Yeah, they're dead


Spent some time this weekend sorting out my collection of 35mm film cameras. Way too many film cameras.

And now there are a couple in the trash can.

I'm a fan of 1970's era rangefinders, cameras that allowed you to hold the camera to your eye, look through a viewfinder, and focus on your subject. Some even allowed you to control the aperture or shutter speed.

Olympus, Minolta and Canon made the best of these. Konica made some wonderful cameras, but later jobbed out the manufacturing to a company called Cosina. Then Chinon got involved. Ultimately, the move to auto-focus film cameras doomed the rangefinders.

Not to mention the corroded electronics. Most of these cameras used mercury batteries, which seem to cause some degradation in circuit contacts.

The camera above is a Konica C35EF camera. Happens to be the very first thing Dick Kidder stuck in my hands when I started my first newspaper job. So I'm sorta fond of them.

This afternoon, I pitched two Konica C35EF cameras with this problem. Plunk in a fresh battery, and nothing. Rotted electrical contacts. They simply aren't worth repairing.

However, this leaves me with a dozen or so other rangefinders, including a Konica Auto S3 and a Vivitar 35ES -- basically identical cameras, with with less plastic than the camera above. Some just tend to hold up better than others.

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