In Praise of Clockwork mechanisms

dale116dot7 · Jul 14, 2016

Yes and yes. This sort of project really is when you have 'a bunch' of bodies that have no other problems (ie. the prism and mirror are fine, the shutter and film handling is fine, LCD screen is ok, etc) but just have blown circuit boards. I don't know exactly what quantity would make it 'worth it' but there would be some number. I would guess somewhere between 20 and 100. One such camera that pops into mind is the earlier OM4, especially since early OM4 cameras had the battery drain issue. Maybe Nikon F3? These are fairly simple cameras electronically, looking at the service manuals.

AgX · Jul 15, 2016

Don't the gears in clockworks look all the same too ....?

Down Under · Jul 15, 2016

(From Flavio81)"Last time I checked, photographs were taken by photographers, not lenses."

In fact, they are made by both. You are half way there.

Are you a pinhole shooter? Even then a pinhole is a lens of sorts.

"Outshoot" was meant in terms of convenience and portability. To be sure, a 6x7 negative from an RB will print more easily than a Nikkormat 35mm one. But a Nikkormat (or any 35mm camera) is far more flexible than the RB. That is my point.

To get this thread back on track, I nominate the Rolleiflex TLR as the (almost) perfect clockwork camera.

Down Under · Jul 15, 2016

(Flavio81 wrote) "Last time I checked, photographs were taken by photographers, not lenses."

Interesting point, but care to check again? In fact, they are made by both. You may well be a pinhole shooter, but even then a pinhole is a lens.

My point is (and I'll stay with it) that my Nikkormat even in your hands will easily outshoot the RB even in my hands, in terms of convenience and flexibility as well as portability. That a 6x7 negative will print more easily and likely better (again,depending on the photographer-printer, and of course the lenses, on the camera and the enlarger), is not in doubt. But to many of us, portability is more important.

And yes, the RB and the Nikkormat are also both clockwork cameras.

Anyway, to get this threat back on track, I nominate the Rolleiflex TLR as the (almost) perfect clockwork camera,alongside the Nikkormat of course.

MartinCrabtree · Jul 15, 2016

onre said:
Last time I checked, photographs were taken by photographers, not lenses.

To be honest they're made by one using the other. Not exclusively however it is the predominant process.

cliveh · Jul 15, 2016

APUGuser19 said:
In 35mm, I nominate the Nikkormat as the winner in every category. An absolute brick of dependability, and all the accuracy commonly needed. The test of time was kind to that camera. These 40 some-odd years later, I wouldn't even consider another 35mm. In the pocket class, Retina gets the nod.

No, it must be Leica.

blockend · Jul 15, 2016

APUGuser19 said:
In 35mm, I nominate the Nikkormat as the winner in every category. An absolute brick of dependability, and all the accuracy commonly needed. The test of time was kind to that camera. These 40 some-odd years later, I wouldn't even consider another 35mm. In the pocket class, Retina gets the nod.

Hard to disagree. I favour two kinds of 35mm camera, built like a brick s**thouse, and automatic+cheap. The Nikkormat wins the first, my plastic SLRs fit the second category. It therefore follows that the stuff not to get into, is temperamental/expensive old mechanical cameras, and hi-tech processor driven cult types. For that reason I steer clear of fancy old stuff like Contax rangefinders and upmarket AF compacts. I don't need the stress.

Chan Tran · Jul 15, 2016

blockend said:
Hard to disagree. I favour two kinds of 35mm camera, built like a brick s**thouse, and automatic+cheap. The Nikkormat wins the first, my plastic SLRs fit the second category. It therefore follows that the stuff not to get into, is temperamental/expensive old mechanical cameras, and hi-tech processor driven cult types. For that reason I steer clear of fancy old stuff like Contax rangefinders and upmarket AF compacts. I don't need the stress.

So why way to many people including knowledgeable professional bought the F or F2 instead of he Nikkormat? I guess they are not too smart after all.

Theo Sulphate · Jul 15, 2016

Chan Tran said:
So why way to many people including knowledgeable professional bought the F or F2 instead of he Nikkormat? I guess they are not too smart after all.

Pros, who depend on a camera for their living, needed a camera that could accept all sorts of accessories (metering heads, screens, finders, backs, motor drives, etc.), so they correctly bought the F2. Many did buy the Nikkormat for backup.

For the hobbyist ("advanced amateur"), the Nikkormat does 95% or more of what they really need.

flavio81 · Jul 15, 2016

ozmoose said:
(From Flavio81)"Last time I checked, photographs were taken by photographers, not lenses."

In fact, they are made by both. You are half way there.

Are you a pinhole shooter? Even then a pinhole is a lens of sorts.

"Outshoot" was meant in terms of convenience and portability. To be sure, a 6x7 negative from an RB will print more easily than a Nikkormat 35mm one. But a Nikkormat (or any 35mm camera) is far more flexible than the RB. That is my point.

Interesting. I own two Nikkormats and two RB67, and i find the RB67 a far more flexible camera. Of course it's bigger and heavier. But far more flexible -- i can shoot 6x4.5, 6x7, i can do macro without accesories, i can crop and still have amazing quality, i can shoot at very low speeds without camera shake, i can nail the focus easily with the huge viewfinder, i can do fill flash at 1/400, i can change vertical to horizontal orientation without moving the position i'm already set in, i can change film type without having to rewind any film, if i run out of roll i can put a new roll in about 4 seconds by just placing a new magazine... the list goes on and on. And the combination of good lenses and big format means all my Sekor lenses are sharp as a tack, plus they have consistently great bokeh.

And i don't have any hernia.

flavio81 · Jul 15, 2016

APUGuser19 said:
In 35mm, I nominate the Nikkormat as the winner in every category. An absolute brick of dependability, and all the accuracy commonly needed. The test of time was kind to that camera. These 40 some-odd years later, I wouldn't even consider another 35mm.

Umm... aren't we overrating the Nikkormats?

I like my Nikkormat FT2, but it have some annoyances -- mainly:

- shutter speed gets dim to see inside the viewfinder, and the shutter speed selector also makes shutter speed difficult to see from the outside.

- to remove the lens you need to move the shutter speed selector out of a certain range (approximately out of the 1sec - 1/60 range) otherwise you can't press easily the lens release button. And then you need to set the lens to f5.6 to remove, so it becomes a rather slow process.

- viewfinder is far darker (dimmer) than the one in the Nikon F2 or even Nikon F

Minor annoyances are that i can't lock the shutter button, and that the vertical shutter is not as refined as I would like it to be (Although this is a very minor detail).

Yes, it is a brick of a camera and I believe it can be even more reliable than a Nikon F2, but it's not the "NON PLUS ULTRA" of mechanical Nikons either.

flavio81 · Jul 15, 2016

dale116dot7 said:
I suppose if the chips or circuit boards go bad (in my collection, most likely the OM4), right now you're kind of hooped. If there was enough demand, an aftermarket chip (or a full replacement for all of the internal circuits) could be made.

This is a very, very, very important point.

DIY (custom, do it yourself) digital electronics have had huge advances in the last 20 years. For an electronics hobbist, right now you can buy a cheap tiny microcontroller that you can program yourself easily and that can read from external sensors and control devices in any way you like.

All those electronic timed cameras basically have to read the selected shutter speed and then open the electromagnetic solenoid that controls the shutter a certain amount of time. This is a rather trivial thing to do with a microcontroller. Cameras which have a 6V power source have plenty of power for this. And I think right now microcontrollers are available for 1.5 or 3 volt operation (!)

So it's just a matter of time until some DIY electronics hobbist decides, for example, to replace the chip on the Nikkormat EL with a customized microcontroller.

The thing is, there will probably be no such hobbiest for the next 10 years, because the electronics on that machine (Nikkormat EL) is damn reliable...

Chan Tran · Jul 16, 2016

I think you can build those control circuit but it would be very difficult to make them fit into the camera.

onre · Jul 17, 2016

flavio81 said:
This is a very, very, very important point.

DIY (custom, do it yourself) digital electronics have had huge advances in the last 20 years. For an electronics hobbist, right now you can buy a cheap tiny microcontroller that you can program yourself easily and that can read from external sensors and control devices in any way you like.

All those electronic timed cameras basically have to read the selected shutter speed and then open the electromagnetic solenoid that controls the shutter a certain amount of time. This is a rather trivial thing to do with a microcontroller. Cameras which have a 6V power source have plenty of power for this. And I think right now microcontrollers are available for 1.5 or 3 volt operation (!)

So it's just a matter of time until some DIY electronics hobbist decides, for example, to replace the chip on the Nikkormat EL with a customized microcontroller.

The thing is, there will probably be no such hobbiest for the next 10 years, because the electronics on that machine (Nikkormat EL) is damn reliable...

Try to fit a customized microcontroller and relevant interface electronics inside a Nikkormat EL, and you'll notice one pretty large problem.

blockend · Jul 17, 2016

flavio81 said:
Umm... aren't we overrating the Nikkormats?

I like my Nikkormat FT2, but it have some annoyances -- mainly:

- shutter speed gets dim to see inside the viewfinder, and the shutter speed selector also makes shutter speed difficult to see from the outside.

- to remove the lens you need to move the shutter speed selector out of a certain range (approximately out of the 1sec - 1/60 range) otherwise you can't press easily the lens release button. And then you need to set the lens to f5.6 to remove, so it becomes a rather slow process.

- viewfinder is far darker (dimmer) than the one in the Nikon F2 or even Nikon F

Minor annoyances are that i can't lock the shutter button, and that the vertical shutter is not as refined as I would like it to be (Although this is a very minor detail).

Yes, it is a brick of a camera and I believe it can be even more reliable than a Nikon F2, but it's not the "NON PLUS ULTRA" of mechanical Nikons either.

I've owned Nikon F, F2AS and various Nikkormats, and all are built to the same high standards. They were designed to compete with Leica and Zeiss (Nippon-Ikon) and were hand built.

Yes, Nikkormat in body metering (which removed the necessity for bulky metered heads) required mounting and de-mounting the lens at f5.6, but that's hardly a major obstacle. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and there are still thousands of Nikkormats around. In fact I've never bought a non-functioning 'Mat, and some of them look like they've been through a war zone. They're biggest flaw is they're damned heavy, especially if you're carrying a pair.

dale116dot7 · Jul 17, 2016

flavio81 said:
This is a very, very, very important point.
DIY (custom, do it yourself) digital electronics have had huge advances in the last 20 years. For an electronics hobbist, right now you can buy a cheap tiny microcontroller that you can program yourself easily and that can read from external sensors and control devices in any way you like.
All those electronic timed cameras basically have to read the selected shutter speed and then open the electromagnetic solenoid that controls the shutter a certain amount of time. This is a rather trivial thing to do with a microcontroller. Cameras which have a 6V power source have plenty of power for this. And I think right now microcontrollers are available for 1.5 or 3 volt operation (!)
So it's just a matter of time until some DIY electronics hobbist decides, for example, to replace the chip on the Nikkormat EL with a customized microcontroller.
The thing is, there will probably be no such hobbiest for the next 10 years, because the electronics on that machine (Nikkormat EL) is damn reliable...

Not only the hobbyists, but there are likely a bunch of electronics engineers and technicians that are also into film photography as a serious hobby (I wouldn't think I'd be the only one). If my OM4T died, I probably would look at designing a flex circuit and using a modern microcontroller to do it. But I'd probably have to get a second (working and calibrated) OM4T as a comparison unit anyways. An Atmel SAM22N runs from 1.64 to 3.6 volts (perfect for a 3 volt supply like the OM2 and OM4), is plenty fast (probably 50 times faster than the micro in the OM4T), has the LCD controller built-in (for the bargraph meter), is smaller than the original three-chip solution used in the OM4T, it has enough I/O to do all of the 'stuff', and low power modes that can sip on those silver oxide cells at less than 1/10th of the standby power consumption of the original. The tricky parts are the pot traces and wipers under the aperture, shutter speed, and film speed pots, but even those are not a huge issue if you know what companies do carbon screening as part of their circuit board manufacturing process. And the OM4T includes a fairly complex metering system, but by black-box reverse engineering the unit, the functioning of the software could be determined in a few days of fiddling with a disassembled unit.

cliveh · Jul 17, 2016

With regards to springs in clockwork mechanisms, I have only seen spiral springs. Is this type the most effective to run a clockwork mechanism? Or are there more efficient spring configurations that could prove more effective.

onre · Jul 18, 2016

One more comment about retrofit electronics - given that the possibility of creating such with layman's budget has existed for years, for some reason none have appeared. Why is this? Would the project still be too tedious and non-rewarding for a hobbyist to take on? dale116dot7's post above indicates that he would be capable of creating such a retrofit. The interface electronics would have to be miniaturized in order to fit inside the camera. By interface electronics I mean stuff like circuits for reading potentiometer values and such (supply a voltage, then use on-chip A/D to convert that to a value). All of this is feasible, but as long as replacement bodies are available cheaply, will anyone do this?

flavio81 · Jul 18, 2016

onre said:
Try to fit a customized microcontroller and relevant interface electronics inside a Nikkormat EL, and you'll notice one pretty large problem.

As i said, microcontrollers are tiny nowadays, and there is a lot of space between the prism and the camera top on an EL, if you remove the old electronics.

As for why nobody has done this, I say its because those 70s electronics are much more reliable than what most forum-lurking luddites think.

onre · Jul 19, 2016

flavio81 said:
As i said, microcontrollers are tiny nowadays, and there is a lot of space between the prism and the camera top on an EL, if you remove the old electronics.

As for why nobody has done this, I say its because those 70s electronics are much more reliable than what most forum-lurking luddites think.

If you're referring to me, please do show me where I comment on the actual reliability of the electronics. Your posts seem to have rather offensive and condescending tone for most of the time. Another completely valid reason for creating retrofit electronics would be the possibility of adding features to the camera. There are cases where the camera hardware is capable of doing things that the electronics just don't make it do.

Microcontroller being tiny is not enough, you still do need the interface electronics too. Have you done this kind of work, or are you just speculating?

Also, most of the time installing electronics in the top compartment of an old camera requires a flexible circuit board because most of the stuff has to go on top of the prism. Last time I checked, those were not cheap to manufacture. The situation might have changed, but the prototype manufacturing methods I'm aware of don't make that possible.

AgX · Jul 19, 2016

onre said:
Also, most of the time installing electronics in the top compartment of an old camera requires a flexible circuit board because most of the stuff has to go on top of the prism. Last time I checked, those were not cheap to manufacture. The situation might have changed, but the prototype manufacturing methods I'm aware of don't make that possible.

I just checked and for a prototype flexible cicuit board I got an estimate of several hundred Euros.

flavio81 · Jul 20, 2016

onre said:
If you're referring to me, please do show me where I comment on the actual reliability of the electronics. Your posts seem to have rather offensive and condescending tone for most of the time.

I'm not referring to you, i am targeting all the posters i've seen on the last 15 years in camera forums, who have this fear of electronics in a camera.

So chill down, no one is against you.

As for my experience in electronics, i do have experience in DIY electronics, just not in microcontrollers.

dale116dot7 · Jul 20, 2016

Flex circuits are not that expensive to prototype, cheaper than they used to be, but you do need a budget, I'd guess maybe $2000 US for prototyping flex circuits (probably I'd get a dozen sets) and parts to build them. Not pocket change but not unreasonable. My day job is designing engine control modules for trucks and forklifts so I'm pretty aware of how to have these things made and how to do microcontroller design. It can be a lot of work so to make it worth it, you need to weigh the labour against the cost of just buying another camera. But personally, I would rather see dead film cameras resurrected this way than tossed in the skip.

Theo Sulphate · Jul 20, 2016

flavio81 said:
... posters i've seen on the last 15 years in camera forums, who have this fear of electronics in a camera.
...
As for my experience in electronics, i do have experience in DIY electronics, just not in microcontrollers.

I think it's a fear of too much electronics. At least that's how it is for me - and I'm not a technophobe: my degree is in Computer Science (UCLA) and I've been working on ASICs and microcontrollers for nearly 30 years.

The problem as I see it that there are so many subsystems in something like a Nikon F5 or EOS 1v that a failure in any single subsystem renders the camera unusable. Film wind, rewind, autofocus, drive mode, autofocus mode, metering pattern, control wheels, buttons, displays, LEDs, the chips and support circuitry themselves, etc. You don't want any of it to fail. Yes, I do realize components can be swapped out.

Yet, I believe my plain prism Nikon F or Nikkormat FT2 will be completely functional long after the last F5 or EOS camera has been tossed in the dumpster.

dale116dot7 · Jul 21, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
I think it's a fear of too much electronics. At least that's how it is for me - and I'm not a technophobe: my degree is in Computer Science (UCLA) and I've been working on ASICs and microcontrollers for nearly 30 years.

The problem as I see it that there are so many subsystems in something like a Nikon F5 or EOS 1v that a failure in any single subsystem renders the camera unusable. Film wind, rewind, autofocus, drive mode, autofocus mode, metering pattern, control wheels, buttons, displays, LEDs, the chips and support circuitry themselves, etc. You don't want any of it to fail. Yes, I do realize components can be swapped out.

Yet, I believe my plain prism Nikon F or Nikkormat FT2 will be completely functional long after the last F5 or EOS camera has been tossed in the dumpster.

I agree with you 110%, which is why I like either mechanical cameras (OM-1) or fairly simple electronic cameras like the OM-2. Something like an EOS would be hard to home-brew a 'fix' but the OM-2 could be done with common ICs (the metering and exposure are analogue and even those ASICs are pretty simple) - and 'not much work'. My boundary for complexity of re-doing the circuitry would be a camera like the OM-4; the operation is simple enough that one could reverse engineer it but I would not want to take on anything much more complex than that. But there are so many OM2's on the market these days and Camtech seems to be able to keep these guys running, that is my preference for a good balance of electronics and mechanicals in a camera. I find cameras more complex than an OM4 to be too hard to even think about redesigning a fix. I'm more familiar with the OM series than any other camera, but I imagine other brands have similar technology levels.

In Praise of Clockwork mechanisms

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