Braun Colorette IB

Hi there, I am completely new to this so please forgive me if I'm not in the correct forum or what I have isn't actually antique. My very dear grandfather passed away recently and in his things I found a Braun Super Colorette IB camera that I believe to be in working shape. I relatively know my way around a digital camera, per se, but I don't know the first thing about this little guy. I was hoping to ask what film to use, and what 'settings' might be best for some straightforward point and shoot photos (if possible).

It takes 35mm film. Here's some basic info about that camera: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Super_Colorette

Hammalot said:

Hi there, I am completely new to this so please forgive me if I'm not in the correct forum or what I have isn't actually antique. My very dear grandfather passed away recently and in his things I found a Braun Super Colorette IB camera that I believe to be in working shape. I relatively know my way around a digital camera, per se, but I don't know the first thing about this little guy. I was hoping to ask what film to use, and what 'settings' might be best for some straightforward point and shoot photos (if possible).

Click to expand...

Here's a German-language instruction manual:
https://cameramanuals.org/pdf_files/braun_colorette_super_ii_iib-german.pdf
It appears to be pretty easy to use, but it may seem bewildering at first if you've never operated such a camera before. In particular, the aperture and shutter settings appear to be linked, much as they were in older Hasselblad lenses. The idea in both cases was that your light meter would give you a single Exposure Value (EV) numeric reading, and you'd rotate a single control on the barrel of the lens to match it (central ring with numbering from 2-18), and get a perfectly exposed photo without having to know anything about shutter speeds or apertures. Synchro-Compur shutter offering speeds of 1 sec to 1/500th sec plus B would have been considered pretty high class in it's day.

Light meter is not coupled to any of the camera's controls and needed no batteries - all the energy it needed was provided by the light itself. But don't be too surprised if the meter needle doesn't budge when you expose the the meter cell to sunlight as these old meters are often non-functional. And even when new, it would have needed a decent amount of light to do it's thing.

Think you will find that the EV ring hits end stops before running out of numbers. There's a little trick to that as shown on Page 18.

It has a coupled rangefinder. This means you see a patch in the center of the finder which is imagewise identical to the respective part of the finder image, except that it is note really congruent, but slightly laterally moved. You thus see a dubble-image at center. At turning the focusing barrel this patch is moving laterally. The moment you no longer see a dubble-image, this part of the scene is in focus.
Or rather should be. Also there may be a vertical misalignment. Furthermore the patch may me be hard to see at all, as at least one mirror is involved and its reflective coating may have derteriorated over time. The rangefinder is the most prominent feature, but it is only a focusimng aid, you can focus without it with a bit of distance evaluating training.