piece of paper and wrap it over a bowling ball, without cutting it, in such a way that you don't get any big wrinkles that can't be pressed out.
 
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