I lost the exposure needle in my B4008ZMII

[greg_8mm]

I know it's really stupid and I'm ashamed of having to mention it here, but I dropped my beloved B4008ZMII. It approximately fell 50cm (20 inches). I just got a new tripod and I accidentaly pressed the quick release handle.

The camera is still fine, I have carpet in my house and it didn't hit the ground too hard. Everything works fine. Except, the exposure needle in my viewfinder is gone!

The internal exposure meter still works fine. With the Schneider 6-66 lens in auto mode, the camera still changes the aperture automatically according to the amount of light coming in. It's just that there is no needle anymore.

No problem you would say, as you could get a reading from the auto mode, switch the camera to manual mode and then shoot. But the thing is I use nikon SLR lenses on my Beaulieu too, and now I'm not able to get a reading from the internal meter.

My question is: how hard would it be to repair this? In 3 weeks I'm off to Morocco for a 3 week surf trip. Do you think this will be able to be repaired in 3 weeks? Or should I start looking into external light meters?

[aj]

Likely it was bashed to one side and got stuck there. If it were broken off I would expect the camera would be flat as a pancake from the fall .

What happens if you do the battery test? Possibly that can bring back the needle into view and moving again.

[greg_8mm]

What do you mean by the battery test?

I tested the camera in all modes. Zoom motor works, auto exposure aperture works, motor of camera works.. Just no needle! 8O I also can't see it to any side of the viewfinder..

But aj, do you think Mr. van der Does would be able to fix this? I'm going to call him anyways tomorrow morning see what he thinks.

thanks for the quick reply..

[greg_8mm]

Called Mr. van der Does this morning and he told me it would be too expensive to have the camera repaired. For the amount of money that I'd need for such a long repair job I might as well spend it on a new B4008ZMII he said.

So I'm pretty bummed about this. Since I was getting al my gear together for a shoot in Morocco in february. I don't really know what to do. Either get an external light meter, or get a new Beaulieu (don't know if I'll get it in time).

How would you guys deal with not having an internal light meter?

My gut feeling is that you should have it anyways, since it knows at what film speed you're shooting. It's kinda hard to determine exactly at what film speed you're shooting on the Beaulieu since it only shows the values on the small turn knob. That would mean that calculating the shutter speed would be inaccurate, and using an external light meter would also yield inaccurate results.

So I guess I should start looking for camera's, or do you guys think I could pull it off with an external light meter?

[Chris-B]

You could try contacting Bjorn Andersson, Filmkonsult Svebaco KB.
bjorn.andersson@brevet.nu

He serviced my B4008ZM, I heard he sells beaulieus too.
Took under two weeks in total, from went I sent it to getting it back.

Sorry to hear about your camera.
Chris.

[Bjorn Andersson]

We have had contact already. The acute problem was solve with another full working camera body.

[greg_8mm]

That was the short term solution indeed.

The long term solution is definitely gonna be me sending the camera to Bjorn for service after I return from my trip.

Thanks everyone for helping me out with this issue. Love these forums for that.

Greg