Liberation Day

The Piazza del Carmine in Cagliari seemed to be the main place for holding events.  The 25th April is Liberation Day - the anniversary of the liberation of Italy rom the fascist regime and Nazi occupation in 1945.  From what I read, it marks the start of Spring holiday weekends and is a big public holiday.  As usual, by the time we realised there was something going on most of the crowd had dispersed from the Piazza, to go get coffee and cake or whatever.  But there were still a few people milling around - some with coats and some in t-shirts (the latter for us):

The usual: FP4 on Foma 133, toned.

In other news, I've acquired a new camera.  To be fair, it's been a while and this was one I couldn't refuse: a Pentax Spotmatic SP.  There's a story behind it, as I really need fewer cameras, not more.  A few months ago I was contacted by a friend in our Club to see if I could help a neighbour of theirs.  His father had recently passed away - he had been an avid (film) photographer and here was a ton of stuff to sift through. So I spent an interesting afternoon poking through a mountain of stuff, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.  A lot of stuff was for recycling, or dumping but there were a few items of interest.  The pick of the bunch was a Rolleiflex, but there was a Mamiya 645, various older folders and quite a few 35mm SLRs.  Some were seized solid and were for parts only, others 'had potential'.  The Pentax had a 50mm f/1.4 and a 28mm f/3.5 with it but it wasn't a show camera - there was a sizeable dent in the pentaprism and although it seemed to wind on and fire OK I couldn't get the back open.   I though about making him an offer but decided not to...and regretted it as soon as I got home, of course. 

Fast forward to last week and the gentleman's son got back in touch.  I'd suggested he send the better stuff to ffordes in Inverness, who checked the gear over, if necessary got repairs done and then sold on commission.  The Rolleiflex and Mamiya both got good ££.  The report on the Pentax was less favourable - "mirror locked up, scratch on rear element of 50mm, can't open back, new seals required: value £0".  The 28mm they were going to advertise at £29.  He said if I wanted the camera&50mm I could have them, no charge.  Of course I was going to say Yes to that, and I offered to buy the 28mm for the valuation ffordes had put on it.  So this week I've been playing with the Spotmatic, trying to breathe some life into the old lady.  

You might recall I got lucky with an Olympus OM-10 a while back but that's about the sum of my experience of trying to get broken cameras to work.  Anyway, I got to work on the Pentax and yes, the mirror was locking up, but only at the slower speeds, 1/60th and below, and only intermittently.  So I fired the shutter through the range of shutter speeds one by one, up and down, and after a few minutes there was no more locking up - I think it just needed exercising.  As for the back not opening, I managed to get the rewind spool up a few mm, using a little more force than I was comfortable with, but enough to get a drop of light oil on the spindle.  That did the trick - the back popped opened and inside everything looked clean as a whistle.  I'm sure it probably does need new seals but I've a short test film in it now to see what gives.  The meter is activated by a switch on the left of the lens mount but unfortunately that appears to be broken - it does move, but even with a new 394 battery installed the needle in the viewfinder doesn't react to light as it should, so I may have to forget about the built in meter.  I can live with that.  Oh, and that scratch on the rear element of the 50mm?  I can't seen anything of note - there may be a hairline mark but I doubt its going to have a major effect unless I'm shooting directly into the sun.  We'll see. 

It's the first Spotmatic I've had (my brother had one briefly when he was at Uni) and it's a lovely thing to hold - quite compact (compared to, say, a Nikon F2 from the same era - late '60s/early '70s) but very solid, much heavier than an OM-1.  And those Super-Takumar lenses - oh boy, they are things of beauty.  They are quite small, but perfectly made and the focus mechanism is unlike any other camera system I know - beautifully damped, very smooth and with a lovely solid feel to it.  I think I'm hooked.