Was at a yard sale today and a lady sold me a New F-1 L.A. with AE Finder FN and AE Power Wonder FN for thirty bucks. I'd never even seen one in person before and didn't know much about it, but I knew one with the Olympic badge in good shape could be worth some money.
So here's the run down, now that I have a fresh battery for it.
Body is good but the shutter speed in the finder is wrong. Shutter seems correct at all speeds, meter seems right.
Aperture priority mode works like a charm assuming the shutter is accurate, and I'm good at judging by ear, personally, so I'd say it is.
The power winder had corrosion on the terminals but luckily no batteries were in it. I scraped the terminals on the battery cap and put in four AA's. It winds correctly. The rotating switch around the vertical release (the one that says A and L) is jammed up and stuck on A, while the S-OFF-C switch around the horizontal release operates fine.
Shutter priority does NOT work. With the power winder on and installed, the lens set to A, the camera meters as if in shutter priority mode, (as it apparently would with the winder off and the lens set to A, I note) but the aperture stops down to f/22 regardless of the aperture indicated in the finder, even in low light and short shutter speeds, as if nothing were restraining it from stopping down all the way. This is true regardless of lens.
I can't find documentation for the winder. Is the "A/L" switch the problem? Are my batteries potentially too weak (I pulled them out of a walkman and a Gameboy so they're not new but not old either.)
I have heard there is no way for a layman to repair the shutter speed indicator in the finder. Is this true?
As I say, I've been a Nikon and Minolta man thus far. I've used Canon A series cameras lightly though. But this is a quirky system with odd characteristics. I'm in uncharted waters.
EDIT: and I've just noticed the aperture indicator on the right of the frame is off by one as well!
So here's the run down, now that I have a fresh battery for it.
Body is good but the shutter speed in the finder is wrong. Shutter seems correct at all speeds, meter seems right.
Aperture priority mode works like a charm assuming the shutter is accurate, and I'm good at judging by ear, personally, so I'd say it is.
The power winder had corrosion on the terminals but luckily no batteries were in it. I scraped the terminals on the battery cap and put in four AA's. It winds correctly. The rotating switch around the vertical release (the one that says A and L) is jammed up and stuck on A, while the S-OFF-C switch around the horizontal release operates fine.
Shutter priority does NOT work. With the power winder on and installed, the lens set to A, the camera meters as if in shutter priority mode, (as it apparently would with the winder off and the lens set to A, I note) but the aperture stops down to f/22 regardless of the aperture indicated in the finder, even in low light and short shutter speeds, as if nothing were restraining it from stopping down all the way. This is true regardless of lens.
I can't find documentation for the winder. Is the "A/L" switch the problem? Are my batteries potentially too weak (I pulled them out of a walkman and a Gameboy so they're not new but not old either.)
I have heard there is no way for a layman to repair the shutter speed indicator in the finder. Is this true?
As I say, I've been a Nikon and Minolta man thus far. I've used Canon A series cameras lightly though. But this is a quirky system with odd characteristics. I'm in uncharted waters.
EDIT: and I've just noticed the aperture indicator on the right of the frame is off by one as well!
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