My Adventures with Mamiya Press Super 23 Ordered from Japan

This blog post records how got my Mamiya Press Super 23 from Japan and share my experience, good or bad.  So here goes.  I have always wanted a Mamiya Press Super 23 or Universal.  I want to shoot panoramic with 35mm film and use it like a budget XPan.  It also give me the option of shooting 6x7 or 6x9 images if I want to do that.  I was looking through EBay and started to watch a few cameras and settled on a Super 23 with 100mm F3.5 lens with two film backs.  The film backs are 6x7 and 6x9.  The camera was ordered and I started track it.  The camera was shipped by DHL and I had to pay 20% import tax.  It took 16 days from ordering to receiving the camera.  DHL was the shipper and they are pretty bad.  I am not going to go into too much details but I was the one ended up chasing the package and directing them to me.  I will not be using DHL for my international shipping for sure.

The camera itself was well packed and arrived in good shape. It is in good condition for it's age.  Everything worked as expected.  The lens was clean, all shutter speeds works and aperture blades clean.  The 100mm F3.5 lens is the older type with 40.5mm filter.  I think the later 100mm F3.5 lens have 55mm filter size. Testing both film backs with backing paper show them to be working.  The foam light seals on the film backs seem to be intact and does not need changing at the moment.

The viewfinder was reasonably clear but there were some dirt visible.  I did take the viewfinder/rangefinder assembly apart to clean it.  It came out very well.  I also took the time to adjust the rangefinder.  It was every slightly off.

Cleaning the various lenses and mirrors of the viewfinder/rangefinder

Basically, buying a camera from Japan does mean you will need to do some work on them.  I don't think you will get a 100% camera.  It may be an operational camera, but sending it to a camera technician may be required, unless you can do the work yourself.

The date code on the bottom of the viewfinder assembly

For information, when the rangefinder assembly was removed from the body, there was a date code of 47,11,24.  This mean the camera was made of the 47th year for Showa era, on 24th November.  47th Sowa year is 1972.

My Attempt at Adding a Diode to Nikon Nikomat/Nikkormat FTN

My Nikkormat FTNw as purchased in Japan where they are called Nikomat.  It was in poor shape, but after a clean up of the prism and replaced light seals, the camera is now working well.  This camera is very easy to work on.  Removing the prism was very easy.  Even the meter is working.  Of cause the 1.5V battery is not correct for this camera.  Then I saw a video on youtube on fitting a diode to correct the voltage.  Since I have done this before with my Fujica ST701, I have a few IN4007 diodes left over.  Removing the top cover is quite easy and only took me about 5 minutes.

This was what I found under the cover

I did not have any ECG109 diode but just used IN4007 diode left over from my modification of Fujica ST701.  This is after I soldered the diode in place.

Diode in place

I refitted the top cover and tried the camera.  However, the meter did not work as expected.  I don't think the IN4007 diode is suited to this camera.  The exposure dial never move into the over exposed section.  Maybe the voltage drop was too high?  In the end I had to remove the diode and revert back to original.  I will get some ECG109 and try again.  This has not been a success but I have ordered some ECG109 diodes.  I will update this post in the future.

Update: I ordered ECG109 diodes and fitted to my Nikomat.  I can say it is working as it should.  It is now working the same as my Nikon F2.  However, it does not mean it is correct.  I will report how the photos comes out in future.

ECG109 diode fitted to the camera