Welcome to October!

Last month, I was working through my junk box and almost emptied it. Then, last weekend I went to Coventry to meet a new friend and he gave me another batch of cameras. So this month I do not have a theme, other than to empty my box again.

I have been waiting to post about this camera for a while. I got it from eBay, but it was just over the £5 limit I set myself for September. This one was £7.99, so still a bargain really.

In this line, I have already tried the Optima III S, which wasn’t overly successful due to the slow speeds the camera chose. This version of the optima was also automatic, but the camera seemed to choose much faster speeds for the shots. It was produced in the early 1960s and this is the H2 version according to this site as the speeds go to 1/200th. While the III had a rangefinder, this version had to be zone focused.

I looked back at my notes before writing this post and I wrote about manual speeds based on the asa selection:
32asa = 1/60th
50asa = 1/125th
100asa = 1/250th

I think I got those notes from Mike Eckman’s post about this camera. Anyway, it meant you could set the aperture manually if the selenium cell was dead. There was an issue though. If you took the camera off auto to set the aperture, the only speed it shot at was 1/30th. So really, my notes were superfluous 🙁 Luckily, the light meter on my example did work, so I shot my test roll of Analogue Wonderpan on auto 🙂

You have to set the film counter manually after loading the film and the camera counts down from there.

I used the camera on a trip to Cambridge. Here are most of the shots taken mainly around the back streets and not the touristy areas, which were far too busy.

I actually enjoyed using the Optima I. It had the same long throw as the III and also needed that ‘click’ at the end to cock the shutter. The shutter release button was much easier to press on this example. Like the III, the camera did not have strap lugs so I had to keep it in the case or use it entirely out of it. The case did not split for me.

Unfortunately for this camera, I have quite a few others that I prefer so I don’t think I will be using it again. I think I will passed this camera on to someone else to try and enjoy.

And now to focus on Holga Week.