Konica Auto S2 - First impressions

Hello guys,
I just found a Konica Auto S1.6. It looks fine, except it has a 'haze' on one of the VF elements.
I would like to open it, but I can't find how to put off the rewind knob.

Can anyone help me please ?
:D
 
Hello again, I found how to unscrew the rewind crank and cleaned the viewfinder. I changed light seals, add a new PX625 battery and found that the light meter was OK (I don't really care as I won't use it, but I'm curious).
Anyway, the first roll went OK.
 
I only have the S1.6 model. It's better at f/1.6 than the S2.
:D

Seriously, it's the same Planar design lens.
The f/1.8 was optimized to be good from full aperture, but they are just the same lens when used at the same aperture.
 
Ruben, u will love this camera,...
I sold all fix lens RF (Canonet, Yashica, Oly) except Auto S2. I will keep this gem although I'm using Leica M now.

#1 color

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I got mine from ebay for £40 - I don't mind the price... but I saw one on there for £300! - only problem is it came with the mirror fallen off and a very stiff lens. It's at "camera-city" now being fixed - when the repair guy get's back from holiday (and when he feels like it!) I'll get it back in good working order... seriously Itchy fingers in the mean time...

Loving the variation from tack sharp to creamy soft in that last shot.
 
Black Konica Auto S2 just about finished

Black Konica Auto S2 just about finished

ruben said:
Perhaps it wll be rather boring for many members and guests, as this camera is well known among RFF. Nevertheless I cannot stop myself from writing the following love poem, to my new Konica Auto S2.

I have even not finished a roll and I am already in love with this full featured camera, about whose sharp lens a lot have been already said.

"Why is this camera so big ?", I asked not long ago at RFF. After opening the top casting to clean the viewfinder optics it become very obvious. No effort has been invested by Konica designers to exploit all that empty space left out there. Just as simple as that. Yet, a great effort was invested in making a camera with great basic features, some of them taken to perfection.

As a point of reference I will take two other competitors: the Olympus SP and the Canonet GIII. In fact, the Minolta 7s should be present, but mine was given long time ago to an ex-friend who became so much in love with it that it seems he prefered the camera to my friendship.

THE LIKES
a) Coupled rangefinder. This means mooving framelines according to metered distance, thus eliminating automatically parallax problems for close focus shots. What a pleasure! Not only a pleasure, and accurate framed images but fast shooting too !!

Ask me about a fixed lens rangefinder for street photography, and I will say Konica Auto s2.

b) Another feature enabling fast shooting is the focusing handle, present too both at the Oly and the GIII. Once you get used to (and I am) you focus and shoot like with a machine gun.

c) But both the Oly and the GIII have rather cranky (grrrrr) shutter speeds rings. Here the Konica shines. Both the shutter and f/stop rings are so smoooooth...

d) The viewfinder came quite clouded, but once cleaned it becomes the antithesys of the Kievs. With the Kievs you have a dim viewfinder but a strongly bright yellow patch. The Konica bears a rather dim yellow (greenish) patch but a very sharp and contrasty viewing window. Another pleasure !

e) Size and weight. 750 grams for both body and lens is not the last word of technology, but not proper of the Filinstones too. In fact both the Oly and the GIII are only 100~150 grams less heavy, while much smaller. The Koni big size on the other hand makes the camera very much grippable, easy to handle from the first moment. But, obviously this is not the camera you will pick when carrying a lot of gear besides.

f) Cds cell meter and Auto exposure. The s2 sports a cds cell meter, which I cannot speak too much about since the one in my sample although mooving is not consistent nor quick. Provided a sample in which the cell meter works, you have a shutter priority (again fast shooting first) auto exposure, with readings of the consequent f/stop both at the viewfinder and at a special window over the top casting, enabling discreet meterings towards people at close range. "Exposure lock" via depressing half way the shutter.


g) Shutter noise. Quite in the low noise league, and for sure not that punch on your face like with the Oly. But somehow my feeling is that here the Koni designers went lazy too. And they added sin to crime, by making an amateur-appealing unique feature - a kind of deliberate ratcher noise while you moove the winding handle....

h) Price. Ho guys and girls, perhaps this is the only great camera in which you are almost paid for to buy. I paid u$d 30 for an Exc+ model. Can you believe it, a coupled rangefinder shutter priority auto-manual with above the average optics = just $30 incl case ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

i) On top of it: depht of field scale, with infra red mark.

Please relieve those sellers from this burden, take one home.

THE DISLIKES
a) What the hell is that "built in hood", described in the manual as being of the "push out" type ? I look at the camera and see no hood, but a slight protrusion of the filter compound, about some half of a centimeter. Can this be the hood ? Nahh ... If yes it should "push out". Therefore I push and push until I jam that black compound, breaking the plastic pin fixing the compound and one of the wires of the cell meter... Fortunately, even with the loosen compound the camera continues to operate as a fully manual one. I believe from some pics, my sample arrived without the hood. Beware.

b) I disliked too the chromish look of such a big camera. A camera of this size should have been designed either black, or with a black optional body. Black reduces apparent size. Chrome biggens it. Even if it was not the fashion by the sixties, camera size had to be taken into account.

Otherwise, very promising camera !

Kindly post your Konica Auto S2, until I may post mine.
Click to expand...

I nearly have mine done and will post photos of it later this week
 
Hi everyone, I have to start this thread again as I have a problem with my S2. The framelines dont move as they should, it works when i hold the camera in landscape mode absolutely level/straight, but if I lean forward just a little its stuck, or if I turn the camera to portrait mode the framelines only go "the gravity way" (hope you get what I mean) Is there a way to fix this by myself? Anyone know what the technical problem could be?
Thanks!
 
Time to revive this thread again. Got mine 2 weeks ago. Only issue so far is the mirror just inside the body (when looking through the viewfinder) looks to be hazed over. I haven't let that stop me from using the camera. Working through the 1st roll of film. Enjoying it so far. It's one of 16 cameras in my collection. At some point in the future, I'll take the camera apart and try to clean the mirror really well. Mine also doesn't appear to have the hood.
 
That will be the half-silvered mirror (beamsplitter). Could be dirty or the silvering could be toast. You can buy new ones though, I've forgotten the name of the Japanese chap on ebay who does them, among others of course. Nobbysparrow, that's him!
 
Nice camera that takes really sharp photos, and you can buy them cheap. Like others though, I didn't keep mine because it was so big and heavy. If there weren't a lot of nice, inexpensive cameras that were a lot smaller it would have been different, but there are. For an SLR, a Nikon EM or FG is a tiny and light camera, and in the rangefinder line there's so many that are inexpensive, small and light, there's no need to list them all (think Konica C35 and all the clones based on it).
 
I just found this thread, which is revived once in awhile. It seems Ruben is no longer with us. (it was 13 years ago he wrote the original review, after all)

I clicked on this thread because I just sold my Auto S2 on ebay to a family man. He's got a separate meter and will use it in manual mode to take pictures of his baby and a second baby on the way. Upon hearing that, my doubt about selling it disappeared. He will put it to better use than I will.

This manual/mechanical option is one thing that makes these great.

One word of warning to Auto S2 owners: if you put it aside and don't shoot with it for awhile, you need to at least exercise the shutter once a month or so. Otherwise, the clockwork for the self-timer and slower shutter speeds gets dicey. When I sold mine (for about $30, just as Ruben said) It was with the admission that 1 sec, 1/2 sec and self-timer are sometimes slow, but seem to be getting better with exercise.

I would go out on a limb and say this camera, when purchased for $30, is worth spending $150 to have professionally CLA'd. Just think; it's a Leica-caliber lens on the front...

Why did I sell mine? I'm finding I don't really like the 45 mm focal length. I prefer 35 and will hesitantly accept 40 on my Rollei 35.
 
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