Some strange things about my Hapo 66E

[graywolf]

The Haponar 1:4.5 F 75mm is not wide open at f/4.5. I noticed this while checking out using an old Vivitar strobe that needed f/4.0 with ISO 100 film. You can see the edge of the diaphragm blades, and the lever goes about a stop farther. At that point the blades are all the way open. That would be about f/3.5. Would that be a result of a loss leader mentality, sell the same camera marked f/4.5 for a few Marks less, and marked f/3.5 for a few Marks more, even though they are actually, except for the markings, the same camera?

I have only shot 3 rolls of film trying to sort out the film advance issues, the last roll had no overlaps but rather uneven frame spacing. On those test shots I noticed that the camera seemed to be short focusing a bit. That is, the foreground was sharper than the distance. So, today I check with my makeshift collimator, my Pentax MX with the 80-200/2.8 zoom set to 200mm f/2.8 and infinity. Using a piece of translucent scotch tape for a ground glass in the Hapo, the crosshairs on the grid focusing screen in the Pentax are visible, but not razor sharp, even with a 4x loupe, so the Hapo is not focusing exactly on infinity. I will have to fix that.

Since the film counter had been "fixed", and the rangefinder had been "fixed", and now the infinity setting seems to have been "fixed", I guess I should check out shutter, as surely they would not have missed out on "fixing" the shutter too?

The eBay seller I bought the Hapo from is sending me the case for it, finally. He was in Europe, and says he shipped it a couple of days after returning home. He seems like a nice guy, and I doubt that he is the one who "fixed" the camera.

You know what? To collectors if the shutter snaps, the focus moves, and the rangefinder is not jammed up, then to them the camera is in working condition. We users have higher expectations. We expect them to work correctly, and the camera to make nice photos.

Luckily, I do have the skills too correct all of that, all I have to do is get of my behind and do it. But the shutter on my Crown Graphic is ahead of the Hapo in line as someone "fixed" the synchronizer so it does not work properly with flashbulbs, although it works fine in daylight and with strobe.

 

[sevo]

Stuff like that is not uncommon among cameras by smaller makers of the period - the aperture is part of the shutter, i.e. it bought in from a third party. And if they did not make that version with that lens and shutter in quantities where they could have it customized, they'd use a stock shutter, whose physical aperture size might go beyond the optical limits of the lens (the other way around happens as well, there are quite a few cameras with odd aperture starting values due to the undersized aperture width of a stock shutter type).

There is not that much to gain from that "free extra stop" - there are reasons why the lens was not marketed at the higher value, and usually some or all of vignetting, CA, focus shift get out of bounds if you go beyond the lens limits.

 

[graywolf]

Well, you kind of make me want to check it out. Problem is that with a simple shutter, you are somewhat limited, like outdoors in bright sun, the kind we have been having lately, you are pretty much limited to 1/200 at f/11 as your max aperture with 100 speed film. Indoors it is too dark for that film 1/25 @ f/4.5 or maybe 3.5 being the limit of the lens/shutter. Guess I need to order up some 400 speed film.