Filmy, fast and light.

That looks like a great solution for backpacking. I haven’t thought about shooting film in so long. Hmm.

That looks like a great solution for backpacking. I haven’t thought about shooting film in so long. Hmm.

It’s my medium of choice, thus I spend more than a fair amount of time thinking about it.  When I was traveling in Germany right before the Late Unpleasantness, I carried two pounds of appropriately-German camera with me, and that’s honestly just too much for most backpacking trips.  I needed something lighter and faster; the T3 is both.  It has a decent autofocus, a simple program mode with an aperture-priority override, a good meter and a few simple presets that make it quick and functional for me.  8.5 ounces on my scale, battery included, but without film.  No filter on the front yet; it’ll be a shade over 9 ounces, ready to shoot.  I should go weigh a roll of 35 and see how much it is; I bet it’s much heavier than I think it is.

Hmmm…maybe a simple myog camera bag is in order.  Don’t want this one to get torn up too quickly in the rough stuff.  🤔

Is it possible to attach filters to this cool looking camera? When I was shooting a polarizing filter was a minimum must. some others as well. I love film! and slides.

You can always attach a filter – you just might have to create an adapter. MYOG!

Cheers

Is it possible to attach filters to this cool looking camera?

Yes, Contax makes a filter mount that allows 30.5mm stuff to be used.  I’ll attach an image below; the mount is somewhat curious-looking, but it looks quite secure.

When I was shooting a polarizing filter was a minimum must. some others as well.

I rarely use a polarizer, but I’ll often keep a light yellow on the front as a lens protector and a basic correction filter.  Leica makes a very light yellow that cuts the blue-sky blowouts perfectly, but they’re hard to find; I usually just use a standard B+W and clip a couple of seconds from the development.  I believe Contax makes a UV or skylight filter for this one.

You can always attach a filter – you just might have to create an adapter. MYOG!

Thankfully there are more factory adapters for sale than there are T3s, so I should have no trouble finding one.  Between $100 and $200US, depending on condition and color.  Thankfully this is the less-desirable and cheaper-looking champagne color, which means the adapters and widgets are all cheaper as well: black carries a premium.  As discussed in the other thread, however, there’ll definitely be a MYOG bag in the works for this one.

Finally got a clear picture of the filter mount; only took nineteen tries:

For those that care: a single 35mm canister weighs .75 oz. on the nose…so the final, loaded weight of the T3 is 9.4-ish ounces.  Call it 9.5 just for fun.  The adapter+filter will put it to 10 or so; still quite respectable, as most of its competition is a few ounces heavier than this without battery, film, filter, etc.  The T3’s titanium case and chassis evidently do pay off in weight savings.

I confess I cannot see how the filter attaches. Help?

Couldn’t leave one on my Canon as the face is quite flush, inside and outside, when it is turned off.

Sigh. I have two Olympus OM2 cameras which I never use, plus a swag of lenses and adapters., inc tele and wide angle. One of them is an OM2-Ti as well. Open to offers.

Cheers

See those two L-shaped notches at 12:00 and 6:00?  That’s where the filter adapter mounts: insert, twist 5° clockwise, and it locks into place.  30.5mm filters screw into the adapter.  I would expect another ounce by the time both pieces are in place…but since the lens has a built-in protective shield, the filter isn’t needed to preserve the front element, and filters are only necessary for correction.

OM2-Ti?  Didn’t know they made one of those…

I see, thanks. Pity there is no room for even that on my Canon. Never mind.

OM2-Ti : they exist, but they are apparently rare. The OM2-N can be found on ebay, but not the OM2-Ti.

Cheers

Interesting info, Roger!  I never knew that such a thing existed.  I’ve often looked at the “Ti” models of everything as being needless expense tacked onto already-expensive cameras, but I’m starting to realize that it actually has a use in some rare cases.

Tonight, I’m getting the T3 boxed up for a full CLA at a shop in New York.  I took some measurements, though, so I can start looking for patterns for a pod/bag/case/thing.

Patterns? You know me. I just wrapped some heavy paper around the camera, drew lines, cut out and taped. That was my pattern.

Ti models – I did not actually buy it myself. Someone else at work bought it for official work use, but when the site was closed down I looked after a lot of the photog gear before it got thrown out. (What a lot of waste.)

Cheers

Yeah, I guess I could do the paper route and hopefully create something that doesn’t suck.  One of my friends does a lot of sewing; maybe he could give me some pointers on patterns.

Old sheets are your friend for testing pattern.
Cheers

Old sheets are your friend for testing pattern.

Does that work for windscreens, too..?

Got it boxed up for a CLA and a likely pre-repair – prepair…🤔 – today.  Early T3s have a weakness in the take-up spool: a broken tooth – and there’s only one – can brick the camera.  Field repairs involve taping the leader to the spool, but the perma-fix is drilling the spool and tapping in a 1.5mm headless set screw to replace the tooth.  Might as well have that done while everything is being checked; that’ll keep her running for a long time.

For windscreens you can use those light aluminium oven trays. Flatten them out and go for it with ordinary scissors. Very easy.

Come to that – once you have a satisfactory design made from that stuff, just keep using it! Sure, it may last only a year or two, but the price is minimal! Replacement is simple. But do NOT fold them up: that will work-harden the metal so it cracks.

Instead, roll it up loosely. I use a straight-sided 1.25 L fizzy water bottle for water and I wrap the windscreen around it inside a silnylon stuff sack for packing. That works very well at protecting the windscreen.

Take up spools on film cameras . . . yeah, I know. Did a good trip many years ago with the OM2. It was when I though I should be running out of exposures that I checked the counter: it was still on 1. The leader has slipped out of the take-up spool, and all those great photos just — weren’t.

Cheers

I guess that’s one good thing about the digital age: you can at least get an idea of what you have before you get all the way back home.  I had the same thing happen, once.  Once.  Learned my lesson about checking the counter/advance after that.

I’m looking forward to getting this thing back and shooting a few rolls locally; that’ll give me an idea of how to work with it.

Slight Update: the T3 has been at Nippon Photo Clinic for a week or so, and they have finished their inspection.  The only real issues are that the take-up tooth does need repair/replacement, and the autofocus/autoexposure needs some adjustment and fine-tuning since it’s not been used much (or at all) in the past decade; they’re going to do a full cleaning on it while it’s in-house, as well.  About $350 for the entire service, which is exceptionally cheap compared to what I normally pay for a tune-up on an M3.

It’s back! NPC got it all tuned up and working correctly. I can’t say that I’m 100% happy with the appearance of the tooth repair, but it works, so I honestly don’t care too much about how it looks. I’ll pick up a filter adapter here in the next few weeks, and then I’ll be all ready to go. I don’t have a good way to scan prints and publish them, unfortunately, but I’ll try and post a review nonetheless.

Also, the total weight when loaded with a battery and film is 264.75 g, or about 9.33 oz. Not too bad!

I figured that I should give an update on this little camera, having used it quite a bit, recently…and the update is this: I absolutely love it.  I honestly don’t know that there’s a better option for my particular working style, because this tiny little thing has exactly what I want and nothing that I don’t need.  It is unpretentious, simple, and surprisingly low-tech…and those are nice descriptors.  It’s as if I was very good in a previous life, and some benevolent deity has decided to reward me.

To explain: I’ve often said that the equipment one uses to photograph doesn’t really matter…and I stand by that, here.  I do not need this camera to make good photos.  I do not need any particular camera to make good photos…but some cameras manage to get out of my way better than others, physically and functionally, and as such they allow me to concentrate on making good images instead of worrying about what my camera is doing.  My M3 is very much like this, and I’ve carried it on several trips…but this little dingus does everything that the M3 can do, only in a smaller, lighter and simpler package.  Sure, you lose lens interchangeability when you move to a point-and-shoot, but I don’t swap lenses on my M3 so what does that function matter?  I’ve had the same 50/2 on it for about six years now, so it might as well be cemented in place.  That focal length matches my view of the world quite well in most cases, as does the 35/2.8 that the T3 wears.  It’s incredibly liberating to not even have the option to swap a lens: it forces me to see rather than to look and descend into contemplations of alteration.  This mentality will not work for everyone, obviously…but other methods are available.

I like the lightness and the quickness, as I’ve previously said, and I like where the controls are placed.  The only thing that I don’t like is that Contax didn’t give me a factory option for changing ISO settings…and as I severely deviate from box speeds, this can be a bit of a pain.  Thankfully, stick-on DX coding labels exist; this erases the one gripe I could have about the camera.

It would be nice to have the ability to show a few images that I’ve created with the T3, but the scanning and correction technologies that are required to make digital representations mimic my prints are sadly beyond me at this time.  I may investigate a third-party service for this kind of thing at some point in the future, but for now, it’s not a happening thing.  As always, however, prints are available for those that are interested.

Future changes: not many.  I may decide to use a yellow filter at some point in order to tone down/up certain values in the negatives, but I’m not decided on that course, yet.  Until then, I’ll just keep a plain skylight filter in place as a lens protector, and continue to learn the subtleties that Zeiss built into this little jewel.  It really is a nice bit of kit; too bad that doesn’t really make much of an impact on anything. 😉