I saw an ad on Craigslist for a yard sale with cameras in Albuquerque's South Valley. Seemed like a good excuse for a ride on the motorcycle, even though I didn't expect to find anything I really needed.
Well, of course, I didn't need yet another Argus C3 since my shelf is already groaning under the weight of several old bricks. BUT, this Matchmatic looked to be in good shape other than the usual cloudy rangefinder, and it had a working light meter. I didn't need another K1000 either, except that the trivial price also made it a must-have. There was also a Series VI adapter, a 2+ Portra lens, a skylight filter, and a nifty little yellow and orange Kodak film can. So not a bad haul.
We got back on the bike and headed north on Coors Blvd. About a mile up the road I picked up a nail in the rear tire. As luck would have it, we were only about four blocks from a motorcycle shop. I drove the bike slowly there along the roadside. Margaret graciously walked behind carrying the cameras. An hour later we were back on the road.
4 comments:
Nice. You can never have too many of these cameras, especially since if push comes to shove you can probably make a few dollars off them reselling them.
I've been lazy about clearing out the cameras I'm not using. I have several duplicates I should pass on to someone who will use them, so I'll try to get some posts up about the cameras soon.
A K-1000 is well worth a flat tire.
The K1000 looked nearly new and I was able to see immediately that the shutter was working fine. When I got it home I dropped in a battery and was disappointed to see that the meter was reading three or four stops low. I went to Google and soon found that the symptom I was seeing was common in this camera when it has been sitting unused for a long time. It turns out that all you need to do to fix the problem is to rapidly rotate the aperture and shutter dials several times through their full range. I did that and soon saw the meter performing perfectly.
The Matchmatic is in nice shape too, but it looks like I'm going to need to pull off the front covering to get at the shutter for cleaning.
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