I have a medium-obscure 35mm camera called the Konica Auto S2. This camera will work without batteries, but has a shutter-priority mode with them.

First off, I have no idea how to activate the light meter. Any info on this?

Secondly, is this camera intended to take alkaline batteries?

-- Stephen Grady (eightx10@yahoo.com), May 30, 2000

Answers

I checked the Cameraquest site at:

http://www.cameraquest.com/classics.htm

They have comments on the Auto S3, not, unfortunately on the S2. You might check with Stephen Gandy, who runs the site, about the batteries. Many cameras of that vintage use the mercury cell batteries. There are adaptors made that enable you to use modern batteries, and a few folks sell the mercury cells privately. In any case, check out the web site. It is loaded with interesting stuff.

-- Paul Harris (pharris@neosoft.com), May 30, 2000.

The Konica Auto S-2 was designed with the mercury 625 battery as the power for the meter. 625A will fit, I suppose, but it may throw off the calibration.

When you have a battery installed, the battery is activated by (a)setting the film speed on the bottom of the lens mount circumference and (b)setting the aperture ring at "Auto". As you say it is shutter speed priority so it will set the appropriate aperture for the speed selected, unless you are out of range. Battery can be checked by pushing the red button on the bottom of the camera; if the battery is good, the needle will move to the orange mark on the scale. The 1 second shutter speed with 125 to 200 speed films and the 1 second and 1/2 second shutter speeds with 250 to 400 speed films are outside the metering range so those shutter speeds are locked out when those film speeds are selected in "Auto" mode. The full range of shutter speeds is available on manual, but that doesn't extend the metering range. Hope this helps.

Bill Delehanty St. Paul, MN

-- Bill Delehanty (delebill@yahoo.com), May 30, 2000.