Mamiya C33

I picked up this beauty from a guy on Gumtree, a gorgeous Mamiya C33!

 Ooh baby, bellows money shot.

It weighs an absolute ton (well, about 2kg), as it should, being made mostly of girders. It came with the 80mm 2.8 Mamiya-Sekor lens, which focuses really close, and beautifully sharp.

It needs a bit of a clean, as the outside is a tad grubby, but the lens is clear. The focussing screen could do with a wipe, but it looks like this can be removed with a couple of screws. The bellows seem in great condition, no cracks or holes, no ominous creaking. The back door of the waist-level finder sags out a bit too, I don't know if this affects viewing through the screen or not, doesn't seem to.

Can't wait to run some test film through it!

Recesky TLR - DIY camera

Aaaaages ago I bought a Recesky TLR from eBay for about a tenner. It's a tiny TLR in kit firm, that takes 35mm film. Today I thought I's actually sit down and make it!

Ooh. Err.... hmm. That's a lot of bits. I needed a tiny Philips screwdriver and some tweezers for fiddly bits, but that's all. Had a look at the manual:

Aha! Chinese! Shame I don't speak it, but the drawings were quite clear, so I did ok. It took me about an hour and a half to put together, the only thing I got stuck with was the shutter mechanism. For anyone who has problems with this, see below:

The middle bit was slack at first, and the spring underneath kept dropping off, so the shutter wouldn't fire. You have to wind the peg up, then screw it in!

I ended up with three leftover screws, but that seems to happen with every DIY project I do.

Ta-da! I've put a roll of 35mm in it, I'll take some shots and post them up soon :)