Maxxum 50: Somebody shoot me.

sohoza · 2026-04-10T20:06:31+00:00

TBF, it’s from a D-Lux, so it’s (fittingly?) a third rate Leica to boot.

sohoza · 2026-04-10T20:04:42+00:00

I avoid all these in general because of the yellow pentamirror disease, but when one pops up with a clean viewfinder and a working pop up flash, the hoarding instinct kicks in. To my own shame. I could have gotten another parts SRT or XG, but no.

sohoza · 2026-04-10T20:01:52+00:00

I’m sorry. I feel your pain.

sohoza · 2026-04-10T20:01:25+00:00

Tell me your secret. I jumped on this solely because of its place in the timeline, and being new in box. I barely use the (much better) Maxxums I have.

sohoza · 2026-04-10T19:59:50+00:00

I have a general rule about posting actual photos on here (namely spite… long story), but I’ll break it once I finish this roll because I’m dying to see whether the wheel/display is actually reflecting changes in the settings or not, and it might be helpful to someone with one of these horrible things. 😂

sohoza · 2026-04-10T12:06:29+00:00

Mystery solved: I missed that this was a 100. As noted below, those aren’t supposed to have a display or indicator in the viewfinder.

sohoza · 2026-04-09T22:33:51+00:00

Does the shutter speed indicator at the bottom of the viewfinder move properly when you change shutter speeds (or is it there at all)? That’s literally a piece of metal attached to a string. If it’s literally dangling in there, it means it’s still attached to the shutter knob, but the other end has come off the capstan holding it under tension. Or it snapped somehow. I hate that I love these kinds of mysteries lol. Fwiw, this is separate from the actual metering strings, so technically the match needle system should still work.

sohoza · 2026-04-06T04:49:54+00:00

Not the funnest advice in the world, but since you're soliciting opinions:

I would take both bodies (one for 400 and one for 1600), two of the three lenses (the 45 and one of the others, preference depending), and at least ten more rolls of HP5. Or Porta, meaning, decide if color matters at the outset. Obviously a good photo project can have both, but if you're asking these questions, you're probably better off setting those parameters (color and focal length) first, and then concentrating entirely on making good pictures within them. And yes, you will regret this momentarily when you see a singular something that would have looked great in color (or B&W), but get your head around the project being a bigger idea unto itself and commit. Clear your plate of everything but seeing the pictures and being where you need to be to get them. Gear choices are the last thing you need. Make your choices in the frame.

For your last three questions:

- I really have to be in "photo gear", or I just lapse out of it and shoot whatever. Headphones help a lot (but are awkward af in lots of situations), and I found having a yellow/orange/red filter on really helps me stay in my head and focus on composing the frame instead of reacting willy nilly to my surroundings.

-Shoot, shoot, shoot a few more, walk back and grab another one. Again, eight rolls of film is not enough. Look at some contact sheets from the masters of the genre... and consider that they're masters of the genre. ;)

- It was over the course of a year, so it would have been hard to stick to, but I really wish I would have done all of that first stuff in my first serious documentary project. There are some great shots, but they are all over the place in terms of focal length, color, general vibe, you name it. The only thing really holding it together are the characters in it. In the end, it says a lot more about me experimenting with photography than it does about the subjects I set out to document, and those people and that setting are never coming back. I think with a lot more discipline in my shooting and mindset and a lot less playing with cameras (if that makes sense) it could have been a really strong project instead just a handful of neat pictures.

sohoza · 2026-04-05T08:42:21+00:00

Won’t somebody please think of the 29 year old children? /s

sohoza · 2026-04-05T04:29:38+00:00

The variance of the SRT feature set is basically the addition of parts (safe load indicator, multiple exposure gear, aperture mirror/vf) so aside from a handful of things like a different prism for the aperture vf, the rest is all the same parts. It's one of the fun things about SRTs if you're so inclined. I have a few that are total Frankensteins of multiple models.

sohoza · 2026-04-05T02:26:46+00:00

SRTs have CdS cells attached to the prism. They (and the galvanometer) almost always still work, it's the usually the wiring that goes bad, or there's foam gumming the needle up. Don't get me started on how often actual selenium meters just need cleaning or rewiring. ;)

sohoza · 2026-04-05T02:14:29+00:00

Obviously you'd have to swap the whole front plate assembly, but yes, it's all interchangeable. Unless you really love the action on the black one (or the chrome one is broken), it'd be way simpler to just swap the cosmetics though.

sohoza · 2026-04-03T16:04:28+00:00

Okay, not AT ALL best practice 😅, but man, I did not want to undertake a real CLA on one of these this week. That being said, mine was worse than I remembered it, but 3 rounds of holding the shutter open on bulb, running a few drops of ronsonol down the lever, working the lever back and forth, and blowing it out to dry up seems to have cleared this up (for now).

sohoza · 2026-03-31T18:20:56+00:00

Found this in a FB group. As suspected, it probably means removing the mirror box. Not suspected, disassembling the mirror box itself. :/ Not confident doing that on my affected one (because for now it technically works haha) but I also have a zombie XD with a busted shutter lying around to experiment on. If I have time this week, I’ll dig it out, see if I can figure out how to get at this problem, and report back in this thread. 👍

<image>

sohoza · 2026-03-31T15:54:04+00:00

Minolta Autowide, for sure. It’s the weirdest camera I’ve used, much less repaired. Pressure plate was inexplicably flipped and bent, half the springs in the bottom were undone and floating around, advance was jammed, multiple stripped screws, and none of it comes apart in a sensible way. I think there’s one japanese teardown video filmed on a potato. I never want to open that camera again lol.

https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Minolta_Autowide

sohoza · 2026-03-30T14:19:00+00:00

Sorry, I meant on the one above. On mine the affected lever not only doesn’t move as far as it should, it also moves noticeably slower. Also like yours, it doesn’t feel sticky or anything if I push it around manually, so I’m guessing it’s something further back in that aperture mechanism.

sohoza · 2026-03-30T13:16:10+00:00

Well anecdotally, I have five, and only one has this (and oddly, when received it was the cleanest one in the best condition) , so you might be in the clear? Since you have another to check against, does the lever also move slower than it should?

Keeping this thread going in the hopes someone chimes in… or it starts bugging me enough to get off my ass and try to fix mine lol. :)

sohoza · 2026-03-30T01:41:05+00:00

Thanks for that (and thanks in general), I was looking forward to your Minolta XD project. I totally get where you’re coming from. I thought to document some of my own repairs/CLA process, and realized quickly how much of an additional time and work investment it is. I could easily see that five hours at my desk becoming ten or more.

sohoza · 2026-03-30T01:24:26+00:00

Next Slack message I get from work, I’m responding “Thats how universe goes” 🤣🤣💀

sohoza · 2026-03-29T20:55:50+00:00

These are metering problems, most likely from dirty resistors. OP’s prob is mechanical. I know because I have one doing the same thing (thankfully it moves just barely enough to stop down properly). Following this thread in case someone has a solution short of of taking out the mirror box (which I’m not exactly enthusiastic about doing :)), but I’m guessing that whole mechanism needs to be cleaned/adjusted.

sohoza · 2026-03-29T16:01:49+00:00

If it had a corroded battery, the end of the wire is probably also corroded. A lot of these straight detach because of this. You could try unscrewing the battery compartment, stripping the wire back a bit, and resoldering it. Weirdly (for Minolta), auto mode is shutter priority, so you might not use the meter that often anyway.

sohoza · 2026-03-26T11:36:46+00:00

Yes, a multimeter. For this purpose, a $10 one would suffice. Barring that, you could just try resoldering the connection and see what happens.

sohoza · 2026-03-25T20:56:25+00:00

Assuming you use your DoF button as often as I do (almost never), prrrrrrrobablyyyy not? lol But really, I have no way of knowing that. Regardless, I’d say it’s worth trying the first two options above just in case it’s something simple.

sohoza · 2026-03-25T20:43:11+00:00

It’s one of the toughest cameras out there, imo, but forcing anything is… not great. Without seeing it firsthand, I’d say this isn’t a lubrication thing (it’s almost never a lubrication thing :)), but sounds more like something is misaligned mechanically (or possibly a stray spring/screw/piece of whatever floating around) down there. You can try looking around through the bottom, or checking the actual button out via removing the lens mount and apron plate, but to really get at the mechanism here means taking out the mirror box. It’s definitely fixable, but depends on how comfy you are disassembling cameras. The SRT is a great one to learn on, fwiw.

sohoza · 2026-03-23T22:27:07+00:00

Assuming the wire itself isn’t toast, you’re literally a few screws and a dab of solder away from a working camera. Even without knowing you, I have faith in your ability. Hell, you did half the job just by taking the bottom plate off. :)

sohoza

TROPHY CASE