Mystery Camera Unboxing.

[Doug]

Interesting! My first 35mm camera was a Regula, bought new in Izmir Turkey in the Fall of 1963. As I recall it did have a rangefinder and meter. Gave me some useful beginner lessons... Don't remember what became of it. Doesn't that "K" logo mean "King"?

 

[Dralowid]

Interesting! My first 35mm camera was a Regula, bought new in Izmir Turkey in the Fall of 1963. As I recall it did have a rangefinder and meter. Gave me some useful beginner lessons... Don't remember what became of it. Doesn't that "K" logo mean "King"?

Indeed it does. As I understand it it, King was the German company's name and Regula the camera brand.

 

[tunalegs]

Yes, King was the parent company. Although for some reason not all Regulas carried the King branding.

The company occupies a rather strange place in German camera history. Surviving the mass die off of companies in the early 70s, only to be killed in the 80s by an investment in a bad technology (disc film!!!).

One of the odd things about their 70s cameras is that they're fitted with ISCO lenses. ISCO pulled out of the SLR lens market in the early 1970s, and seemingly, excepting Regula, the rest of the camera lens market as well. Even the Regula SLR ended up using Japanese lenses. But for whatever reason (maybe an old contract?) ISCO continued to supply Regula's fixed lens cameras through the 1970s.

In the 80s they mostly sold 110 cameras, some of which were of rather nice quality by 110 camera standards (meters and bright line viewfinders - wow!).

 

[nikonhswebmaster]

That was fun! But what an ugly little thing, hard to face the parents.

 

[farlymac]

I almost bid on one the other night, but I'm trying to cut down on my collecting.

PF

 

[tunalegs]

Unfortunately, it being boxed made it irresistible.
I'll run a roll of film through it soon.

 

[tunalegs]

King Regula Picca C by Berang Berang, on Flickr

Took it downtown for a test roll. Actually a pretty fun change from my usual cameras, felt more like shooting with a toy camera except for the strangely precise whirring and clicking noises the shutter makes. I decided to shoot B&W so it'll probably be a few weeks before I get around to developing it and seeing what happened.

 

[mpaniagua]

Kinda reminds me of a Fed 5.

Regards and enjoy 🙂

Marcelo

 

[tunalegs]

You could probably fit two of these things inside a Fed 5.

 

[tunalegs]

Test roll photos back:

Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr

Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr

Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr

All photos were taken at f/4 or f/2.8, I didn't have high expectations for a 2.8/40 triplet, and it delivered about what I was expecting.

I really like using this camera, but unfortunately it does not seem very reliable. The advance mechanism jammed a couple of times during the roll, the exposures seem inconsistent, and more alarmingly a lot of images were just out of focus (with no visible point being in focus, so not simply a matter of me getting the distance wrong).

I may try taking it apart and cleaning it to see if anything can be done to make the shutter and advance more reliable. I'm not sure what would cause the random blurry frames.