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Argus Cosina 708


Rob Hare

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Hey guys, I found an Argus Cosina 708 for 18 bucks today. I'm wondering if that's a good deal. He says it has signs of battery leakage, but I saw the pictures and it doesn't look damaged at all. He says he can't open the cap on the electric eye though. I'm new to these things though so I don't know if I can fix that. He might just be having trouble too, I don't know. It comes with the case and manual too. So what do you all think, should I get it?

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I wouldn't if it really has battery leakage. If he is telling you it has it, what reasons do you have to think he's living in a state of delusional fantasy? ;-)

Super 8 cameras are plentiful on eBay.

If you want to tinker with a camera I guess $18 isn't a huge loss if it doesn't work out, but from your description I wouldn't pin high hopes on it.

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If you can wait, wait. The meter may take an obsolete battery and the substitutes aren't altogether satisfactory. Try car boot sales (don't know what you call them) and find a clean one. Battery leakage could have penetrated the works.

According to this


it won't read ISO correctly for modern stocks.
Edited by Mark Dunn
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You could always try to talk him down. $10 would be a deal to try and tinker with it. The meter battery cap is difficult to remove on many of the older cameras, both movie and still cameras. Sometimes it requires drilling two small holes so you can use a pin nose pliers or camera lens ring spanner wrench to remove them. They can stick really bad even without any real corrosion since the batteries leak fumes which will cause some metal corrosion. This can be cleaned of course. As for the batteries today not being the correct ones, you can make due. You would need the meter mechanism to function to use the manual exposure setting since it requires electrical power to set the lens aperture. The price is low enough though that if the camera runs, it can be used for certain shots and tasks without having to endanger a really nice camera; those shots where its on railroad tracks, or taped to a car or bike etc, or tossed with a small parachute for various shots. Or to begin a camera collection. The Chinon made GAF Anscomatic 100 and up series cameras have a physical manual aperture setting that doesn't require battery power to adjust. The GAF ST-111 also allows you to do manual fade in/out and still set the lens manually and work from that setting. The higher ST-601/602/801/801 models also have the 24fps setting which the lower models do not. Always something to look for out there, and bring batteries with you so you can try out cameras on location where they have flea markets (bring a piece of fine grit sandpaper also). Good luck!

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I think I'll leave it Martin, I already have a Sankyo that appears to work and I'd rather not throw money at something that might not work. I'm actually restoring an old VW right now so that takes all my money :lol:

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