Search the Community

Recently I took a chance on a Nikon R-10 on eBay. I love these cameras and the price seemed right . 
 
 Camera arrived this week, looks to be in excellent shape , (physically/cosmetically I'd rate it "Near Mint - "like new" ) , motor sounds smooth, everything seems to work (I shot a test roll and will have that back in a week or two, which should reveal any problems, notably the light meter) 
 
 However, I noticed on a few shots that the auto-exposure seemed to be "sticking" at times ... the needle didn't always move smoothly along the f-stop scale in the viewfinder as the light conditions changed. Sometimes I noticed when moving from bright sunlight to dimmer shade the needle would stick where it had been at f16 or f11 and then suddenly jump to f 5.6 or f4 after a few seconds pointing towards a more dimly lit area. Now the problem seems to be worse as I'm testing it when I don't have any film loaded in the camera , if I just depress the trigger slightly to activate the light meter it seems very sluggish when I move from dim light to bright light , back to dim light ... sometimes the needle moves smoothly as expected, sometimes it sticks and then jumps abruptly. :( 
 I would like to get it looked at . Can anyone recommend a good repair service for the Nikon R-10 in North America , someone you've actually had repair your camera and would send your camera in to again ? (I have seen on his blog that Ignacio Benedeti Corzo highly recommends http://microdeltabalears.com/castellano.htm in Spain for service on Nikon R-10 , but I'd rather not ship it to Spain if I can avoid the international shipping costs , because it's an extra expense on top of whatever it's going to cost to have the camera serviced .) 
 
 I have read in some previous discussions about the R10 that sometimes the needle can get stuck in old hardened lube, which seems like what may be happening here (?) , except in my case the needle does move smoothly some of the time on auto-exposure , but not always. And I can set the f-stop easily with the manual exposure control knob , so the needle doesn't seem to be totally stuck , but is laggy on auto.
 
 
 -------
 
 I suppose I could get along fine with an otherwise functional Nikon R10 that is manual exposure only , but in the past I almost always used the auto-exposure with my Nikons (I've owned both an R-8 and R-10 before , one got dropped and broke , the other I sold , wish I had not ... ) and had excellent results from the auto-exposure. I would use the camera to spot meter (zoom in close , take a reading) and then lock it with the manual exposure/EE lock, but never became much of an expert at using an external light meter. 
 Lazy , I guess. 
 I realize it's a separate topic to discuss using a hand-held meter to set the exposure manually on a Super-8 camera, but if any of you Nikon R-8 or R-10 owners have any tips , I'd appreciate it. I know the fully opened shutter angle is 160° so if things were simple (which they are apparently not) I'd be able to set the ASA on the hand held meter , then get a reading for the correct f-stop setting at 1/40 sec (at 18 fps) or 1/54 (at 24 fps) and that would be that ... except everything I have ever read says that the reflex viewfinder will steal light , but it always seems very vague to me ... some people say the viewfinder light loss amounts to "about 1/3rd of a stop" others say "about 1/2 a stop". How does anyone really know for sure ? And supposedly all the older hand held meters (I have a Gossen Scout 2 and a Sekonic L-158) will assume that the camera has a shutter angle of 180° , so I have to adjust for that if using the "Cine Scale" on these meters. And yes, I realize the only way to really work it out for sure is to shoot a test roll with bracketed exposures , but do any of you Nikon R-8/R-10 owners have any experience to share on using a hand held meter with the Nikon R10/R8 ? 
 
 With the exposure latitude of the Kodak S-8 neg. stocks if I'm off by 1/3rd of a stop or 1/2 a stop (by relying on the Gossen or Sekonic meter reading) will that really matter too much ? Although I understand that with neg. stock slight over-exposure is better dealt with than under-exposure.