On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Stan Halpin <[email protected]> wrote: > My inherited M2 is back from its repair/CLA. I think I have figured out how > to load film. But I need some help with interpreting some of the controls - I > don't want to push/pull the wrong thing and cause new damage . . .
The M2 and M3 had the removable spool type loading. Pull out leader, attach to take up spool, push spool and cassette into the camera simultaneously. Wind on carefully and check that it is feeding. (The M4 and all later models have the "auto" spool loading setup ... a three/four blade spool is permanently fixed in the camera, just shove the cassette in with the leader pulled out so that it falls into the blades, stick the baseplate on and wind ... that traps the film and pulls it onto the takeup spool.) > On the right front of the body, there are three controls: > a. to the top, a small lever next to a letter R - I presume I need to > rotate this lever in order to rewind film? Yes, that's the film advance clutch release. > b. below that, a larger lever - I presume this is a self-timer as used > to be typical on many cameras. Yes. > c. still on the right, a small button - lens release. Yes. > On the left front, there is another rotating lever. I have no clue what this > is for! The left side lever switches the viewfinder illuminated frame temporarily so that you can preview what the field of view for other lenses would be. The illuminated frame for the currently mounted lens is shown automatically. I can't remember what frames were included in the the M2 viewfinder, off the top of my head ... possibly 35, 50, 75, 90 mm but I could be wrong. I know the M2 had one set, the M3 had a different set (likely 50, 75, 90, 135 mm), then the M4 included all the standard frames from 28mm to 135mm (shown in pairs). Lovely old cameras. I only had an M2 for a brief time, but I had several M4 models (M4, M4-P, M4-2) and an M6TTL that I did a heck of a lot of shooting with.. -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
