A couple of years ago, a the husband of a friend of a friend, who had been a professional photographer, passed away, and the wife gave a couple of huge boxes of film camera gear to my friend, who doesn't shoot film. So he gave me the boxes of stuff. Much of it was junk -- 110s and instamatics and stuff like that, but there were a couple of real gems in there, including three Norita 66 bodies (one with a waist-level finder!), an 80mm f/2, 40mm f/4, 55mm f/4, 160mm f/4, and the very strange and extremely heavy 75mm f/3.5 with the leaf shutter in it. I knew nothing about the Norita, but I've been jonesing for a 120 SLR for a long time so I was really excited.
Two of the bodies clearly did not work, and the third seemed to so I ran a roll through it and nope, it didn't work. I put them on the shelf for a couple of years while I ginned up the courage to send them off to someone for repair... someone on Rangefinder Forum suggested Ross Yerkes in LA so I called him and finally got the courage to send them off.
One body became a donor for parts (cue the Star Wars reference -- "Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!"), and on Monday I received my bodies, well-packed, and cleaner than I think they've been in probably 20 years. I ran a couple of rolls of Arista.edu 100 through them and I'm in love with these behemoths. I think these are going to be my go-to cameras for a while.
Two of the bodies clearly did not work, and the third seemed to so I ran a roll through it and nope, it didn't work. I put them on the shelf for a couple of years while I ginned up the courage to send them off to someone for repair... someone on Rangefinder Forum suggested Ross Yerkes in LA so I called him and finally got the courage to send them off.
One body became a donor for parts (cue the Star Wars reference -- "Sir, if any of my circuits or gears will help, I'll gladly donate them!"), and on Monday I received my bodies, well-packed, and cleaner than I think they've been in probably 20 years. I ran a couple of rolls of Arista.edu 100 through them and I'm in love with these behemoths. I think these are going to be my go-to cameras for a while.
