Auto 100 - Its New To Me!

                                          Auto 100, originally uploaded by LeandroF.

Got some new gear and upgrades recently. My 340 is having both under exposure issues and a droopy bellow thing starting to happen. I figured instead of paying for repairs (I might give it a try myself) I decided to put my resources toward a new camera. I have a pristine 450, but lacks a portrait or close-up kit, I did recently battery mod it though to take 2xAAA batteries. I already have a portrait kit for the 340, so when I came across a good deal for an Auto 100 I went for it. In the process I also picked up a 192 Self Timer and a 583 Close-Up Kit.

The Auto 100 is similar to the 230, 240, 340, 440 models except it has the metal body. The other metal bodied models 250, 350, 360 and 450 have the nicer Zeiss viewfinders instead. Like all the ones I mentioned above, it has scene selectors for indoors/outdoors and film speeds for 75, 150, 300 and 3000.

The camera was in pretty good shape, rollers needed some cleaning as did the viewfinder. Swapped the battery from my 340 and seems to meter ok. The few test shots I've done with a pack of chocolate film shows the exposure is a little off, maybe need to compensate 1 or 2 clicks of the dial to over expose, at least in lower light. The camera also came with the original leather strap with development timer attached. The self timer is pretty neat, it sort of snaps on and is held there by friction. You rotate the dial to any position between 5-20 seconds and the activation and release is long enough to account for longer exposures. Plus there is something really great about the machined metal quality of it.

I tried a couple of shots with the close up kit, which lets you focus 9-15 inches and found it pretty tricky to focus and compose with due the parallax correction. I've read else where that good light really helps as does a tripod. The parallax correction is pretty good as far as composing goes, but the focus part is askew to what you see in the viewfinder.

The shot of the apples for example, I thought I was focused more on the middle of the front one, not just the back one. With the exposure I can't tell if its the camera or the film. I did this one 2 clicks into brighten on the camera, thought it would have been a little brighter then this. I do like the quality of it though, and I'm sure with a little practice I'll have the hang of the it in no time.

Most people seem to go for the 250 due to having the bigger Zeiss viewfinder, but this is a great solid alternative to it. So far I'm happy with it.