I also managed to work the dent out of the shell for the most part, but ended-up finding an undented replacement part at a reasonable price on eBay, which truly made the camera like-new. The focusing screen is in the pentaprism assembly, and given that it’s made of glass on this camera, it was possible to give it a good (but very careful) cleaning - which it did need. I discovered later that it wasn’t the only evidence that this camera has taken a fall, but more on that later.)ĭisassembling the pentaprism ended-up being a good idea in general, because it made it particularly easy to clean everything well, including the eyepiece window. (As it turns out, that dent should have been concerning. It hadn’t appeared to affect anything, so I accepted that as it was, deciding that I might try and work the dent out on my workbench. The only exception? There was a small dent in the pentaprism’s metal shell. The Back StoryĬontinuing from above now, considering that the revered Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 58mm f/2 lens on this camera (mine is the 12-blade aperture version) often sells for more than double what I paid for it and the camera combined, it all felt like a reasonably good deal more like, “Buy this lens and get a camera body for free.” The lens barrel is made of aluminum, and as such is prone to having some slight surface oxidation, and with the comparative softness of the metal, has its share of the usual tiny nicks and scratches here and there.Īs for the camera body, I was really pleased that it was in near-mint condition, showing few signs of use, let alone signs of actual wear. It’s not the camera’s fault it is, however, a testament to the challenges of owning, using and servicing vintage film cameras. What follows is one of the longer reviews I’ve ever written for this site, primarily because my example of this camera has presented a number of challenges that, over the months that I’ve owned it, have truly tested my resolve. Needless to say, it followed me home - and man, am I glad it did. As always, I peeked at their used gear case, and there it was, calling my name, for the reasonable price of US$95. But I had dropped into Englewood Camera, my local shop, in late August 2020 for the first time since the pandemic hit in March. I have a tendency to find and buy cameras I wasn’t even looking for, and one of the latest examples is a classic: an Ihagee Exakta Varex IIa, known in some markets (including the USA) as the VX IIa.
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