Retina Expert

Thanks for the link, G'man! I just won a Retina 1a that I will need some more info about!
Rob
 
I just checked the site G'man suggested and I have a Retina I that must be 1937-1938 with an Ektar lens, #64625, with no rangefinder. It's cosmetically good with solid, but worn, leather. It works great. I never knew it's date or model. Thanks for the link.

Dazed...Have fun with your 1a. I love your Blog site. Beautiful photos. I also love southern Arizona.
 
I'm no expert, but I've given many Kodak Retina's my best dumb looks.

Remember: When the exposure Counter counts DOWN to "1", everything locks up until you manually reset it past "1".

Have Dental Floss and Tape ready if you remove the advance counter to clean the teeny-tiny-itsy-bitsy viewfinder. But it is worth it, and easy to use once the haze is out. After the film advance is off, the rest is easy. The hard part is getting the lever back on without it coming apart -use the tape- and getting the "interlock" mechanism working so you can use the camera again. That is what the dental floss is for. Use it to tie back the "CLAW" to get the advance back on. Or grow another two hands.

On the older Knob Wind Retina's, the advance knob is reverse-threaded. Comes off easily once you know that. I just saved you days of dumb looks.
 
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hi, Brian,

how do you manage to get ride of the haze in the viewfinder? I attempted some cleaning, but didn't seems to help much.

thanks
George
 
George,

I've had good luck with several (>10) Retina's using Kodak Lens cleaning fluid and lens cleaning paper wrapped around a q-tip. That is for all surfaces EXCEPT the semi-silvered beamsplitter mirror. For that, and only if it is really bad, I breathe gently on it and very gently wipe it with the tissue on the Q-tip. I've cleaned the 1a, II, IIa, IIc, 2-IIIc's, 4-IIIS's, and 2-Auto 3's. All came out clear. You have to do some disassembly to get to all the surfaces. The inner eyepiece comes out with a retainer of the IIIS' and some of the others. The IIc and IIIc were the worst, had to take out the front objective and the frameline mask.
 
I've used ammonia based cleaner on lenses, and had good luck taking Fungus off. I have not tried H2O2 with it.
 
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