Pre-wind?

[vintageslrs]

Hi Everyone

I just became aware (thanks to Sherri) about the feature called pre-wind. I never knew it existed. Seems like a solution to a problem that didn't exist, to me---LOL.
Anyway, does the Minolta Maxxum 70 and Qtsi have that feature?

and question # 2----is there any difference between the following two batteries---CR2 and CR 123A.

thanks
Bob

[ellacoya1]

Would you believe, when I was trying to explain it to him, that he thought I was totally off of my rocker??

[casualcollector]

Bob is one of us, a neo-Luddite that can live without all that modern pre-wind technology stuff! I'll bet he still sticks a finger in his mouth then holds it up to the sun to estimate exposure!!

[John Parry]

I have it on an old Canon Eos (my only Canon!) Like you I was hard-pressed to think of a reason for it Bob. The only thing I could think of was that on an almost flat battery you wouldn't have the power surge of the re-wind to kill it dead and get the film stuck at the end of a roll.

Funnily enough, one of my Yashica 230AFs (which rewinds conventionally at the end of the roll) has a fault on it, whereby it doesn't recognise the increased tension at the end. Instead of going into automatic rewind it neatly snips the sprocket holes, and carries on superimposing shot after shot on top of the last one until you happen to glance at how many exposures you've taken, see that its 48, and start the rewind manually. No harm done, except that you've lost that award winning, once in a lifetime exposure that was shot number 45.

But had it been pre-wind it would carry on winding until the battery (not cheap!) was flat as a pancake, and the whole film would be ruined. (You COULD unload the film in the dark and rewind it, but life's too short). Also, the camera would have to go into a repair shop, and that would cost more than the camera was worth.

That's a long winded way of saying that I can think of ONE instance where post-winding is better than pre-winding.

Never mind. Forget it...

Regards - John

[olroy2044]

OK, I'll Bite. What the h*** s pre-wind?

[John Parry]

Roy

When you load a film into a pre-wind camera and close the back, the camera winds the film to the end before you have even taken any pictures. Then as you take the shots, it moves the film backwards. When it reaches the last shot it just has to re-wind the last couple of inches instead of the whole film as on a normal camera.

Regards - John

[mickeyobe]

I thought pre-wind was the act of advancing the film and cocking the shutter immediately after taking a picture.
Thus you are always instantly ready to take the next photo.

Mickey

[olroy2044]

Thanks John. That's kinda what I thought.But I don't own any auto wind cameras except a couple of cheap P&S that reside in the nether reaches of a drawer somewhere

That begs a question: Why? Roy

[ellacoya1]

Jul 8, 2009 20:09:35 GMT -5 casualcollector said:

Bob is one of us, a neo-Luddite that can live without all that modern pre-wind technology stuff! I'll bet he still sticks a finger in his mouth then holds it up to the sun to estimate exposure!!

Hmmm, so you've been out shooting with Bob, huh? That's him exactly!!! ;D Usually while saying "Meters???, We don't need no stinking meters!!"

I just wish you all could have seen the look on Bob's face when I was trying to explain it to him....as I was playing with a Canon Eos Rebel 2000 we'd picked up at the flea market on Sunday. I don't really think much of it one way or another, but I had run into it before. When my kids were little most of the family snapshots were taken with a series of Pentax IQ zooms and at least one of them had that feature, so I'd run into it before. It does get confusing though...because the counters count backwards, so you have to remember which camera you're using.
And Roy, I don't even question it, lol. It just is what it is!!

[drako]

We don't need no stinkin' badges!

www.goldmountainmining.com/stinkin-badges-sierra-madre.html

(posted on my western shopping site)

[daveh]

The main value of pre-wind is that if the back is inadvertently opened all but the last frame taken (or possibly two) is safely back in the cassette, while the film that is ruined is the (previously) unexposed part.

Own up, who has opened a camera back and found it has film loaded?

To answer the battery question, if you still need it answering, same voltage, but the CR2 is slightly smaller.

[PeterW]

You get the best of both worlds, pre-wind and post-wind, if you use a cassette to casette system as on the Exakta, Contax and Kiev.

PeterW

[daveh]

True, Peter, and with that system you don't get the frame numbers the wrong way round. I must have had (or at least had use of) a pre-wind camera some time in the past, because I do have a few 35mm negatives that are numbered backwards.

One camera I did have - I think one of the Yashica T series - had normal electric wind on to a spool. Then, when the end of film was reached, it automatically wound back into the cassette. That was fine till someone else picked the camera up and took the last ten frames or so, then switched the power off during rewind. I picked it up and starting retaking. When developed I had a dozen or so double exposures at the end of the film.

[Rachel]

I have one camera which pre-winds .... a Canon EOS like John's. I can't say that it really bothers me. It doesn't affect how I use it.

And, yes, I've opened a camera back to find a film still in there

[daveh]

I do now have another pre-wind camera, which I bought a few weeks ago , but I am still on the first film though it - an EOS1000.