cameramanuals

LINKS TO OTHER CAMERA MANUAL SITES

I don’t intend to put all my camera manuals on line - there are a lot of excellent sites doing that already. I’ll try and fill in spaces as much as I can, but if you don’t see your camera on my site, try one of the links below

Henry’s - first class site from Canada catering for many modern cameras, excellently laid out and well worth a look if shopping.
http://www.henrys.com/manuals/

Instruction manuals UK - nice site with a straightforward layout catering for popular old cameras
http://www.instruction-manuals.co.uk/category/camera.htm

Robert Monaghan - tremendous resource for both camera manuals and all things photographic - cannot recommend highly enough
http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/manuals.html

Michael Butkus - if you have a non ‘big five’ camera this site comes highly recommended. Michael has done a power of work catering for the often under-rated Chinons, Ricoh and others.
http://www.butkus.org/chinon

KY Photo - good mix of cameras and very well laid out
http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/instructionmanuals.html

Photo Manual Index - nice mix of collectable cameras including some in German and French
http://rurmonas.cust.nearlyfreespeech.net/manuals/index.html

Camera instruction manuals online - great resource and nicely presented
http://yandr.50megs.com/

Pentax Manuals by Kim Coxon - if you own one of Pentax’s many excellent cameras and don’t have a handbook then the chances are you need look no further than this tremendous site. Kim has put together a comprehensive collection ! - note needs Adobe Acrobat 5 or later and the Pentax password is case sensitive
http://www.pentax-manuals.com/

Lensinc - a very good resource aiming to ultimately provide instruction manuals for as many 35mm as possible
http://www.lensinc.net:80/freeuser.html

The Camera Site - A wonderful site for the camera enthusiast! There are some manuals, but also stories and potted histories of various camera models. If you appreciate McKeown's price guide to cameras, you'll love this site. Great pictures, links and a text written in a very accessible and articulate style, which make you very aware of the author's obvious enthusiasm for the subject. It's going straight into my favourites.
http://kotisivu.dnainternet.fi/lauro/index.htm

Photo.net - superb site for the active photographer. If you can't get inspiration from some of the images submitted to this superb site, then you may as well take your camera back to the shop!

http://www.photo.net/

Mercury Batteries
One of the pitfalls of collecting cameras is keeping them 'fed' in both film and batteries; a search around the Internet will find a source of film and processing for most film formats.
Batteries-in particular mercury ones throw up all sorts of complications however.

Pre 1960s batteries were hardly used in cameras, but as time went on and cameras became most sophisticated, batteries became employed in metering, flash, film advance and latterly autofocus mechanisms. The first small cells to be used were mercury and were a great success as they could hold their charge over a very long period of time and their voltage remained remarkably consistent throughout their life.
Leglislation came in prohibiting the manufacturing of mercury and alternative battery types were brought in to replace mercury, such as lithium, alkaline and zinc/air. For reasons best known to the battery manufacturers, the new cells did not replace their mercury versions accurately;
In the case of the v625 cell, the mercury 1.35v battery was replaced by a 1.5v alkaline equivalent. In the case of the v675 cell the replacements were a 1.5v alkaline or a 1.4v zinc air model. As these cells were often used in light meters these difference were very significant to picture exposure quality.

There are a number of options for people who still want to use their cameras:-

1. in the case of the v675, the zinc/air equivalent is close enough in voltage to be used as a direct replacement - though it should be stressed that the output varies over the life of the battery. This type of battery is often used in hearing aids and is cheap and readily available; the downside, as anyone who has a elderly relative who uses these knows, is that the battery will last a month. I have heard of people painting nail varnish over three quarters of the battery's 'air' surface to extend their life but I have no idea how successful this is.

2. in the case of the v625, there is no similarly sized cell that has a close enough voltage. There is however an ingenius device available, which is essentially a dummy 625 battery body adapted to take a smaller 1.5v alkaline cell; within the body is circuitry which reduces the small cell voltage to 1.35v. This is the most expensive option at the outset, but if you use cameras with this battery size a lot, this could prove the most cost effective solution in the long term.

3. the last simple solution is to use a Wein Cell battery, these are specifically made to replace mercury versions and have the correct voltage, their disadvantage is life span - once activated they are unlikely to last beyond a year.

I have noted below links to battery suppliers, who can help with these and other hard-to-find batteries.