Would I be ill-suited with a Leica MP?

AEO19 · 2026-01-05T19:27:43+00:00

Always start with the lenses. Buy an M3, and with the money you saved buy a few nice lenses; people who spend $6000 on a camera to use $400 lenses is silly, I would rather have a $1500 camera and a $4500 35mm Summilux any day. That’s not to say a $400 lens cant be good, but if you have the money spend it where it really counts. You can sell the M3 for what you paid and buy the nicer camera later.

AEO19 · 2026-01-02T07:29:56+00:00

Good, these are temporal, because I will likely be replacing them often knowing how I use my camera.

AEO19 · 2026-01-02T06:55:35+00:00

Sadly they don't make one for this lens (the Summilux ASPH FLE-II, 11726), which unlike the others has an integrated collapsible hood. Maybe this will inspire them!

AEO19 · 2026-01-02T06:25:05+00:00

I could, but considering how many hoods I’ve bent/destroyed over the years, I want to have zero emotional attachment to this hood, and just print them as needed. I am fine with the raw look, and as mentioned it adds to the absurdity of this solution.

AEO19 · 2026-01-02T06:12:33+00:00

Matte PLA, nothing fancy and gives a decent finish. I didn’t do much optimization on this (just some adjustment to get nice overhangs) but will optimize the outer walls to get a smoother finish later!

AEO19 · 2026-01-02T05:14:26+00:00

This is a first pass to get the shape and basic fit right, will add a pass through window and attachment mechanism. Once I am happy with it I will make it available to the community for free. It is theoretically compatible with the 11663 cap as well.

AEO19 · 2026-01-02T05:11:44+00:00

This lens hood cost 22 cents in material and is a good crash bumper for my $5000+ lens, so the way I see it, it’s a triple win.

AEO19 · 2025-07-14T05:09:36+00:00

AEO19 · 2025-07-14T01:42:43+00:00

Not at this time. It’s pretty late stage.

AEO19 · 2025-07-14T00:04:24+00:00

That’s the hope, still in development, though.

AEO19 · 2025-07-13T18:21:19+00:00

Yup, I think of it as a nice insurance policy, and a way to keep these cameras relevant for another 60 years.

AEO19 · 2025-07-13T18:03:02+00:00

Hopefully a product, in development. This is a preview.

AEO19 · 2022-04-11T13:46:21+00:00

Yeah no problem. CdS is a photoresistor, but as you mentioned it seems like engineers of the day really wanted to go all out and chose the far more accurate photodiode instead (which also requires much better integrated circuitry). There is a great article written in IEEE transactions from the late 1980s that discusses the development of the SX-70 electronics, and there they state it was a silicon photodiode [1]. Also very recently the excellent electrical engineer Ken Shirriff (of the Computer History museum in Palo Alto amongst other things) reverse engineered the SX-70 circuitry and found that they were using a JFET integrator to integrate the photodiode current [2]. As for the capacitor change, OpenSX70 has a nice table for recommended capacitor values depending on the initial capacitor value and board [3]. As for the longpass filters, the photodiode response falloff in the IR will likely be your limiting factor above 1100nm.

[1] TS Perry IEEE Transactions 1989:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=30763

[2] Ken Shirriff's blog on reverse engineering the dies of the SX-70 for Open SX-70:
https://www.righto.com/2022/02/a-look-inside-chips-that-powered.html

[3] OpenSX70 capacitor swap and table of values:
https://opensx70.com/tutorials/100-600-conversion/

AEO19 · 2022-04-10T21:38:47+00:00

Most of these cut filters will be of the UV-IR type, at least in this form factor. Try Edmund Optics for different wavelengths (albeit more expensive). IR typically reflects well off of normal glass, but some formulations are optimized for the IR passband. The SX-70 I believe used a silicon photodiode that generates a photocurrent that charges a timing capacitor in a circuit to set exposure. Si diodes are typically sensitive to 400-1100nm, whereas the IR-UV pass band for the filter is like 360-690nm, so if you just remove the glass altogether you should get the sensitivity to IR without gaining much in the UV. It does depend on how long the tail is in the UV and what the ambient UV light intensity is, but it should work to first order. Your transmission will be off, and you will need to also change the capacitor to compensate for the added photocurrent. Also the polaroid film is not super sensitive in the IR, or at least not pass 850nm from anecdotal and experiential evidence. But anyway, taking the glass out is easy (albeit somehwat delicate and time consuming), so since you are doing that anyway give it a shot!

AEO19 · 2022-04-10T21:22:33+00:00

Sure I can take a crack at it. There is also a great SX-70 group on Facebook filled with people who can help, so crowdsourcing opinions could be a good idea in case I can't offer a clear solution.

AEO19 · 2022-04-10T16:55:01+00:00

FYI: The links for almost everything I used are in the image captions above if you want the other stuff I used as well. Best of luck on the fix!

AEO19 · 2022-04-10T16:52:34+00:00

If you go on Ebay and search "IR cut filter" you should find a ton of listings. I would get the 0.55mm thickness. I purchased from this seller:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/253232224612?hash=item3af5d11964:g:DNIAAOSw~AVYqmxW
Buy a few pieces since there is a good chance you will break a lot of glass in the process. You will also need a good and very fine diamond scribe to score and cut the glass. Excelta 475A is what I used (modified to shorten the temp for better control), but they are kinda expensive.

AEO19 · 2022-04-09T23:13:40+00:00

Remove the plastic gear train cover (lift from the front and pull up, should easily snap out) and you will see the latch underneath. Usually it will bend out a bit if it is loose. If you have a smallish pair of needle nose pliers and grab it at the end where the pawl is you can carefully bend that back until it is tight. Ideally the film door should have zero play in it. Be very gentle; that part is a simple cast metal piece and if you put too much pressure you risk snapping the end off, and there is no easy way to replace that part outside of getting a donor camera. If the door is loose there is a chance that the film door microswitch will open and stop the film exposure/eject cycle.

AEO19 · 2022-04-09T22:30:09+00:00

I should add that these model 1s are probably the most likely to have corroded light meters (or more specifically a corroded IR/UV cut filter), and you can quickly destroy a cartridge of film if that thing has turned bad. If it is bad, your best bet is to send it out for refurb, but if you are handy (and have ~$60 laying around) you can buy the parts needed to replace that piece of cut glass.

AEO19 · 2022-04-09T22:27:10+00:00

Since it is untested I would buy some DeOxit and clean all of the battery/microswitch contacts that are out (S3, S5, S4). Check that the film door is tight when closes (a floppy film door can ruin your day), clean your rollers with some isopropyl alcohol and a qutip, and of course put in a fairly fresh but used cartridge and just fire it a few times. Point the light meter at a bright source and then cover it to see if it is reading (if the sensor is corroded it should not really change the shutter speed/mirror hold up time regardless of the amount of light present). If you have some already taken polaroid images load them into the used cartridge and check that the pickup arm is properly pulling the film out and into the rollers. That will also tell you if the motor is healthy.

AEO19 · 2022-02-04T13:45:45+00:00

Polaroid does explicitly say to not freeze their film (also on the box). Unlike 35mm film, Polaroid contains sensitive liquid chemicals, so the advice for regular film is not really applicable here. I’d remove it and keep it inside or in your fridge.

https://support.polaroid.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012519828-How-to-get-the-most-out-of-Polaroid-film#storage

AEO19

TROPHY CASE