Konica Minolta S3 Manual

adventure with
Konica S3
by Rick Lam
I was impressed by the 70's
rangefinders few years ago. But one
of the issue makes me keep away
from them is my manual focusing
skill. I started to practice on my first
rangefinder, the Yashica GSN. It is
a good camera but just too heavy
for daily carrying. I guess it can stop
the bullets in the battlefield. I 've
been looking for the S3 for two
years. I bought this one from the
net and received it last month and
my adventure started.
the viewfinder glass
The glass used to cover and protect the
viewfinder is loose. It moves when I
touch it. It is not a big deal because it
would not affect the operation of the
camera and just need to glue it to fix.
This is the glass needed to be fixed. Just open
the top of the camera and glue it to fix.
After fixed the glass and positioned the top cover,
I found there is a gap between the glass and
inside body. That means it'll easily loose again if
I press the glass with pressure during cleaning.
The thick foam sticker is used to fit the gap and
thus the glass is back supported.
focusing
I couldn't wait any longer to see the picture from S3. I pick it down to the street
and shoot a roll of film. I found something strange on it. The image on viewfinder
is not coincided when focusing at infinite. I check the print and found most shots
taken between 0.9m to 5m are out focusing.
The rangefinder need to be calibrated. I 've done the procedures wrong during
the calibrating and it makes me have to do it again and again.
I'm not going to tell my stupid story. It is better to tell the right things to do.
calibrating rangefinder
I should say thank you to Karen Nakamura's web page. Although there is no
repairing pages of S3, the information over there gives me a basic idea about how
a rangefinder works.
There are some procedures to check
the rangefinder in my case.
Make sure the problem is on the
rangefinder only and not lens before
doing any calibration.
To do this you need a magnifying glass
and a thin single-sided matt glass.
Placing the magnifying glass and the
thin glass on the focal panel, the matt
side acts as emulsion of film. Use the
B shutter to wide open the aperture to
check the image at infinite and the
closest ends. If both images are sharp.
You're lucky, there are no problem about
the lens. If not, calibrating the rangefinder
couldn't help his problem. And I've no
idea to deal with it.
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