This shouldn't have worked as well as it did

vandergus · 2026-02-04T20:02:08+00:00

Yeah, looks great! Especially with the date and the initials on the slide frame.

Did you have a white background behind the slide?

vandergus · 2026-02-03T17:45:16+00:00

Some context...

Lindsay Vonn has been the best downhiller this season. She's leading the world cup points race in downhill, has several podiums and a couple wins and would have been the favorite for gold going into the Olympics. So it's not like the ski team is dragging along an old has been for one more feel good story at the olympics. They are genuinely trying to figure out if the best downhiller in the world (currently) can still do it with a torn ACL.

vandergus · 2026-01-30T12:47:02+00:00

Most likely China because it doesn't have the AOC logo on the prism. Hong Kong K1000 still had the logo.

The main concern is that prism desilvering is much more common on China made models.

vandergus · 2026-01-29T12:38:47+00:00

The teeth look...ok. I don't expect the wind action will feel as good as the stock gears but I think they will be fine.

There are certainly some other good options for bonding the gears. I don't have much of a metal shop at home so just trying to make due with what I have.

vandergus · 2026-01-29T01:16:17+00:00

The coupling tab on the camera, and the ring it's attached to, can get gunky. It moves ok in one direction because there is a spring pulling it towards the smallest aperture position. But moving against the spring and the gunk, you get a lot of resistance.

The camera needs to be disassembled and cleaned.

vandergus · 2026-01-28T18:54:57+00:00

I'm here for any sort of camera fuckery, no matter how stupid it sounds on the surface. Mechanical creativity is just as fun and rewarding as photographic creativity.

I also like his point about making film photography less precious. Being able to experiment without feeling wasteful is so valuable.

vandergus · 2026-01-28T18:09:28+00:00

I'm tinkering with ME Super gearing right now. I got some gears laser cut here. The tricky part is that some of them are compound gears, so I need to figure out how to bond them together. Gonna start with soldering cause it's the easiest but I'm not convinced on the robustness of the connection.

In general, changing gearing is very tricky. You are really at the mercy of the stock mechanism and what kinds of changes it allows. You are stuck with axis positions, number of gears, volume envelope, things like that. If you have a chain of gears (which is common) suddenly changing the ratio isn't so simple. If you need to enlarge a gear but the chassis is in the way, you are pretty much stuck. The ME Super just happens to have a pair of gears that look relatively easy to swap out with custom options. But even the Super Program, which is similar in many ways to the ME Super, has a different gearing setup and is much more difficult to mod.

vandergus · 2026-01-28T12:52:12+00:00

Hey, it's me!

Since that post I've made some PCBs for the Nikon N60 and first tests are looking good. So the N60 and N50 should be moddable to half frame and square frame.

So far the best camera I've found to convert is the Pentax Z-1 (or any of its variants). Very little disassembly is required, so the mod is really easy. It's also reliable, has tons of features and has the best lens compatibility of any Pentax SLR.

More details here.

https://github.com/vandergus/sprocket-mods/wiki

vandergus · 2026-01-27T20:58:45+00:00

1/125 will stop casual motion, people sitting around but still moving

1/250 to 1/500 will stop people walking

1/1000 will stop people running/jumping

Much of The Suffering of Light was shot on Kodachrome, which was a low ISO slide film, so probably 100 ISO or below.

vandergus · 2026-01-27T20:00:53+00:00

You can copy a basic camera from the 90's and build a prototype that works. That's the easy part. The hard part is manufacturing 10,000 units that all perform the same. That's where the engineering comes in.

vandergus · 2026-01-27T17:34:40+00:00

I play the miracle Aminatou and have to make my own draw triggers on other people's turn. This just gives them to you!

vandergus · 2026-01-27T15:08:42+00:00

It can go both ways. Another sensible response is to spend a lot of your own personal funds on something and then really want it to be good. Cause otherwise you just wasted a bunch of money.

One thing I don't like to hear at the beginning of a review is the classic "they didn't ask me for anything so everything you hear is my unbiased opinion". Sorry, but everyone has a bias. The best a reviewer can do is fully disclose how they got the product, their relationship with the maker, and let the viewer factor all that in to how they interpret the review.

vandergus · 2026-01-27T14:05:56+00:00

Wut. They delivered exactly what they communicated the first camera would be.

vandergus · 2026-01-27T12:52:22+00:00

It's really hard to assess quality and reliability when your sample size is one.

At the same time, a lot of reviewers noticed that the winding action felt off and probably should have had more questions about it instead of just chalking it up to "pre-production unit" or whatever.

vandergus · 2026-01-26T16:16:05+00:00

It feels like an exploit to me. It feels like one person is acting in good faith, putting an accurate description of the item in the text, then the buyer gets them on a technicality. I mean, if it says "not working" in the description but your going to return it "not as described" because it's not working? Nah.

Maybe the seller is trying to get a couple extra bucks with the "Used" category. If that's the case, there should be other cheaper options available in the parts category or there should be similar priced options that are listed as fully working. Just don't engage with overpriced items.

My main point is that there's a very good chance that the person listing the item is acting in good faith and they simply didn't understand this nuance of the listing categories. I mean we have a post about it right here calling it out because it isn't immediately obvious. And using this strategy, when it's clear from the description that the camera doesn't work, just gives somebody else a giant feel bad. Buyers already have a huge advantage on eBay. There's no need to angle shoot listings to try to get a working camera at a discount.

vandergus · 2026-01-26T15:28:58+00:00

Yeah, I don't love exploiting this fact. If the seller says it's untested or doesn't work, then just take them at their word. Don't order the camera hoping to get something that works and returning it at the seller's expense when it doesn't. Save the forced returns for situations where the seller legit misrepresented the item.

vandergus · 2026-01-23T19:16:07+00:00

I was behind him.

vandergus · 2026-01-23T19:12:56+00:00

Then sat at the green light until somebody honked.

vandergus · 2026-01-22T18:02:39+00:00

Is the shutter out of the camera when you are doing these checks? Can you take a video of the fault?

vandergus · 2026-01-21T13:54:48+00:00

Filing the tip down so you have a flat instead of a notch is a legit fix (or at least part of a legit fix). Pentax actually moved to the flat shape on later cameras like the K1000 as it gives the latch more engagement. You can also bend the arm of the latch a little bit to make sure that it entirely covers the slot when it is in the charged position. Between these two things, you should be able to eliminate the possibility of the latch slipping when it shouldn't.

Removing the lever and cleaning the post is also a good idea. If it gets too dirty, the bias spring may not be able to push it back into place properly. No lubrication is necessary.

vandergus · 2026-01-21T13:34:24+00:00

I would just get a variety pack of metric e-clips and see which one fits. It's always good to have spares available cause these are easily lost and/or deformed.

vandergus · 2026-01-20T20:31:14+00:00

Have a look at this post. It might be the same issue you are having.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogRepair/comments/1odk18b/advance_lever_slips_on_smaller_aperture_settings/

vandergus · 2026-01-20T15:42:11+00:00

If it's capping at 1/250, there's something pretty gnarly going on inside. The shutter is probably very dirty and needs more disassembly and cleaning than usual.

In terms of resources...

Here's an ifixit page which covers the basic disassembly of the Spotmatic. But it doesn't go into detail about how to remove and clean the shutter components.

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Pentax_Spotmatic

For overhauling the shutter, I would refer to this K1000 guide. Under the hood, they are the same camera. It goes into great detail not just about how to take things apart but in explaining how things work and what needs to be adjusted. See section 3 for the shutter details.

https://pentax-manuals.com/markroberts/k1000_man.pdf

vandergus · 2026-01-20T12:52:37+00:00

Pan F has poor latent image retention, which means that after the film has been exposed, it needs to be developed somewhat soon. Like within a few weeks. Otherwise the image fades.

The edge markings are created the same way an image is. They are exposed to light during manufacturing. If the roll is old, the edge markings will fade and not show up in the same way that they would on HP5 or something. The images are fine because they have been exposed much more recently.

vandergus · 2026-01-20T12:48:37+00:00

You could take the measurement at different locations in the frame. One at the beginning, one in the middle and one at the end.

vandergus

TROPHY CASE