Byrnesmill City Park with Aires 35 III C Photo Gallery by edmund j. kowalski at pbase.com

Byrnesmill City Park with Aires 35 III C

Sunday I took a little break from Argus.
I pulled my Aires 35 III C off the shelf and dropped in a roll of Walgreens ASA 200 print film.
Hot Memorial Day weekend (temperature climbed into the nineties), and I ended up at a popular place on such a day, Byrnesmill City Park on Big River.

The Aires 35 III C is a well constructed Japanese rangefinder type camera from 1958.
Lens is a fast Coral f:1.9 / 45mm in a Seikosha MXL shutter, 1 second to 1/200.
Features include focus from 2 2/3 feet to infinity, coupled rangefinder with parallax-correcting bright frame viewer, self timer, winder that folds away flush, and quick drop-out film removal.
Note the strong visual resemblance to M series Leica cameras of that time.
But the lens of the Aires is not removable.

Camera functions performed smoothly.
There were no issues except for an intermittent pale reflective "ghost" patch in the corner of some images. I have not yet determined the cause of that. It reminds me of the "ghost" that afflicted the Argosy 3 C-4 for a time during its around the world trek, but does not seem to have the same cause. The "ghost" in the Argosy 3 camera was cured by repainting an internal metal shroud with flat textured paint. With the Aires, it may have something to do with the UV filter I had attached to the lens while shooting.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are Š2012 E.J.Kowalski.

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comment |

edmund j. kowalski		24-Nov-2013 16:50
I looked at that particular example of Aires IIIC just now, this morning. As I remembered, the shutter works flawlessly, even after a year on the shelf. No shutter hang up. Clean optically. I went into a dark room and shined a bright light through it for a more intense exam, and the reason for the light "ghosting" became readily apparent. There are areas within the lens and shutter barrel that are rather reflective, and show up as bright white bands around the perimeter of the light path. Closer inspection indicates that the bands are on the edges of the glass elements, where the glass is not properly darkened These would reflect patches of light onto the film plane under certain conditions, and would explain what happened when I shot these images last year. The effect is less visible at smaller apertures. The only fix would be to totally disassemble the lens and paint the outer edges of each piece of glass, and then reassemble. Will I have the time to do so someday? I do not know. But I have 100's of other cameras to enjoy. Ed Kowalski

Greg C.		23-Nov-2013 21:43
The ghost might be one of the aperture leaves not working correctly, or the shutter hanging up--which is a big problem with these cameras. Greg Weber in Fremont, Nebraska, may be able to fix it. He has successfully worked on many of my old cameras, including an Aires IIIL.

Dave Hamer		29-May-2012 01:35
It certainly does look-a like a Leica. Frame #1 is my favorite view...nice texture in the wood and I like the composition. Great work Ed.

Phil S.		28-May-2012 16:34
Pretty day, glad you got out. I have a Petri a lot like that, 7-element lens, awesome. If interchangeable lenses aren't important, you can hardly do better than these.

click on thumbnails for full image

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