Great camera. I have one, I bought about 15 years ago. I managed to get a braun/leica tech in the uk to go over mine and do some minor repairs, dry solder joints, etc. So I have a perfect specimen now! The viewfinder is a split prism style. So there is no mirrored shutter, so I would suspect maybe the the viewfinder path has been altered by being whacked at some point. The shutter position bears no relevance on what you can see through the viewfinder.
But great camera. Mine has a Schneider-Kreuznach 1.4/7-80 lens with a great macro. So it is a nice lens, great in low light situations. And the lens diameter is 67mm so getting filters is no hassle. I think this lens came standard in this model. It has a great built in timelapse system and lap-dissolve. Is very quiet. It also has a 25fps setting, which is great for PAL telecine. I shot a short film where we recorded on 1/4" nagra and slated the shots, then 'vary speeded' the tape decks in the edit, and we kept synch pretty well throughout, without a crystal, even on some fairly long takes. One piece of advice though, don't charge the battery packs within the camera itself. I have not done it myself, but was told they have a tendancy to explode! Also don't use 1.5v aa batteries. You need to use the 1.2v rechargeables, otherwise it can damage the light meter. It is a very tactile, easy to use camera. The split-focus viewfinder system is not as good for shooting 'on the fly' as the Beaulieu ground glass, but just takes some getting used to. It has the two different gauge mounts on the base for tripods also. the smaller domestic size and the larger (1/4" inch?) size for fluid head tripods. Hope it works out for you, probably worth getting checked out by someone. I went in to du-all camera here in NYC, and they have a nice one they are selling for $600 US. The tech I found in the UK is no longer in business unfortunately, but here is a snippet I found on the internet a while ago, I don't know if this guy is still working on Braun. Good Luck! -
Nizo Super 8 Film Camera Repair Specialist
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From MetaDirectory:
http://lavender.fortunecity.com/lavende ... epair.html
Here is a recommendation taken from the newsgroups on a place to have your Braun-Nizo camera repaired:
The man you need to contact is called Kurt Schacherl in Germany. He's the most experienced person on the planet when it comes to fixing Braun Nizo Super 8 cameras. I've been to his workshop on the outskirts of Munich and his set-up is impressive. He basically bought all the spare parts from Braun's Munich factory when production of Super8 cameras ceased in the mid 1980s. He's about the only man alive who can completely strip down and rebuild a Nizo. Only problem is he doesn't speak much English and why should he? He lives in the German country-side. If you can find a friend who sprechens a bit of the old Deutsch then maybe it's worth a try. I certainly wouldn't trust any of my Nizo's to anyone else but Kurt. You can contact him at:
Kurt Schacherl
Kino Video Technik Schacherl
Buchhofer Strasse 22
82140 Olching, Germany
Tel: 49 81 42 12262
http://www.video-technik-schacherl.de/
Agita GMBH
PO Box 1347
D-73626 Remshalden 1,
GERMANY
-- from the USA:
Tel: 011-49- (7151) 7 20 21,
Fax: 011-49- (7151) 7 9152.
For outside the USA and dialing from within Germany
add a Zero to the area code number: (07151).
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