Leicina 8mm lightmeter repair

[Joel Pierre]

Please, excuse the faults of language (Google Translator):

 

I have several Leicina (8S, 8V, 8SV) whose light meter are down.

 

Is it possible to repair these lightmeter myself and how?

 

Is it possible to operate with these cameras in manual exposure mode without light meter?

[Joel Pierre]

Some sample pages from the Leicina Servicing instructions:

 

33-36

 

43

 

106

 

108

 

111

 

141

 

161

 

163

[Martin Baumgarten]

The LEICINA Reg 8mm movie cameras sadly are only auto-exposure. Why? Who knows, but it sure would've been nice to have a true manual exposure option on these nice cameras. All there is, is an autoexposure bias control knob which is part of the ASA/ISO setting knob. As you can see from the detailed repair instructions, servicing can be quite complicated. Also, unless the autoexposure system can be repaired (once you determine what has failed and provided you can get parts from somewhere), the camera's aperture cannot be set. The adjustment is purely electrical. It might be possible to rig an internal mechanical setup to the aperture blades and render manual exposure, but this would be complicated and require testing to know what the values would be.

 

The camera without a working autoexposure system can still be used. Although it will require some initial testing to see how to use it under various light conditions. If the aperture is stuck fully open, then you can use the original F-Stop value as a starting point, and with the use of Neutral Density Filters, you can achieve some basic kind of exposure control. It will be much slower to use and much more limited, but for certain situations, the camera can still be used. I have used one similarily and had great results. However, without a working aperture, the lens will have very shallow Depth-of-Field at longer focal lengths (if using the zoom version) and will still be quite good if using the fixed small lens version.

 

Good luck! Other than that, I suggest getting it repaired professionally somewhere, or just buying another working model somewhere.

[Joel Pierre]

Thank you for that answer.

 

I also thought the solution of neutral density filter, but it's very inconvenient.

 

I bought several cameras for each model (3 or 4).

 

Either the automatic exposure system does not work at all.

 

Either it works so winded and obviously false.

 

They will be therefore museum objects.