Note: I was originally just going to send this off list but thought
maybe some of the list members might enjoy this little report.
Hi, Bill
The cameras arrived Wednesday or Thursday. I don't know exactly. The
box was left on the porch and we didn't realize it was there. Anyhow
all is well.
The Miranda Sensorex is very pretty, much more so than I expected. It's
also a lot heavier than I remember from my own Miranda GT... almost as
heavy as my Minolta SRT-101. Them were the solid build days I guess.
Too bad about the corroded mercury battery box. I'm not sure if the
meter will ever work again. Been trying to think about how it might be
tested without tearing everything apart. No sense trying to fix it if
the sensor behind the mirror doesn't work. I hadn't realized the
Sensorex was that sophisticated with TTL behind the mirror. The slow
speed governor (I think) doesn't seem to work. Shutter works OK at "B"
and down to 1/30 but the second curtain won't release at 1/15 and
slower. Fortunately, winding on releases it. That's a surprise though
since normally the camera won't wind on if the second curtain hasn't
completed its travel and let the mirror back down. The lenses are also
in very good condition except that the 135/3.5 has a sticky diaphragm.
The Kodak Pony was a bit of a surprise too in that everything seems to
work. The 1955 manual I found on-line appears to be for a later version
with a 3.5 lens (vs. 4.5) and 1/300 vs 1/200 top speed. But it's
otherwise quite close and was easy enough to figure it out. The
removable back seems a little loose causing me to wonder about a
possible light leak but close inspection seems to say it's just built
that way. There's no sign it ever had any sort of seals and no sign of
breakage or wear. I guess it works by good baffle design. It has a
nice and very easily read DOF scale. That was interesting in itself
since it's DOF scale is different from the later model one in the
manual. They both obviously assume different but rather low resolutions
of no more than about 20 lines/mm whereas I normally use 30 lines/mm for
DOF calculations. But I guess that's just the inexpensive lens and the
film and small prints of the day.
They'll probably just be shelf queens but I get to think about all the
things I might do and how to do them... but probably won't. :-)
Thanks,
Chuck
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