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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 7, 2008 1:10:28 GMT -5
I've been&gone&done it - & boy will my wife be mad. it's snowing here, but that didn't prevent me jumping around the room when I won the auction for this... No No more M39 for Me! This is a Braun Paxette Super III Automatic & it has a real bayonet, would you believe? Now it's waiting, waiting, for delivery. Will it click? will the meter work? Will the coupling be OK? Will my wife speak to me again? I predict an immanent culling of the brood is in my near future to pay for all this. The deal maker is the 3 lenses -35mm, 50mm & 90mm. 135mm and 200mm were also available for the Paxette Super III, but my experience of 135s on the super II B L has taught me that longer teles don't really mix that well with the Paxette Super's rather meager rangefinder baseline. At least the III got a shutter release up on the top plate. Hopefully my rate of accidentally tripped shutters will decrease now. waiting, waiting, waiting.
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Post by bcomber2 on Jun 7, 2008 16:30:00 GMT -5
He who waits.... Good catch! Amazing what can be found at the bottom left corner!
Dave
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 10, 2008 16:03:57 GMT -5
Thanks, Dave. Braun cameras must have been imported down here in large numbers, there is always at least 1 Super Paxette II L on our local auction site at any given time. The bayonet mount Super Paxettes are, however, much rarer beasts. Hence my happiness. What really interests me is that the bottom half of the body is the same old Paxette chassis, only lightly modified from its postwar release. Braun's design engineers really did seem to be able to "make do" with what they had.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 12, 2008 21:48:24 GMT -5
In my hot little hands at last. What surprised me is that while the chassis follows the same basic design of the earlier Paxettes, it has been put on steroids: Left: Super Paxette III Automatic (Introduced 1958) Right: Super Paxette II B L (introduced 1957) The viewfinder has been moved and has a better rangefinder baseline. To achieve this, the lever has been placed between the top plate and the chassis instead of on top of the plate. This has the side effect of making the rangefinder more accessible (no more recoiling the @#$%^&* winder spring every time you take off the top plate) 2 screws & its done. Just as well, coz there is bugger all dust proofing to keep things clean! Some things don't change though. You still have to crank that durned rewind lever 75 times to get through 36 roll films, & the winder is still 2 strokes per frame too. Ergs are a huge improvement, especially the lens barrel. The shutter release is more conventional, but much heavier than the barrel mounted release on the old Paxettes. The bayonet is interesting. The King Regula IIID uses the same system, or so the net tells me, but differing aperture couplings mean lenses are not interchangeable between the 2 brands. Metering is coupled, hence, I guess, the fact that the aperture ring stays with the body. Prontor SLK Shutter is 1-300 & B versus the II BL's SVS 1 - 500 & B. Braun's Engineers certainly must have been busy in the Fifties. The Super III Automatic somehow loses the cuteness of the earlier Braun 35mm cameras, but I do like the improvement to the viewfinder/rangefinder and ergonomics. Gone too is the slightly beetle brow, cyclops effect of the Supper II B L.
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Post by paulatukcamera on Jun 13, 2008 0:43:44 GMT -5
Michael - an excellent purchase. I have two. Why? Well one is in very small pieces after being dismantled. Why? I thought "Oh the lens on my Regula looks like it will fit" It does - smoothly and without fuss, so the mount is identical in most respects - except one! As I turned it round, there was a smart "click" as it locked into place and that was that! I just couldn't get it off, so literally had to dismantle the camera. Being an incompetant dismantler, I couldn't get the camera together again. Further traps for the unwary. I have now acquired a Photavit 35 which looks like it also has an identical mount. I am not trying to find out! Now you are into Paxettes, thought I'd set you a small test for your model recognition skills: Warning: This is a trick question! ;D Paul
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 13, 2008 3:14:54 GMT -5
Paul, now there is a challenge. On the right is, I'd guess, a Super Paxette II L, though there is really no way to tell if it is a I or a II without looking for the "buttresses" on the front. I'd say it is not a II B L (with the Bewi light meter), because they have "II B L" engraved below the frame counter/accessory shoe, & it hasn't got the light meter bezel anyway Speaking of which, The camera on the left is missing some Paxette "features". No Manually reset frame counter under the accessory shoe and a catch for the back cover release rather than the familiar Paxette central tripod mount/back release. I would've said Voigtlander or Zeiss Ikon, both of which produced cameras outwardly similar to the late 50s Paxettes, but the back releases wrongly for either of those. OK, I got you. Agimatic. I cheated and headed for Chrome Age Cameras www.chromeagecamera.com/ChromeAgeCollection.htmwhich is a great visual database of quirky 50s/60s consumer cameras. I then image searched Agimatic & tracked you down. Very interesting. Is this from the same company? www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/Film-cameras/Other-formats/auction-159411853.htmOne for the enthusiast or truly manic collector. I now have a confession to make. The 90 MM lens for the Super III Automatic is already sitting on my workbench in many parts. It needed a clean, you see. I know how it goes together, but every time I assemble it, something binds. Sound familiar? I would go broke as a camera repairman. I take too long. Still, the 35 & 50 are ready for a tryout this weekend.
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Post by Just Plain Curt on Jun 13, 2008 20:42:59 GMT -5
Excellent cameras you have there Michael and Paul. My poor Paxettes include two of the original old Paxette (not sure which model) one with the winding spring hopelessly uncoiled, thank goodness for the knurled knob beneath so it's still functional. I recently redid my entire notebook with my whole collection indexed and I must've screwd up 'cause I find cameras on shelves right in front of me that I don't even have on my list. This same Braun Paxette Super III Automatic is one such critter only mine has the Braun-Color-Ultralit SLK 1:2.8/50 Isco #680151.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 14, 2008 2:13:23 GMT -5
Curt, I have the Color Ultralit in M39 Paxette screw mount. It's a nice lens, both ergonomically and optically. One nice feature about the III, though, is that all the Enna SLK lenses have the same 45mm filter threads. Convenient. I'd guess that the Color Ultralit in SLK would have the same filter size.
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Post by Just Plain Curt on Jun 14, 2008 7:01:10 GMT -5
Hi Michael, Nice crisp photos, looks like I'll need to run a roll of film through the camera on my next days off.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 17, 2008 23:53:08 GMT -5
Heh. I just noticed something that had escaped me thus far. All my screw mount Paxette lenses focus right to left (infinity is on the right hand side of the aperture/focus mark as you hold the camera facing away from you so that you twist the focussing ring counter clockwise to reach infinity).
The Bayonet lenses work opposite, so you turn the ring clockwise to reach infinity.
Curt, clockwise or counter clockwise for your Color Ultralit? All my Paxette III lenses are Ennas, but I'm guessing the Staeble made lens will turn the same way.
How odd for different models from the same company to contain such a fundamental variation.
I'm looking forward to seeing some shots from your Paxette III/Color Ultralit set up.
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Post by paulatukcamera on Jun 18, 2008 15:27:43 GMT -5
JUst checked, my screw thread Tessar does go the opposite way to the f1.9 bayonet mount Color Ennalyt. Will check the others - when I can disinter them from behind the pile of books & magazines in front of the drawer I keep them in. That's the trouble with buying too much for the available storage space. Must be a lesson somewhere. Here is a warning for hoarders everywhere: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7106215.stmMy wife is convinced it could happen to me! Paul
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 18, 2008 15:59:33 GMT -5
Paul, I took my first step to recovery last night - I (whisper it) sold a camera. I even avoided buying another one half an hour later (though the Ricoh "five one nine" late fifties rangefinder with f1.9 Rikenon fixed lens was tempting).
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PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
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Post by PeterW on Jun 18, 2008 16:57:47 GMT -5
Paul, I haven't quite got to the tunneling stage yet. The reporter keeps using the word rubbish. Yet he calls Mr. Jones a compulsive collector. A reporter with limited imagination, or just limited experience? I wonder just how much of Mr. Jones' massive hoard was actually rubbish and how many items were saleable collectables. I suppose it will all be carted off to the recycling plant now, so we shall never know. In a fit of tidying up (and under dire threats from my daughter in law) I turned out just two cupboards (closets) a month or two ago. Stuff I'd forgotten I had after living for 40 odd years in the same house. I gave a couple of boxes of non-working cameras to Stephen (hope some of them came in useful, Steve, if only for spare screws), and put the rest of the stuff on ebay with opening bids from £0.99 to £1.99, three-day sale. All but two items sold, most for far more than I'd ever expected. Things I thought wouldn't even get a bid, like a couple of 1930s cheap alarm clocks ('ticks but doesn't keep going') and old AM transistor radios from the 1950s and 1960s (listed as 'no batteries, probably not working'), fetched the highest prices. All plus postage. Within five days my paypal account was nearly £250 better off! I spent two days parcelling the items and carting them off to the post office. I even showed a profit of £1.27 on the estimated post and packing after allowing for the cost of boxes and parcel tape, and got 100 per cent positive feedback with phrases like 'great item' and 'very pleased, will do business again'. OK, feedbackers, you'll get a chance when I clear out some more cupboards. Truly, one man's rubbish is another man's treasure. Makes you think, doesn't it? Clear the "rubbish" out now and enjoy some extra cash. If you don't, your descendants will probably pay someone to cart it away - and they'll probably put it on ebay! PeterW
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Post by Just Plain Curt on Jun 18, 2008 22:20:44 GMT -5
Hi Michael, Clockwise for infinity on the Color-Ultralit bayonet mount on my Paxette Super III Automatic.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jun 19, 2008 3:50:23 GMT -5
Well done, Peter. From 1997 to 2004 I avoided collecting too much junk by basically living out of a backpack. I knew that everything I bought would have to be got rid of next time I moved on if it didn't fit back into either a pack or a set of bicycle panniers, depending on my mode of transport. In that time I managed to own a Nikon EM and F3, a clutch of mostly 3rd party lenses, an Oly OM2000, a Yashicamat 124G, a Mamiya Press Universal, an Eos 500 (rebel), a Phenix 205E and DC701 an Oly digital and my faithful Manfrotto 190 tripod. All gone except the Eos (which I never use, bless its plastic heart) the Phenixes (Phenii?) the digicam and the Manfrotto. It is the tripod which I'll never part with. Although I miss the Nikons, the Yashi and the Press Universal (what a ridiculous camera), I don't regret parting with them. All are obtainable again, and in the case of the F3 and the Mamiya, for much less than I paid for them 10 odd years ago. What I do regret is the book full of slides (over 30 rolls from Thailand) and boxes of prints that I've lost. No way to replace those. Now we live in a 3 bedroom home with a 3 bay garage, a workroom and a timber (lumber) shed. Junk is multiplying alarmingly. Next year we are heading back to China and already I'm sweating over the clearing out!
Which brings me to another question, a question which, incidentally, makes Curt and Paul's info about Paxette III lenses interesting.
Which rangefinder to take to China? The choice: Super Paxette II L & Paxette II B L (I have 35mm, 50mm & 135mm lenses but not the 85 or 90mm) Super Paxetet III Automatic (35mm, 50mm and 90mm -if I ever get the @#$$%& thing back together) Himatic 7 Himatic E Canon "New" Canonet QL19
Even though the Super Paxette III lenses have all suffered a little fungus, I'm leaning towards it. It handles much more like a modern (i.e.post 1960) camera than the older Paxettes (must try a test film this weekend). Then again, the QL19 is a reliable performer, is well made and owes me a grand total of 2 bucks.
I'll definitely be taking the Minolta XE-1 kit and since the plan is to do some "serious" travel photography, will likely invest in a DSLR & an up-to date P&S for street (Ricoh GR DII or GX100? yes please!) but I still want a "vintage" (I believe the Twenty-first Century phrase is "old skool") street shooter with me.
What do you reckon? Just like the Highlander, there can be only one.
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