Minolta Himatic 7s Shutter Problem

[plumkrazy]

I just got a Minolta Himatic 7s with a new battery. The light meter needle seems to be working fine. When I move the camera around different light sources it moves. When I set the aperture manually and leave the shutter on automatic it seems like the shutter speed doesn't change with different apertures or different light sources. :bang: When I put the shutter on manual it fires correctly throughout the whole range. Does anybody have a clue as to why the shutter doesn't change on automatic?

 

[cbass]

Plum,

I used to own two of these cameras and if I recall correctly they do not work as aperture-priority or shutter-priority AE cameras. You have the choice of either full AE (both rings in the "A" position) or full manual (rings at their chosen values) operation.

As fasr as I'm aware you cannot enable a shutter-priority AE mode, for example, by selecting "A" on the aperture ring and "60" on the shutter speed ring. If only one ring is set to "A" the camera probably fires at a default aperture & shutter combination.

Despite this somewhat counter-intuitive feature the Hi-Matic 7s remains an excellent camera with a fast and sharp lens. As long as you keep the shutter blades clean the camera will last another 40 years. I regret selling mine and I hope that you enjoy using yours.

 

[plumkrazy]

Interesting, that's good to know, and I don't mind that at all. For some reason I assumed it could be a semi manual exposure with aperture priority.

I can't wait to use it, the one I bought is in really good condition.

 

[plumkrazy]

Ok so I have a new problem.

When I move the camera back and forth across a strong light source the light meter needle moves. But, when I change either the aperture or shutter speed the needle doesn't move at all. It stays pretty much in the same place through the whole range. I even pointed in straight at a light at f1.8, 1/4 sec. and the needle didn't move, same as f22.0 at 1/500th.

I'm new to range finders so I hope I'm not that confusing.

 

[cbass]

Well, you got me stumped with that one. Sometimes the foam needle stops can degrade over time and turn gooey, just like light seals. Maybe your meter needle has some of this foam goop stuck to it?

The good thing is that even if your meter is shot, the camera is still useable manually.

 

[Trius]

Plum: You're going to kick yourself when I tell you this ...

The meter reading in the viewfinder is not given in f-stops, it is in EV, i.e. Exposure Value. Note the label "EV" at the top of the EV scale in the viewfinder!

After metering and reading the EV in the viewfinder, change aperture and shutter speed so that the EV indicated in the cutout on the shutter speed control matches that in the viewfinder.

Using Exposure Values is normally cumbersome when for those who are new to it. You can read about it here , or even better at John Lind's excellent site.

Earl

 

[plumkrazy]

Yes I kicked myself last night when I finally realized that. I was wondering what that useless cutout was for. :bang:

Anyways I'm glad it seems to be all working properly now, and I have a roll of film in it ready to use.

Thanks for your advice. 😉

 

[Kat]

I recently wasted a roll and embarrassed myself (well, not then because I didn't realize it right away, but now that I'm confessing my mistake) here wondering why my pics were mostly out of focus and whether the RF was misaligned despite the realignment I just had done, turns out that it was because I was trying to use the camera (HiMatic9) on apperture/shutter priority, which it wasn't capable of.

I used to think the EV system of the HiMatic was useless, since we can't tell what the chosen apperture and speeds were, we couldn't compensate manually except through the ASA, turns out that little EV window on the rings is pretty handy and still allows us to use the meter before going manual.