RTSIII . Lost and found (after 6 years)
Dec 20, 2017 13:56:58 GMT
on Dec 20, 2017 13:56:58 GMT
Posted: Dec 20, 2017 13:56:58 GMT
First of all I'm a new poster here, and I want to say hello to all of you from Padova, Italy
The story
I'm 50 . Till my 30's I've been a guy that couldn't go out of his house without a camera. I was in love with B&W street Photography and jazz concerts Pictures.
At that time I wasn't married and had a more than decent wage, so I used to use very Hi End Cameras and optics. . Among them Leica M series and Contax stuff.
So I managed to have 2 bodies of RTSIII contax. Bought them Second hand with very low use. One for color pictures, the other for B&W.
After a few years i took out one of the contax and unfortunately she gave me the famous display problem, so It was working no more. Unluckily that was after Contax left the market. So it was hard to find spare parts.
A friend of mine told me to leave my camera to a certain camera shop, that was in touch with some repair experts that probably could do something to fix it. It was 2011
So I've done that: left the beloved RTSIII to that shop.
After a couple of months, the owner of the camera shop unfortunately died. And the shop was not reopened.
With the help of some friends I managed to get in touch to an old clerk of the shop to try to get back my camera. But I had no success at all.
I've searched to get in touch with different repair shops locally in order to understand where my camera was. But once again no success at all.
This morning , I was at one of my customer's place, and the door next to this office was a service center for cameras. I was there and it brought back my memories. I rang the door, and an old lady came to open. I told her the history of my camera, and she smiled. In fact she had in the lab since 2011 that RTSIII. I had the luck to place a tag in all of my cameras with my name. So simply she checked my ID, foud the same name and after 6 years i've got back my, Contax.
I'm happy as a boy for having found the camera, but still it's not working.
So now, having seen that there are RTS III on the market as low as 250 euros here in Italy, in my case it makes no sense to send it to any service shop to fix it.
Being a mechatronic engineer, and having access to most of the appliances to work on electronics circuits, I'would like to try to fix it by myself.
But I'm not able to find the original service manual for RTSIII.
Can anybody help me in sourcing it , or do you know where can I find one of these manuals, obviously paying a reasonable price for it?
Many thanks for the help.
Ciao
Paolo
The story
I'm 50 . Till my 30's I've been a guy that couldn't go out of his house without a camera. I was in love with B&W street Photography and jazz concerts Pictures.
At that time I wasn't married and had a more than decent wage, so I used to use very Hi End Cameras and optics. . Among them Leica M series and Contax stuff.
So I managed to have 2 bodies of RTSIII contax. Bought them Second hand with very low use. One for color pictures, the other for B&W.
After a few years i took out one of the contax and unfortunately she gave me the famous display problem, so It was working no more. Unluckily that was after Contax left the market. So it was hard to find spare parts.
A friend of mine told me to leave my camera to a certain camera shop, that was in touch with some repair experts that probably could do something to fix it. It was 2011
So I've done that: left the beloved RTSIII to that shop.
After a couple of months, the owner of the camera shop unfortunately died. And the shop was not reopened.
With the help of some friends I managed to get in touch to an old clerk of the shop to try to get back my camera. But I had no success at all.
I've searched to get in touch with different repair shops locally in order to understand where my camera was. But once again no success at all.
This morning , I was at one of my customer's place, and the door next to this office was a service center for cameras. I was there and it brought back my memories. I rang the door, and an old lady came to open. I told her the history of my camera, and she smiled. In fact she had in the lab since 2011 that RTSIII. I had the luck to place a tag in all of my cameras with my name. So simply she checked my ID, foud the same name and after 6 years i've got back my, Contax.
I'm happy as a boy for having found the camera, but still it's not working.
So now, having seen that there are RTS III on the market as low as 250 euros here in Italy, in my case it makes no sense to send it to any service shop to fix it.
Being a mechatronic engineer, and having access to most of the appliances to work on electronics circuits, I'would like to try to fix it by myself.
But I'm not able to find the original service manual for RTSIII.
Can anybody help me in sourcing it , or do you know where can I find one of these manuals, obviously paying a reasonable price for it?
Many thanks for the help.
Ciao
Paolo