[rollei_list] OT - Super Ikonta 6x6 532/16 Film Winding Anomaly
- From: "Robert Lilley" <54moggie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:51:39 -0500
Sorry for the off topic but thought I'd run this one by you all. A year and
half ago I sent my Super Ikonta 532/16 B to Henry Schere in California for
an overhaul. Well, the camera is now being worked on and as such I talked
to Henry about defeating the exposure interlock on the camera. As you may
know this camera suffers from overlapping frames especially in the beginning
of the roll. This is supposedly because the camera was designed to use
Zeiss film which was thicker than what is available today. I figured if
Henry could defeat the interlock that prevents double exposures, I could
position the next frame in the camera using the red window on the back. The
film counter would tell me the frame and the little number in the window
would tell me it was spaced properly. What follows is Henrys response after
trying all this out. According the Henry, Zeiss made a mistake. Has anybody
ever come across this or noticed this before? Thanks for your time.
Rob
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Our plan to defeat the automatic wind frame stop mechanism was undone by
Zeiss. I tested your camera with a roll of film to see how closely the film
counter matched the red window and got taught a new and very big lesson that
has gone unnoticed and unrevealed to anyone until now. Here it is: The red
window and the frame counter did not match and they did not match a lot.
When the camera frame counter read "11" the red window read "8". The
problem turns out to be very simple and there is no fix for it. Inside the
back of the camera is the notation embossed into the metal "B 2 1/4 x 3
1/4". The camera is a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 camera and a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 camera and
so the red window is positioned to read the numbers on the film backing
paper for nine exposures total which is for a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 camera. Now, if
you look at the Zeiss Ikon catalog the Super Ikonta "B" is supposed to be a
2 1/4 x 2 1/4 camera. So the back is wrong in two ways. The first is that
it should be embossed "2 1/4 x 2 1/4" instead of "2 1/4 X 3 1/4" and the red
window should be positioned in the middle of the back instead of at the top.
Having figured all this out I decided to check out my two Super Ikonta B
parts bodies to see if I had a real "B" back with the right size marking
with the window in the right place and guess what, both of them were just
like yours and one was made before the war and one was made after it. So
here's what happened. Zeiss screwed it up and made a million wrong backs
and decided to use them rather than dump them. It's likely that so many
backs had been made there never was a chance to correct the mistake. After
all, it didn't matter because the film wind was automatic and no one would
notice the difference. Well, it wouldn't be noticed until now. So I'm
going to go ahead and restore the automatic film wind interlock on your
camera and that will be that. If ever it happens that someone sends me a
Super Ikonta B with the right back I'll be sure to let you know but I don't
think this will ever happen."
---
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