It's a Lomo Oktomat... or at least the inside of it. Borrowed it from Sam, he got it as a present but almost never used it so a couple of days ago he offered me to try it out, which I happily accepted. He warned me though, that a friend of his once ripped his film when he was trying to roll it up while using this camera. Ah, just a silly mistake, I thought. Boy was I wrong. Because when the camera is made this silly, all silly mistakes are bound to be common occurrences. And guess what... I ripped my film too. :|
And not only that, I found out that out of the 8 shutters this thing have, only the top 4 were working. So even if I had been able to take out the film, it would have been essentially a half-frame film anyway... not exactly what I was hoping to see, so I contacted Sam and asked him if he would let me disassemble *gasps* the camera to find out what's wrong. He gave the green light so I did it. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with disassembling a plastic toy camera, right? RIGHT? Well, the mechanisms inside weren't as simple as I thought. Almost broke the advance lever spring, nearly lost a gear... (and I find it amusing to see all those little plastic gears)
But eventually I managed to spot where the problem was. See, if you push the shutter release, there's this mechanism that will trigger the upper 4 shutters. That mechanism will in turn push this little lever that's connected to another lever in the lower part of the camera that will move another mechanism that trigger the lower 4 shutters. ....Gee, I make it sounds more complicated than it really is. But anyway, there's a problem in the first mechanism... I think the spring is a bit too loose so it won't push the lever enough to move the second mechanism. Here are pictures that might explain it a little bit better.
As of now I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to fix it. Tried to put something between the lower lever and the hook piece so it could move even with a little nudge but it just makes it stop completely. Eeergh.
Anyway I've scanned the film photos from the trip with Citishot which was almost 3 weeks ago (heh, finally) along with some other random pictures... Gonna post them tomorrow. Later all!
9 comments:
servisan kamera dok? hahay =D
cuman berani kalo toy camera ;p
you got yourself a toy there .. i have the supersampler and after 6-8 rolls the shutter got stuck when shooting - resulting in at least one of the four "frames" being overexposed. and my gf has troubles inserting the film, it just won't get a hold. and both cameras nicely scratch the films.
a supersampler costs 50 euro here, bit more then 70 dollars. that's quiet a lot for such a piece of plastic :p
cannt wait to see the "TOY STORY"
;))
Seb:
As far as I know Lomo costs around USD50 here... that's still a lot for an unreliable 'camera'. I've seen an action sampler, but not Lomo, sold for much less than that... and I think the results wouldn't be that much different anyway. ;)
Naga:
Your TLR is a toy story! :p
my TRL is a JOY story .. huahahaha:P
looks like you got some really bad luck on that one
cause i recently bought one and it works perfectly!
all 8 shutters work, no film has ripped on me and inserting the film is as easy as it is with any film camera.
oh and it cost me 48 dollars at Urban Outfitters
the supersampleris over a year old
and still works fine
I've been trying to take mine apart because the last two shutters aren't functioning correctly.
How did you manage to take it apart? I've been struggling with a small screwdriver from an eyeglass repair kit, but no luck so far.
@Justine:
Well I happen to have this screwdriver set for electronics, one of them (the second smallest if not the smallest) did the job perfectly. I already return the camera though, so I couldn't exactly remember all the details when I took it apart... I remember they're pretty straightforward, except for the ones beneath the shutter cock, they're a bit tricky to unscrew.
Sorry I can't be much a help... hope you can get yours fixed eventually.
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