so i’ve been fascinated with old cameras for some time now. i’ve been eyeing twin lens reflex cameras (TLRs) for some time because of their size and having a leaf shutter (quiet!). i found a deal on an old rolleicord v on craigslist and decided to go for it.
i met this dutch woman in the west portal district of san francisco. she showed me the ins and outs of this camera. the camera was in good shape, and everything seemed cool. we exchanged the camera and money. we parted ways and i had to try out my new camera.
i used my small handheld meter and walked around the neighborhood with the camera. the first several shots i used on one subject at different speeds/apertures to test the camera. worked okay. the screen was a little dim so it was a little difficult to focus at first, but i quickly got used to it. i took some more shots around with it. a woman passing by said to me her father left her a camera just like mine. i told her i had just bought it and how fun it was to use.
i finished up my first test roll and came home. i immediately developed the first roll, and it seemed to be okay. once i had film out of the camera, i fired the shutter at the slower speeds. it sounded way off.. but i do my best to not shoot that slow anyways.
the first roll seemed a bit underexposed. i was able to compensate when i scanned the frames in, and the resulting images turned out okay to me. maybe i’d have to adjust by a stop (or so) on the next roll to see how that worked out (for me, it’s easier to adjust the speed on my meter.. less thinking that way).
anyways.. i shared my scanned images online. everybody liked them. i was pleased with them. i was proud of my new purchase, and my scans seemed pretty crisp.
today i decided to ask someone about getting a different screen for it. i decided to introduce myself to this local camera repair shop. i guess i should have expected what happened next.
the gentleman at the shop suggested i make do with the original screen. he said the newer screens are brighter but have less contrast, which makes it difficult to focus in low light situations. he informed me that beattie screens are crap and, after consulting with one of his cohorts, it would cost me at least $140 for an rz screen, whatever that is. incidentally, that’s how much i paid for the camera.
then things got bad quickly. the guy asked if he could check out the focus on the camera. he took it into the back to examine it. he said the infinity was off by different amounts on both lenses.
then it came down to CLA. it would take half a day to fix/adjust it properly, at seventy dollars an hour. the older gentleman told me he typically doesn’t charge more than two hundred dollars, even though it takes him half a day to work on these cameras.
they also said it’s good to have a rolleicord, which takes comparable pictures to its younger cousin, the rolleiflex, which is more expensive to work on because of its complexity.
i tied up our conversation ends and parted. i was in deep thought on the way out. hadn’t i just shot a roll of film with this camera? did i mention this to them? two at least two of them. didn’t it turn out okay? how did this turn into a more-than-two-hundred-dollar ordeal?
then an idea popped into my mind. one of these guys said he’d been repairing cameras for some fifty-odd years. they see a young guy with an old camera come in. ca-ching! maybe it’s unwarranted for me to assume it’s age discrimination. or compare it to a car-ignorant consumer bringing his honda accord into a foreign car repair shop. or a sheep strolling, unaware, into the wolves’ den.
maybe i will do some more reading. i have so many questions. is it worth it to spend $200+ on this camera? can i buy a similar CLA’d camera for as much as i’d end up spending and just shelf this one?
it reminds me of the camera club i’m a part of. i am clearly much younger than anybody else (someone mentioned picking up a camera in the 1930’s?!!?). but when prints go up for critique by the guest judge, everything else is put aside. but taking my old rolleicord back from this gentleman, i felt helpless. i drop my honda home from the repair shop and wondered if fixing the wobble is worth it.
update: if i was made to feel like this is a good idea and worth the investment (instead of this old guy is ripping off a naive kid), maybe i wouldn’t have had such a knee-jerk reaction.
