The Film Retriever

This is a short review of the Seconik Microlite I picked up from a charity shop for just £3.5. The only resources i could find online was the manual where it can be downloaded from here . General The Seconik Microlite comes from the early '70s and it uses the long discontinued 640 1,35V Mercury cells. In my case I am using the SR44 silver oxide batteries providing 1.5V output together with a bit silver foil. As we are going to see, the 0,15V difference between the two cells can make a difference of about 1 stop under-exposure. Make sure that the silver foil is enough to provide a constant and steady touch of the base otherwise the meter's needle will be "jumping around" as a result of the battery not making contact. Features The Seconik Microlite is a CdS, reflected light reading only meter. It uses the simple "match the needles" principle and it is very easy to use. Just set the ASA and rotate the wheel until the needles coincide. The meter can be used in t...

Last summer (2009) the lens on my Canon EOS 5 ceased working so i was thinking of ways to finance a new lens for it. I was passing by a charity shop and there it was in the window , a Yashica T4 for £10. I could sell it on eBay for the ridiculous amount of £100 and buy a new lens for my Canon. I've run a couple of films through it and I can only say that this is a really -really- good camera producing top notch pictures. Is it worth the £100 price tag? I seriously doubt. The main selling point of this camera is of course the Carl Zeiss Tessar T* 35 f/3.5 lens. It has a nice blue coating and it is very sharp and controls flare very well. Here are some pictures of what this lens can do ( pic1 , pic2 , pic3 , pic4 ). Not bad at all. I've read somewhere on the internet that it is even sharper than the Contax T2 sonnar lens. Maybe, although i doubt about it. The lens can vignette a bit but i suppose it is normal with such a small front element. Overall it is a really nice lens ...