Well last night I finally decided to do it, and thankfully the fix turned out to be quite easy, without me needed to dismantle the shutter assembly completely. All I had was a jewel screwdriver, a pair of long nose pliers, and a plastic bottle lid to keep the screws in. In addition I used some eclipse cleaning liquid to clean the inner parts of the lens while I had it open. A more complete dismantling of the shutter would probably require a bit more equipment, and a lot more time. All in all, the operation took me 2 hours, though it shouldn’t take me longer than 20 minutes now that I know what to do.
First we had to get the front plate and focusing lens off. First I undid the plate screws (marked A), the top two turned out to be a bit longer than the bottom one. After than I needed to remove the two screws (marked B) that also acted as the close and far limits to the focusing lens.

The focusing lens was just screwed on, and with the limiting screws removed is was easily screwed off. Thankfully I made a note of where the focus arrow ended up when the lens was tightened fully. In this case it was ever so slightly past where the infinity limit was. Once off, we were able to remove the front plate.

With the front plate off we could now see the leavers and not much else. At first I couldn’t find the screw to remove it, but then discovered it by turning the f-stop leaver to f/22 (screw D). The shutter speed dial had a hole in it that looked like it was made for a screw, but none were found underneath. Once screw D was removed, the plate came off quite easily with the whole shutter mechanism and rear lens/aperture assembly.

The rear part of the lens has a light seal around it that prevents any light leakage into the camera box itself.

A more serious shutter problem would entail removing the three screws visible in the image above, an operation that would be a whole lot more tricky than what was done so far. Thankfully the shutter sticking in the open position was due to a lack of lubrication and an excess of dirt where the shutter opening arm met the shutter speed dial.

A small amount of lubricant dabbed on after I had cleaned the metal surface with a cotton bud, and the shutter was once again working perfectly (or at least appeared to be). Reassembly was pretty straight forward, just reversing all the steps up to that point. With one little issue. Once the face plate was back on I screwed the focusing lens on only to find it stop at a different point than when I took it off. This would definitely effect focusing, so I removed it, turned it about 180 degrees and then screwed it back on. This time it was fully tightened at the correct point, so all that remained was to screw the face plate screws in and the camera was as good as new (new being +- 70 years old).

While there are no full reviews out for the GX-1S yet, it is a safe bet that you can use the Pentax *ist DS2 reviews.

While this camera is nothing to write home about, and seems to be a rather uncompetitive when compared to Canon and Nikon’s offerings, I hope this is the beginning of a more comprehensive range of Samsung/Pentax dSLR cameras that give Canon and Nikon a run for their money. Good competition never hurts the consumer, and a bit more competition in low end dSLR camera market will hopefully drop prices, thus leaving the new photographer with more money to buy good lenses.

Thought that Canon’s 16 megapixel camera was as larger resolution as you could get in a digital camera? Well think again, Hasselblad have just released their new 39 megapixel digital backs for medium format camera’s, a whopping 17 megapixel increase over their previous 22 megapixel models.

Designed specifically for Hasselblad’s H2D camera, this digital back will work with all view cameras through the use of Hasselblad’s H system adapters. While I cannot find reference to the actual pixel x – y resolution anywhere, I assume it will be 7200 x 5400, which is enough to do a 36 by 27 inch poster at 200 dpi.

With it’s 16 bit per channel colour, ability to store photo’s on CF, tethered firewire hard drive or PC/mac, and numerous other features; this is likely to be a big hit with serious professionals. Yet with the most expensive multi-shot version going for $40 000, us amateur photographers will just have to hope we win the lottery.

The Camera that is also a Bouncing Ball!

Yes you read it correctly, the camera that is also a bouncing ball. According to the creators:

You can take pictures with SatuGO by simply throwing it, when it hits a surface it takes a picture. SatuGO also has a built in timer and flash.
To activate either the flash or the timer, SatuGO has to be placed in the holder, now the user has to beat a specific rhythm on either the red or the black rubber part of the ball.
If the user chooses the timer he can punch seconds into it, the time chosen will be the interval for how often the camera will take a picture. When the camera is taken out of the holder the time starts.

Now before you rush out to the stores to buy this cool toy, you can’t… yet. It’s still just in the concept stage and it’s creators, Eschel Jacobsen & Mads Ny Larsen, are still looking for investors. They fully admit that this camera is not meant to take high quality photo’s, and I have no doubt the 99% of photo’s it takes while flying through the air will be little more that a blur.

Still, if it makes it to the shops, and is marketed properly, I have no doubt this could become a playground status symbol.

Read more at www.satugo.com

No no, I’m not that old. When my parents moved to our new house back in the early 1980′s we found it lying in a pile of junk left by the previous owners. At age 7, I was beginning to pester my father constantly whenever he had his cameras out, so I think he decided this was a great (and cheap) way to get me my own camera. It served me well for a few years, until I hit my teens and forgot all about photography. And if memory serves me correctly I spent many an hour in my fathers darkroom helping develop photos from it, and got at least a few good ones.

Well I was digging around in some old boxes the other day, and under a pile of magazines what should I find, but my old box camera. I pulled it out, blew off a ton of dust, and reminisced about my childhood. Then I sat down at my PC and got down to finding out just how old it really was. Made around 1932 apparently, which makes its condition a bit more understandable. I even found a manual for it online at butkus.org.

A bit rusty and dirty all over, most major parts appear to be okay; though it seems that the shutter speed dial is a bit rusted, and unfortunately the shutter itself appears to be stuck open, only ever closing when you half depress the shutter lever. So I guess I’m going to have to take the front lens mechanism apart and see what I can do. I’ve never done this before; and though this camera does seem to be very simple, I am a bit worried that I won’t be able to get it back together again. So if anyone out there has taken this particular model apart before a little advice would be nice.