Minolta Autopak 8 D12 focus

[Joseph Krings]

Hi guys-

 

I have been lurking here lately and I noticed that the Minolta Autopak-8 D 12 with Zoom Rokkor 1:1,8 / 6,5-78mm seems to be a missing and rare high quality camera. Well I have one through a friend of a friend and have been using it with great success for the last 4 years.

 

Now I am an editor by trade and the only camera I use still, motion, video or otherwise, really is this one. Therefore my knowledge is limited when it comes to things of lenses and optics and focus and things of the nature, but I LOVE the look of Super 8 so when I got the camera I was stoked. After shooting a couple of test rolls I knew it was out of focus. A DP friend of mine explained to me how to pont the lens into bright light and turn the eye piece to readjust the focus (sorry for my lack of technical language here). It worked!

 

Now somehow the thing is back out of focus and trying the same trick does not seem to be working. Could anybody here explain to me how to fix the focus. I would be happy to repay the favor by lending this unit for high-end testing if it were needed so it could be added to those top-30 lists.

 

Also, having never bought a cam on eBay before, does anyone have any recommended seller. I see the user "camera$" has a lot of different cameras, but they seem a little bit pricey. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks,

 

Joseph Krings

[Richard Tuohy]

Hi guys-

 

I have been lurking here lately and I noticed that the Minolta Autopak-8 D 12 with Zoom Rokkor 1:1,8 / 6,5-78mm seems to be a missing and rare high quality camera. Well I have one through a friend of a friend and have been using it with great success for the last 4 years.

 

Now I am an editor by trade and the only camera I use still, motion, video or otherwise, really is this one. Therefore my knowledge is limited when it comes to things of lenses and optics and focus and things of the nature, but I LOVE the look of Super 8 so when I got the camera I was stoked. After shooting a couple of test rolls I knew it was out of focus. A DP friend of mine explained to me how to pont the lens into bright light and turn the eye piece to readjust the focus (sorry for my lack of technical language here). It worked!

 

Now somehow the thing is back out of focus and trying the same trick does not seem to be working. Could anybody here explain to me how to fix the focus. I would be happy to repay the favor by lending this unit for high-end testing if it were needed so it could be added to those top-30 lists.

 

Also, having never bought a cam on eBay before, does anyone have any recommended seller. I see the user "camera$" has a lot of different cameras, but they seem a little bit pricey. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks,

 

Joseph Krings

Hi Joseph,

I agree about the D12. It is of course one of the best. Yes, it sounds like you need to focus the eye piece diopter again. this isn't hard. But the trick the dop gave you doesn't apply to super 8 cameras. Pointing at the light would only be of assistance if you had a ground glass screen in the camera and were focusing on it. This is the way it is for most 16mm and 35 cameras, but very very few super 8 cameras have a ground glass screen. Instead they use an 'areal image'. this is harder to set the dioper on, and it is much more important. There are detailed instructions on setting the diopter of a super 8 camera on my web site:

http://nanolab.com.au/focusing.htm

cheers,

Richard

Edited May 30, 2008 by Richard Tuohy

[Jim Carlile]

It sounds like what happened is that the eyepiece setting just loosened up.

 

The easy quick way to re-set it is to focus the lens at infinity and at its most extreme telephoto, then aim at the sky. Adjust the eyepiece finder to the point where the split image or circle or whatever it is is sharp. Then lock it.

 

You can also set the lens to infinity at the extreme telephoto, and then sight a diagonal object way off in the distance. Then adjust the eyepiece until the image is at its sharpest within the focusing circle.