Chinon 35 EE-II

 

This Chinon 35 EE-II is the first camera that I had not used prior to this project. Sometimes you just have to trust that a camera still has the ability to capture a moment.

I picked it up on eBay because it looked to be in good shape.  It turns out the battery wire was fried from battery leak. It was real tricky getting in there to solder the wire. My first attempt to fix this was not successful. After taking a step back, I revisited the repair and was able to get it fixed the second time around. 

The battery situation took some thinking to figure out. It was originally powered by two of the thicker batteries. I stacked two modern batteries on one side and used a brass nut to bridge the other side of the connection. This seems to work just fine and everything worked okay after I did this.

This is an aperture priority rangefinder fitted with a 38mm/f2.7 lens. You select the aperture and the camera will select the shutter speed. The shutter speed is not represented anywhere on the camera or in the viewfinder. There are over/under lights (green/red/green) directly to the right of the viewfinder that you can see as you depress the shutter release. It's good to know that the max shutter time is around 10 seconds. You will get the under exposure warning any time the camera will require a long shutter speed to get the correct exposure. Don't be afraid to use a tripod to get the shot you're looking for. 

The camera has a shutter release lock that could be handy. Personally, I don't advance the film and cock the shutter until I'm ready to take the picture. That's a habit I've developed since I have so many cameras that tension the shutter when you advance the film.

As pointed out on other sites, there isn't an owner's manual readily available on the internet. 

The exposures were pretty good on most of the pictures but the camera didn't produce consistent results. Although this camera is compact and easy to use, it doesn't hold a candle to the Olympus XA.

I used Kodak Tri-X 400 and Orwo UN54 (100 iso) film this month. Developed using the R5 Monobath Developer. Scanned with an Epson V550.

Next month's camera: Franka Solida III

introduction

I knew it was a bad idea to count up the number of film cameras I own. I thought I had maybe 12 and had a great idea of using a single film camera each month for an entire year. As it turns out, I actually own 18 vintage film cameras. 

So I've decided to spend the next year and a half using these cameras and sharing my results here. I’m not setting any rules regarding film (black and white? color?) or how many pictures I can take in any given month. My only rule will be that I will only carry one single camera for the entire month.

The Line-Up:

Manual Cameras:

Agfa Solinette

Agfa Isoflash Rapid C

Canon Demi EE17 (half frame)

Medium Format:

Ansco Color Clipper (w/flash)

Petri

Ansco Titan

Franka Solida III

Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex 1b

SLR’s:

Sears TLS

GAF L-17

Konica Autorex (full and half-frame)

Rangefinders:

Olympus XA

Konica Auto S

Chinon 35 EE II

Vivitar 35ES

Yashica Electro 35 CC

Ricoh 500G

Fujica 35 EE

I will try to mix it up from month to month but—due to the disproportion of certain camera styles—this won’t be mathematically possible. Actually, I think I’ll shoot these cameras in alphabetical order because it’s a pretty good mix that way.