My photography is going vintage. During lock down I have far more time than what I know what to do with. Looking on eBay I saw a Halina A1 TLR camera for very little money and decided to bid on it. I was the only bidder and won. It was delivered promptly and as expected, the focus helicoids were frozen by the grease used in manufacturing. The reflex mirror and ground glass were also quite dusty. After watching repair videos on Ricohflex (Halina A1 is a direct copy of the Ricohflex) I was able to release the helicoids and lubricate with modern chain oil. Also had to reset the focus the lenses. After cleaning the reflex mirror and ground glass, the waist level finder is quite useable in daylight. The leatherettes were failing apart. I therefore decided to remove them all and painted the metal in silver. Here is the camera after my mods and fully working
Camara: Halina A1
Lens: Halina Anastigmat 1:3.5 F=80mm C lens
Shutter speed: B, 1/25, 1/50 and 1/100s
I loaded with 135mm Kodak Colorplus 200 film for sprocket photography and also to test the camera works. You really do not know if a film camera works until you run a roll of film through it. I made sure to taped up the rear red window and the tripod socket mount to stop light leak. These are the results. They were shot on a sunny day during a walk in London.
In summary, I was able to get quite good results from this camera, I do have some reservations about it. The camera is very light and the focus screen reasonably bright in day light. The lack of shutter speeds is very limiting. During the day, with the 1/100s max shutter speed, I had to stop down the lens to F16 or smaller all the time. It will not be able to get shallow depth of field images. This make the camera unsuitable for portraits. Also the lack of slower shutter speed will restrict it use during low light situations. During good light, you can get good results but very limiting. It may now be used as a display camera at my home. Although I do intend to shoot with it now and then.
