Posted inCamera & Lens Repair Photography

Rollei 35 TE Repairs

I bought a Rollei 35 TE recently that had a couple of issues, and it was driving me bonkers that I could find very little information online about this great camera. Everything I could find, including the service manual, was for the previous generation 35, S and T series cameras.

The issues with my TE were in the meter and lens barrel. The lens barrel was loose and when retracted the lens kept flopping out. (This is a common ailment with all Rollei 35 cameras.) The other problem was that the meter would not auto-off after 10 seconds as stated in the manual. It was always on as long as there was a battery in the chamber.

Metering was spot on and agreed perfectly with my Gossen Lunasix3 and the camera still took a great picture despite these issues, but they were quickly becoming a major annoyance. Since all the repair estimates I got were for much more than what the camera cost me (and often more than what I could realistically sell it on eBay for) and did not guarantee the meter could be repaired or replaced (in fact most were convinced it could not). I decided to try to fix it myself and document the process for others that might be facing the same issues.

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Posted inCamera & Lens Repair Photography

Yashica Electro 35 GSN Rangefinder Replacement

My first attempt at finding a working copy of one of these fabulous but mechanically and electronically finicky cameras landed me a fine looking example of electronics that were way beyond repair. Still, the $30 price of admission was well worth the entertainment value of trying to fix it up. 🙂

The second attempt was an eBay buy that was maybe a 9.5 cosmetically and sound mechanically but had one major flaw which made it a pain to use… The rangefinder spot in the viewer that is used to focus was almost non-existent. For extra fun, it also had just a bit of vertical misalignment causing a “double vision” effect which made focusing difficult even on bright days.

Since I had the parts from a whole other camera, (happily the focusing mechanism on the broken GSN was in stellar shape) I decided it was high time to perform a little surgery and build… a Frankie.

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Posted inAstronomy CCD Cameras & Autoguiders

StarlightXpress MX7C to MX716 Conversion


Shortly after I bought my MX7C I read that the hardware in the MX5C and MX516 were the same, and all that needed to be substituted was the CCD chip. I contacted Terry Platt of StarlightXpress and asked if this was the same for the MX7C line of cameras. Happily he confirmed that this was the correct, and I put in an order for a Sony ICX249AL CCD chip directly to StarlightXpress.

Now why bother with a mono chip? Why the heck did I buy a color camera in the 1st place? Well, the convenience of 1 shot color is still a huge plus for me but the possibility of having a mono chip capable of taking more sensitive luminance images to combine with the color data was intriguing. Not having to buy another camera to be able to do this was what sold me on the idea…

Posted inAstronomy CCD Cameras & Autoguiders

CCD Cookbook CB245 Autoguider

This is page will hopefully help some out there build the CCD Cookbook based autoguider circuit and provide some background on how to connect one to an LX50.

April 13, 2003, update: Due to, among other things, time constraints and a brand-spanking-new MX7C, this autoguider is pretty much an abandoned project. Which isn’t to say that I won’t give folks a hand if they need it. I have some goodies that may be of help or at least a starting point for this project.

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Posted inAstronomy Software

Win245 CCD CookBook Camera Software by Tybee Evans

Win245 is by far the best image acquisition software available for Richard Berry’s CCD Cookbook based CB245 camera. The intuitive Windows interface makes taking a sequence of images, taking dark and bias frames very easy. The “Find” function is super helpful for framing and focusing, and it also allows taking sub-1 second integrations for brighter targets for planetary and lunar imaging. Also included are functions to average and manage dark frames.


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