Archive for the ‘Tech/Repairs’ Category
Bessa Rangefinder Calibration
No matter what rangefinder you use, theres a good chance that you’ll need to have the rangefinder calibrated one time or another. This is no big deal if you’re aware that the problem can happen (often as a result of bumping or dropping the camera)
Some cameras will need adjustment more than others, and the Voigtlander Bessa range seem to be more prone to rangefinder misalignment than others (this can be said for the Epson RD aswell, which is basically a digital Bessa).
Alot of older cameras have a pretty simple adjustment process, and theres quite alot of info on the net documenting the process. However the Bessa range are still pretty new, and at first it seems as though the whole adjustment process is a guarded secret. Naturaly, many Bessa owners werent too keen on paying a full service fee for a 5 minute RF alignment, so they begun to search for ways to do it themselves.
Theres alot of info floating around the internet on this subject, but i noticed they either didint come with pictures, or the descriptions were missing simple steps. I’ve tried to bring all of the relevant info together in one place and write some instructions based off my own personal experience. This process was completed on a Bessa R3, however i’m told most of the Bessa range is very similar.
*Disclaimer. It’s recommended you ignore these instructions and get your Bessa calibrated by a registered Voigtlander technician if :
- You dont have experience pulling apart and fixing cameras,
- You’re not confident with small tools,
- You’re clumsy,
- You dont take responsibility for your own actions and will want to blame your broken camera on me!
1. First of all, to calibrate the rangefinder you wont necessarily need to take the entire top plate off. It is possible to remove part of the hot shoe that will give you access to the adjustment screws. This can be a tricky process particularly if you dont want to scratch the black pain on your hot shoe. You’ll need a small flat head screwdriver or a toothpick to wedge and pop/lift up the cover plate illustrated in the photo below.
When you lift the edge up enough, the cover will pop up and you can slide it out in the direction of the arrow above. It’s important to have patience with this step, as it’s really easy to get frustrated and be a little too forceful. You dont want to break or scratch anything.
2. When you get the cover off, you’ll see the bracket held on with 4 screws shows in the image below
Taking these screws off should be pretty simple, they werent on too tight with my camera. You’ll need a size #00 phillips head screwdriver for this.
3. Now that you have the bracket off you’ll be able to access the adjustment screws. I could only get a photo of one, but i’ve show where the others are using blue circles. The screws are numbered from 1 to 3 for reference purposes.
You’ll need a long flat head screwdriver to adjust these screws. Also, you may need to remove any “loctite” or similar residue around the screws that prevent you from turning them.
The adjustment process
Below is a description of what each screw does. Quite often you’ll only need to adjust one of these so dont freak out.
Screw 1: Rangefinder patch focus adjustment
Screw 2: Horizontal (left/right) adjustment for Infinity focus
Screw 3: Vertical (up/down) adjustment
*There is a 4th screw also, but to access it you need to remove the entire top plate. It calibrates the base length but you’ll probably need to adjust it. (pray you dont)
Now we can start calibration. Once your camera is adjusted at infinity focus, everything should be fine for close focus aswell, but check just incase. My camera needed horizontal adjustment, yours might need vertical (or both). Find a place to set your camera up on a tripod where you have clear vision to something you can focus on for infinity (make sure its atleast 5 blocks away, its better to be safe than sorry). Adjusting horizontal alignment wont affect vertical alignment, so dont worry.
RF Patch Focus: If you’re rangefinder patch isnt sharp than you’ll need to calibrate it also. Doing this first will make the other steps easier. Also, i’ve heard that adjusting this screw can sometimes move the horizontal alignment aswell, keep that in mind. Turn screw#1 to calibrate this. You may also want to do this with the Vertical alignment leaving the infinity and close focus adjustments to last. It’s not absolutely necessary though.
Horizontal: Set lens focus to infinity (use a lens you know is accurate), and then point the rf patch at an object in the distance. Adjust screw #2 which will move the patch left to right and stop when its properly aligned. Be very delicate and precise as its quite sensitive.
Vertical: With the lens still focused at infinity, adjust screw#3 which moves the patch up and down. It’s a larger screw and isnt as deep as the others so it might be easier to get to. Once again be very precise.
Close Focus: I’ve never done this adjustment before, so cant speak from experience. Every time i’ve adjusted at infinity the close focus has been fine. To calibrate close focus you’ll need to remove the top plate and access another screw which isnt covered in this guide. However i’ve been told that very small adjustments can be made using screw#1. You should be adjusting your lens at 1m for close focus calibration.
After you’ve adjusted all the screws for calibration you can put something on them like “loctite” that will help prevent misalignment in the future. To reassemble everything you just reverse the disassembly process.
Have fun 
Noise Reduction Shootout
Well after seeing Tim’s test on noise reduction software, i thought i’d try one out myself. I’d never really compared different NR(noise reduction) processes before, instead i’d just basically given up high iso photography. I have to say, after mucking around with the software a little bit, im not so worried about using high iso settings on the DSLR anymore. I was quite impressed.
I only had 3 methods of NR which included DPP (Digital Photo Professional), Noise ninja, and “Camera RAW” with photoshop. I tried all on the same photo which i’ve taken a 100% crop sample of. I tried to include a mix of textures in the sample.
View the image below at it’s largest size and you immediately you notice each process produced quite different results.
The original photo was taken indoors with dim light. The digital noise isnt that bad really, i have other photos that are worse, but i chose this as it had several different textures and is common of the iso noise i get.
Camera RAW seemed to keep the most “faithful” colours, but blurred pretty much everything. Some detail was lost particularly in the edges, which gave an overall soft look to the photo. It seemed to get rid of both noise and grain which are two different things really. By getting rid of some grain it lost a bit of sharpness and detail.
DPP was a little less full on when it came to removing the grain. It still has quite a bit which helps keep some overall sharpness. To my eyes it has a nicer contrast and colour too. I’d never used DPP before, but it looks to be quite effective.
Noise Ninja was again different. I downloaded the 400D (Rebel XTi) NR profile from the manufacturer website and gave it a go. It appears to be bit of a mixed bag. I like how it’s kept some edge sharpness, more than the other programs, but it makes the skin look like plastic. Some people might like that as bit of an airbrushed skin shortcut, but its not to my tastes. The colour has again changed from the original, probably the most drastic out of all. It was also introduced some of its own fragments to the image which look a little messy, this might be treatable in the setting panel which i didnt play around with (i just used standard setting for all).
After looking at the 3 noise reduction programs, i have to say i quite like them all in one way or another.
I’d never used DPP before, but i liked how it treated the image. It still has some grain, but removes most of the digital noise which is what i want most. It had nice contrast i thought, and the colours looked fine too. The only downside is that theres not many options for individual settings. So fine tuning is pretty much out of the question. (It almost seems as though it was bit of an after thought with the DPP software, but thats another story).
Noise ninja seems very powerful with a large range of fine tuning options. I think once i play around with it i’ll be able to reduce the plastic skin look. The colours looked quite different from the original too, but thats probably another thing that can be fixed also. The program seems to need a bit of fine tuning which is to be expected i guess. But the whole idea is to minimise hours infront of the computer, if i have to play around with NN each time i use it, i’ll probably lose interest. Thats just a personal thing though.
Then theres Camera RAW which seems fine, but would probably be my last choice. It just seems to give bit of an overall blur to the image, which isnt all that useful.
I guess it all comes down to personal preference. If i can get Noise Ninja sorted out, i’ll use that the most. Otherwise i’ll go with DPP and its simplicity.
Red Filter
found an old red filter in one of my camera bags today and thoguht i’d try it out with the remainign film in the camera. For a while now i’ve been wondering what differences it can make to black and white photography, i decided to shoot two identical shots to see the difference with and without the filter (i was looking for ways to finish the roll off, haha)
I have to say i was quite surprised by the boost in contrast it gives. I never imagined it’d be that much.
The example shots below probably didnt have the best subject matter or setting to see the full advantage of a red filter but i took some photos afterwards that really benefited from it (will post them later).
I think a red filter will be living on my camera most of the time now.
A nice surprise
Well i started off having a pretty bad morning today before i’d even left for work. But when i got there i had a nice surprise.
I looked on my desk and saw something that i definitely didn’t leave there the previous day. It was in the shape of a crusty old looking Olympus OM1. Awesome!
See the good thing about being known as a “camera/photo guy” among friends is that when one of them sees a camera they think of you.. And this is what happened in this instance. One of the people i work with was at a garage sale earlier on. Unfortunately it was full of the usual plastic toys and old babies clothes… All useless shit (i don’t know why you’d want to buy your newly born baby some old babies clothes that the previous occupant has probably crapped in a dozen times). Anyway, that’s a whole other story.
The guy from work was at this garage sale full of useless crap when he spotted the Olympus. It was covered in dust and grime but still thought of me (hmm, maybe that’s not a good thing?). The asking price was a huge $2, so he bought it for me. I was totally taken back by the gesture as nobody has ever actually bought me an old camera, especially a good one, and especially one that i can actually use with all my other lenses etc. Generally people try to stop me buying old camera stuff and steer me away from anything that i’ll probably end up buying. So yeah, i was extremely happy, and it made my day.
The camera itself is very rough. As in, its the poorest condition camera i’ve ever owned. But i know for a fact it’ll be working perfectly it next to no time. I started off by cleaning it tonight and it’s come up wonderful. The only negative side to cleaning up the camera body is that you suddenly see all the bumps in it that were previously covered up. It was clear from the beginning that this camera will never be a show piece, but i always wanted an OM1 to use, its close to the perfect SLR.
So anyway, after cleaning the body up i thought i should check out to see if the thing actually works. The viewfinder was perfectly clean which was a relief. Then i noticed the light meter needle which was moving as i changed apertures and shutter speeds. Woohoo! That seems to be working, just not sure how accurate it is, but definitely a positive. Quickly fixed the film rewind lever that was assembled wrong (somone must of taken it apart in the past and put it back together wrong.
Next was to see if the shutter actually fired. This is where things get a little less perfect. Well, the shutter itself fires beautifully and at all different speeds. But to get the shutter to fire i need to advance the film lever which is a little strange. For some reason it wont wind fully the first go, so i’ll have to give it 1 wind and a bit for the shutter to be able to fire. Obviously it just needs an adjustment, and it actually still works fine in the end. This thing will be working perfectly soon, but i might start using it before then anyway 
Below is a quick picture of the beast before the clean (It actually looks alot cleaner in the photo than in real life). I’m too tired to post up the cleaned version, so i’ll do that another time. But as you can see, the camera was pretty crappy. Oh it also came with the 50mm f/1.8 lens too which didn’t work until i took it apart also Was definitely a learning experience as i’d never taken a lens apart and had no instructions. I managed to get all the dust out of it and clean the aperture “thingy” (technical word). It all seems to work perfectly, but will probably seize up soon, as i didn’t lubricate any of the parts when i put it back together.
So yeah, here it is so far. I’m looking forward to eventually taking some pictures with it and posting them up here.
Ghetto style light box
Well i’ve been meaning to make one for a while now, and this afternoon i finally did it.
All you need to do is cut out the sides of a cardboard box and cover it with white paper/tracing paper/white plastic etc… Only took about 10 minutes also which was good as my concentration span doesnt often last much longer than that.
The idea is that the light box provides a nice soft even light source to the object placed inside. Its best to have the same type of light on the outside to help with white-balance etc. As you can see my white balances are off as i ended up using 4 completely different light sources, which wasnt ideal.
I think i got an ok result for a first time. I need to work on focusing and composition, aswell as exposure and controlling the harshness of the lights a bit more.. So basically everything..
I’m looking forward to giving it another go.
Here are a few of my results so far (yeah, white balance is pretty badly out).
Oh, and here is my dodgy setup complete with messy room
