| Author |
Message |
Stewart
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 04:55 am: | 
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Hi,
I have recently acquired a nice-looking Zeiss Werra. Everything seems to work OK (I've yet to run a film through it). But the aperture control is really stiff and I was thinking of trying to get inside it to do a bit of a clean. The trouble is, it is not clear how to do this. Any Werra experts out there?
Stewart |
Tony Duell
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 05:21 am: |
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Hardly an expert, but the Werra is one of my favourite cameras, and I have taken them apart. You don't say which model you have (do you have a rangefinder, do you have a built-in meter, do you have interchangeable lenses), but they all come apart in basically the same way. I am going to assume you have one of the models fitted with the Prestor shutter, not the very early Compur-fitted version.
To remove the top cover, unscrew the screws in the strap lugs (!). Gripping these is a problem (there are no pin-face holes...) but they will come out. Remove the lugs and the plastic washers. Ease up the cover, unscrew the viewfinder eyepiece. Take off the top cover, don't lose the washers on the release shaft.
The viewfinder(/rangefinder if you have it) and meter units are held in by a few screws and come off easily.
Take off the film gate next -- 4 obvious screws.
Undo the locking ring at the back of the shutter inside the camera and remove the 4 screws there too. The lens barrel separates from the camera body now.
I can't remember the exact sequence of the next bit. You have to remove the V/X/M lever (2 tiny screws), the back plate from the lens barrel, and the winding/cocking ring. With those out of the way, the shutter unit lifts out. If you have the rangefinder or meter, there are coupling pins that come out next.
I also remember that the lens barrel separates into 2 parts and that then you can remove the shutter and aperture rings.
Getting to the diaphragm parts is non-trivial particulary on models with interchangeable lenses. The optical parts come out in the normal way (locking ring at the back, remove the name ring from the front, then the front lens cell). To dismantle the focusing mount, you have to unscrew the rear part of the interchangeable lens barrel. This is easy to distort and will then really jam the aperture control. You have been warned!
Incidentally, the Prestor shutter is very ingenious (the blades do not reverse their motion during exposure, they carry on and their 'tails' close the shutter after the exposure), but it has a common problem. Because the blades don't reverse during the exposure, they move back when the shutter is wound. This means the shutter would open again when it was being wound and would then ruin the film. So there's a second 'capping shutter' behind the main set of blades. And this tends to stick closed. You should look through the film gate while releasing the shutter to check that it opens.
There's a camera called a Pentina that turns this 'bug' into a feature. It's a leaf-shuttered SLR with a modified Prestor shutter. As you know, in a leaf-shuttered SLR, the shuter is open twice during the complete wind/release cycle, once for viewing, once for exposure. You guessed it, it uses the fact that the Prestor opens when it's being wound...
IMHO these cameras have something in common with Citroen cars :-). They're often claimed to be very unreliable and hard to repair. They are not. What they are is unconventional -- very. If you are used to other cameras -- even other leaf shutters -- and try to repair the Werra or Pentina in the same way you'll come to grief. If you think about what you're doing, then I find them some of the easiest cameras ever to work on. |
charlie
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 05:41 am: |
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How do you know which shutter you have? My Werra I is an olive green, tessar lens, made between 1955 and 1958 with a 1/500 max speed but no shutter brand identification. |
Tony Duell
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 12:30 pm: |
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Ah, that sounds like a Compur version (which I know nothing about). The Prestor has a 1/750s maximum speed. |
stewart
| | Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 03:46 am: |
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Thanks, you're pretty knowledgeable for a non-expert! Mine is olive green, scale focus, CZ Jena Tessar 2.8, maximum speed only 1/250. There seem to be only three leaves in the shutter. |
mike_j
| | Posted on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 10:50 am: |
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My Werra Mat has a capping shutter which sticks, currently it is open but has also stuck shut. I am happy to dismantle the camera to the point of having the shutter/iris capule separate but want to go no further. I have cleaned with lighter fluid - is there anything more I can do? |
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