Konica C35 vs GAF Memo

I like these little cameras. My last experience w/ a C35 resulted in beautiful photos w/ lots of saturated colour from the little Hexanon lens. We'll see how the Memo compares. The controls are considerably different, although the GAF is obviously a Konica clone. Been thinking of covering the GAF Memo label on the front w/ a piece of black tape and sticking a red dot on it.

Sample shots will be posted once I get the film back from Walgreens. After developing and printing my own B&W film for years, it was a shock to see how much it costs when you send colour film out. $12 w/ a CD for 24 exposure plus about $3 for the film. To put this into perspective, I can shoot a roll of 36 exp B&W film and develop it myself for about $4, including the cot of the film. Maybe I'll just shoot B&W, and hand colour the prints.

when i was working a news bureau for the elmira NY Star-Gazette I picked up a little GAF Memo because all the paper would give me was crappy russian TLRs.

Great little camera. I had to fake out the auto-feature with some tape over a section of the UV filter if I was shooting folks in a room with a bright light source -- door, window, lamp -- and wanted to use a flash, but otherwise it was a great little shooter.

A while back I acquired a camera engraved 'Pacer 35' in white lettering on a black body. I had no idea what it was, but a trawl of the net revealed that it was a re-badged Chinon, which is how I believe the GAF began life. The re-badging was for sale by the British chemist chain Boots, who used to sell a great deal of re-branded photographic goods at very attractive prices.
The camera was a complete heap - the battery had been in there for years and was a green lump and the meter cell leads had corroded through. This was in keeping with what I knew - that the previous owner had been into sailing. I had to make a new battery contact and bridge the missing sections of the cell leads. The rangefinder mask had become detached, but having sorted out these issues it cleaned up well and appears to work. I have a roll of film in it now so will see how that turns out.
Steve

Well,

Perhaps I should keep quiet and not tempt fate.

I was only recently singing the praises of my little Chinon 35EE as to how good it was in a thread lower down the page about a Konica.

The camera is basically the same as the Gaf.

Well I processed a roll of HP5 the other night and the exposures were all over the place.

A batch of underexposed, then a batch of overexposed on the same film tells me the meter is faulty.

The meter was erratic a few weeks ago, a loose battery, which I cured, but the Chinon now seems to have gone the way my Gaf Memo went too, faulty meter.

If you do invest check the meters and the light seals.

The joys of older cameras.