One Ring to Fix the Zoom

Minolta Autopak-8 K11

I was a little disappointed when I got my Minolta Autopak-8 k11 a couple of weeks ago. It worked, but marginally. Cosmetically it looked good, but there was a ring at the base of the lens that seemed to jam the auto zoom mechanism and the zoom lever was missing. It took a bit of brute strength to change the lens angle... which all but made the camera useless.

I got to fiddling with the dang thing yesterday. I popped the ring off with a small screwdriver and managed to re-mount it on the lens base correctly. It took care of the jam—now the auto zoom and zoom lever work freely and the camera functions exactly like it should. I shot some footage with it on some Kodak Tri-X. I'm waiting to expose the other roll with the BH Microstar Z I'm getting later this week, and then I'll send them in together and compare. Hopefully all will work great.

After fixing the zoom, I detailed it. The camera was dirty with finger smudges and some old grime. It's a solid piece of work- made out of metal. It's also heavy. I wish the f1.8 lens was faster- I really want to put it to work in some low light situations especially since it has a 24fps setting. It seems to be in good shape and I'm looking forward to using it as one of my main cameras.