This blog starts sad but has a happy ending. Phew, that’s good as this camera is one of my dead hand cameras.

The story starts innocently enough, a friend asked if he could borrow the C2 as he was thinking of buying one. As we would be spending the day together on a walk, I didn’t have an issue with it. My friend, who shall remain anonymous, was very knowledgeable about cameras and I had full trust in his abilities.

He loved using the camera and when he had finished the roll of film, he handed it back to me. My heart sank…

Oh no, it looked bad…and expensive. I was remarkably calm and tried to ease the guilt of my friend. He felt awful. Plus, at the end of the day, vintage cameras do break or deteriorate, sometimes without any outside help. Though I do believe the big hole to be ‘thumb’ sized, the edge damaged was probably wear and tear.

But what to do? Was the camera now ruined?

Unfortunately, I had just bought a couple of new lenses and now have four for this system, so if it was damaged beyond repair, I would have to invest in a new body. Mechanically, it was still working fine so it might just be the bellows. Just…

I researched the price of sending it out for bellow repair and it was expensive. Another body would be the same price. Even if I replace the bellows myself, the parts would still be expensive, almost the price of a replacement body.

Bugger. I held it and looked it over. And that is when I saw a glimmer of hope. There was another bellows inside the broken one. It turned out that the broken bellows was just for the viewfinder, not the actual ‘taking’ lens. If the taking lens bellows was still intact, I might be in luck. I tested it with a torch and it was fine, phew. All might be OK.

OK, so how to repair the outer bellows? It didn’t have to be totally light tight, just not ‘holey’. I researched glues and bellows repair tape. The former needed to be flexible and the latter seemed a little small for the size of the hole. What about a simple fix? Tissue paper and PVA glue, watered down PVA. It would be pliable enough when wet to form around the bellow’s folds. Once dry it would be strong enough to withstand my occasional use and flexible enough to move in and out while focusing. So that was the plan I decided to go with.

I started with some masking tape to fix all the folds and holes in place. While doing this, I saw some old bellows repair tape inside. This camera has been through the wars.

I decided to take out the mirror and focusing screen to protect it from any damaged during the repair, plus I could give them a clean in the process. I applied some tissue paper and PVA on the inside first, I let it dry, then removed the tape on the outside. I then added more PVA and tissue paper to the outside. Again, I let it dry and repeated the process…without the tape.

It took a few days to complete and dry thoroughly. Throughout this process, I left the bellows fully extended. I taped the dials down to remind myself not to even attempt to move them. I wanted everything to be bone dry before I tried to collapsed them. Hopefully, this would avoid the tissue paper and glue sticking and the new repair to fold in the correct manner.

The insides were tricky to apply, but as I said they didn’t need to be light tight or even neat…just stable and strong-ish.

Once finished, I decided to add some red circles of tissue for decoration and distraction.

With that done, and dry, I could now replace the mirror and focusing screen to check the viewfinder. Wow, it was actually brighter than I had ever seen it, probably due to the darker bellows. How pretty is this?

But did it still work and focus correctly? I loaded some expired Fuji Acros and took it on a walk in Leeds.

Here are some of the results:

Yatta!!!!

No light leaks, everything worked and it looks great! I am so proud of myself. I didn’t panic and came up with a fix that cost less than £10.

I tried another film but it was an expired Fuji Velvia, that didn’t come out quite so well. It was nothing to do with the camera, just the state of the film. I used Snapseed to convert some of them to monochrome and add some contrast.

Still no light leaks even after I have moved the bellows many times now 🙂

I am so happy with my repair, this camera is now the top of my favourite cameras.