mistermax
Newbie
Hey there!
I recently acquired a Konica C35 for about 20€. Ostensibly it's in very good condition (it's the black version, which I like) and the film advance as well as the shutter seem to be working.
Now, this camera used to run on a mercury cell which of course isn't available anymore, so first I tried it with an alkaline LR44 cell. There's a meter needle in the viewfinder that shows the speed-aperture combination. When I compare this to the readings taken with my external meter, the camera seems to underexpose by a ridiculous amount, more than 6 stops. Even when I cover the lens and the cds cell that sits right above it, the needle doesn't go all the way down but sops at about 1/125 f/4. The lowest it could go would be 1/30 f/2.8.
Of course I thought this was due to the excessive voltage level of the LR44 cell, so I hooked up the camera to a voltage source of about 1.25V which should be well below the 1.35V level of a mercury cell.
Still the same problem. The needle did go a bit lower than before stoping slightly above 1/60 f/2.8 when covering the lens, but it still showed an underexposure of about 4 stops. Changing the ISO setting on the camera didn't change much.
Now I'm sort of lost here. I tried a voltage that was too high (1.55V) and one that was too low (1.25V) and both times the camera would underexpose.
Anyone here know how to fix this, or why it behaves like this?
Help would be greatly appreciated!
max
I recently acquired a Konica C35 for about 20€. Ostensibly it's in very good condition (it's the black version, which I like) and the film advance as well as the shutter seem to be working.
Now, this camera used to run on a mercury cell which of course isn't available anymore, so first I tried it with an alkaline LR44 cell. There's a meter needle in the viewfinder that shows the speed-aperture combination. When I compare this to the readings taken with my external meter, the camera seems to underexpose by a ridiculous amount, more than 6 stops. Even when I cover the lens and the cds cell that sits right above it, the needle doesn't go all the way down but sops at about 1/125 f/4. The lowest it could go would be 1/30 f/2.8.
Of course I thought this was due to the excessive voltage level of the LR44 cell, so I hooked up the camera to a voltage source of about 1.25V which should be well below the 1.35V level of a mercury cell.
Still the same problem. The needle did go a bit lower than before stoping slightly above 1/60 f/2.8 when covering the lens, but it still showed an underexposure of about 4 stops. Changing the ISO setting on the camera didn't change much.
Now I'm sort of lost here. I tried a voltage that was too high (1.55V) and one that was too low (1.25V) and both times the camera would underexpose.
Anyone here know how to fix this, or why it behaves like this?
Help would be greatly appreciated!
max
