As a small diversion, I'll make a note about a little camera that arrived at the weekend.
It's a Welmy.
Some years ago, I was looking for a cheap manual focus 28mm lens with an f2.5 min. aperture and I chanced upon one made by Welmy. There was nothing I could find about it on the W's, but it was so cheap that I bought it before I tried to do the research. When it arrived, it had suffered at the mercy of a ham fisted postal worker. I got my cash back but I remained intrigued by the brand. I did a little more rooting around and discovered that Welmy had been a maker of 6x6 folders back in the past and, ever since then, I've seen the odd one for sale and wondered whether it might be fun to try one out. I never did, but then, last week, I spotted a 35mm camera with the Welmy name engraved on the top plate.
Again, there was very little information about it on the internet, but enough to make me want to take a punt at it. The most interesting thing to me was that it looked to be tiny but sturdily built like a proper camera.
So, I placed a bid with 4 seconds to go, and as the only one in the race, I snagged it for the starting price of a tenner.
Right enough, when it arrived, it turned out to be built almost entirely of metal. It was actually a little larger than the photos had led me to believe, but still pretty small. It came in a full leather never-ready case and was nice and clean.
Turning to the controls was not so good. Every single thing apart from the film advance and the shutter button was jammed up solid!
However, after only about ten minutes of work, all of the controls were moving fairly freely and the shutter was cocking and firing, but not returning to the closed position. I kept at it and within another 20 minutes, the controls became nicely smooth, the shutter was behaving and responding to the appropriate speed setting - everything seemed fine.
It's not a rangefinder, so there's no aid to focusing, other than the scale on the lens and your own sense of distances. There is, however, a depth of field scale, so that helps. Also, there's no meter, so we're well into fully manual territory.
There are four speeds up to 1/200th plus bulb and a 45mm f/3.5 lens. What I had originally thought to be a focusing tab on the lower edge of the lens housing was, in fact a sturdily built aperture adjuster.
The frame counter is different to most, as you set the number of frames on the film and it counts down, telling you how many you have left.
So, I stuck a short roll of home loaded Fomapan 200 in it and gave it a whirl. Since the roll only had 4 or 5 exposures on it, I never left the back garden, so the scenes were some much repeated test views.
Not too bad then!
There is a little problem with the frame advance, but it can be overcome with a little resistance from a finger on the rewind knob. I suspect the pressure plate needs a little adjustment, so there's a job for a rainy day.
A tenner well spent!
