Months ago, I posted about the new-to-me Rollei 35 that I’d got bundled with a bunch of other cameras I bought. I said that I was going to shoot with it and post the results. Well, that didn’t go exactly to plan, as I injured my back shortly after and was confined to the house for the next two months.
The diminuative Rollei 35, now with a working meter!
During this time, I dry-fired the little Rollei quite a lot, getting used to the eccentric control layout and handling, as well as spending some time cleaning it up. Everything worked well, apart from the meter, which I came to find out is fairly normal on these cameras.
I checked the battery compartment, and it appeared to be free of corrosion, but I still gave the contact a good rub with a pencil eraser just in case. No good; the meter was still dead. I also checked the battery in another camera to make sure it was good, and gave the entire compartment a swipe over with a lens tissue and some denatured alcohol. Still no life from the meter, so I just put it down to age and resigned myself to using it with an external meter. I then started some minor repair work on a few other cameras, and the little Rollei was forgotten…
Until last night. I came across it while looking for something else, and determined to run a roll through it as soon as possible. The non-functioning meter was bugging me though, so I took another look at the contact in the battery compartment. Although it appeared free from corrosion, it was very dull and I’m used to contacts being shiny, so I decided some brute force was required!
Rollei 35
I found a screwdriver and began scraping at the surface of the contact. Sure enough, after applying a little more pressure than I would have liked, the dull coating started to come off, revealing the bright metal underneath. I grabbed another lens cloth and cleaned up the residue that I’d removed and popped in a battery. The meter needle sprung to life immediately and, what’s more, the readings compared well to my external meter!
Now, I’m not suggesting scraping away at a battery contact will fix a dud meter in all cameras, and I only resorted to this after trying everything else (I wasn’t prepared to spend a lot of money on a new meter), but in this case, it worked well and means I can now start using this little gem again. I’ll post some shots from the first roll soon!
Tags: rollei