I'm entirely serious here! I've always been fascinated by clockwork and it's still in use today - just look at the incredibly sucessful "Freeplay" radio that's bought music and information to all corners of Africa. The original 1930's Mooly enabled around 2 fps and 12 frames per wind, surely with today's technology 20 frames per wind should be possible in a very compact reliable unit (unlike the original). I'm sure many would welcome a small, affordable ($300?) and above all entirely battery free alternative to the Leica electrical offering. Come on Voigtlander, you would sell thousands. Here's the original:

Does anyone have a WORKING original?

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), March 24, 2002

Answers

Gikes;

They may be half a step ahead of you.

I have seen a VC rapidwinder mechanism to fit under the Bessa R or T- I am not sure. Perhaps it fits the L as well. It is a simple ratchet on a wheel with a small rubber belt, the whole thing fitting under/onto a fitting on the base of the camera.

I have not seen it advertised out side of Asia, but I have held one in my hand. It is not as "robust" as what I imagine a LeitzMachine from the 30s would have been, but it works.

Cheers

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richardjx@hotmail.com), March 24, 2002.

A local dealer had a MOOLY a year or so ago and I had the opportunity to play with it. It's a delightful object, but to be honest I have never seen the point of motorising a small ragefinder camera. I'm not against motors as such - I have both varieties for my R8 - it just doesn't 'work' for me on Ms.

I doubt if there have been any radical changes in clockwork technology that would allow extra frames, although the larger footprint afforded by an M compared with a pre-war rangefinder might enable a larger spring to be used.

The VC device mentioned above sounds very like the Abrahamson rapid winder, which I have never used, but which does have a very loyal following among those who have.

-- (matt@pulzer.org), March 24, 2002.

As for a newer MOOLY, check with Tom at www.rapidwinder.com.

-- chris a williams (LeicaChris@worldnet.att.net), March 24, 2002.

Will it be necessary to re-name this group : “Clockwork mechanic top level” ?

At least some messages let me wonder about that.

Some objects seem to have ever attracted a particular sympathy which far exceeds the time they were at the peak of their efficiency. No doubt a steam locomotive is more spectacular to see and has a special life of its own that is hardly reached by a diesel or an electric one. No doubt the beauty of the craftsmanship of a clockwork mechanism and its readily apparent complexity look more an hymn to the capabilities of the human being than a still and cold piece of integrated circuitry.

Now, just tell me of a steam locomotive or a diesel or electric one which is the more efficient ? From the capabilities of a clockwork mechanism in a watch and a cold and stupid electronic circuit with a quartz regulation, which is the more precise one ?

I used to have an all mechanical Breitling chronometer, it was before the first quartz watches hit the shelves. A mighty fine one indeed… Though I had to rewind it each day to make it works properly (I know some so-called automatic watches had a sort of auto-rewind by the movement of the individuals using them). Alas, this beautiful piece of mechanic needed both to be cleaned and oiled and, as any watertight watch, also needed to have its joints periodically exchanged. So far so good, but when the model was discontinued it was no more practical to have those joints exchanged. Less and less people were able to service the mechanism and tune it by the way. It has become a beautiful piece of useless metal, just something to be put in some Museum as an example of past technology. Then (it was about 25 years ago) my late Mother bought me a very fine electronic watch with analogical display (it means the usual needles were their). It still works perfectly, I don’t need to rewind it each day and so far the battery permits two years of continuous and faultless operation with a much higher precision than my old mechanical watch and you know what? To extract the best precision of this last model, it needed to be serviced with about the same delay in between the operations than the battery replacement needs. Another difference, the servicing bill: to clean and precisely tune my mechanical device was much more expensive than to change my present watch battery and replace the watertight joints.

What link between these examples and cameras will you tell me ?

Easy to find… An all mechanical camera is more fascinating than an all electronic one, like a steam locomotive or a mechanical watch, but it doesn’t imply the corresponding modern electronic ones are less reliable, less precise or more difficult to maintain. On the contrary…

Battery dependence is a very heavily overestimated liability by a large number of us here. To the point they have identified the small format rangefinder camera concept as a whole to a mechanical camera and to the point they consider the fact to need to have some spare batteries in their bag an insurmountable difficulty. The “remote areas tune” being their favourite argument against this dependence… It is, of course, extremely easy to find a shop selling Fujichrome Velvia and Kodak Tri-X in upper Amazon jungle, surely easier than to find a spare battery there… It is obviously much less difficult to carry with you the five films or so per day provision in watertight, tropical climate proof containers in such an expedition than to carry with them the related spare batteries… Sheer non-sense! …

Now, do you really think the mechanical devices are more reliable ? There is a rule in mechanics which is well known: the more you pack moving parts in a mechanism, the more it is prone to have a failure. True, the electronic packages built in the early cameras which used them were very unreliable when compared to what reliability can be expected from well proven mechanics built in classical cameras. The electronic components might have been not of a sufficient quality and – I think the real explanation is here – they were not protected enough against the hardships of the camera life, moreover in the hand of a professional photographer. But this time is long gone now and each day a vast number of electronic cameras are submitted to all the bad treatments you can imagine in the hands of reporters in remote, difficult and troubled areas throughout the world, without any reported high rate of failure. I know, some of you will object quite a number of photographers are still carrying manual mechanical bodies as a back up… My answer is clear, I think they are simply still under the influence of the original lack of reliability of electronic cameras. What we should need to know to appreciate the value of this behavior is the frequency they have to rely on these mechanical back-ups to complete their assignments, not because their other camera failed to operate properly, as even a mechanical one will sometimes do so, but because they ran out of batteries… I guess this situation is exceptional (even less frequent than to run out of film). Unless you can prove me the mechanical cameras are exceptions to the rule the more moving parts you pack in a device, the more it is prone to failures, there is a good chance a well built and conceived electronic camera will be less prone to failures than a mechanical one.

Now as far as my own experience tells me, a very precise clockwork mechanism such as the one packed in mechanical cameras is no more reparable in the field than an electronic one with a defective circuit. Of course you may be able to identify the source of the failure more easily but as to be able to fix it is another story. And when it goes to the cost of repair, it is obvious that changing an integrated circuit by another mass produced one is far easier and less costly than to fix a mechanical default by replacing a highly precisely engineered piece with all the inconveniencies of a long and tedious disassembly and reassembly. Even the diagnosis (if the camera is fitted with proper diagnosis plugs) is easier… as is easier the eventual tuning of the device.

Electronic also eases mass production and mass control, lowers the cost of a camera, while allowing much more precision and capabilities to be built in. Of course it is much less spectacular to see and reflects much less human manual work and craftsmanship… But one should consider how much human intelligence in the development of these devices are reflected by the functions they allow (look at your computer my friends).

Now, let’s consider the proposal of our friend Giles Poilu: a modern MOOLY ! Something even Leica didn’t dare to produce itself. To avoid batteries, you’ll have to built a regulated clockwork mechanism very similar to what was found in a watch but much more powerful as to drive the film and re-arm the shutter. You will also need to record how many frames you can take without rewinding the spring unless you accept you’ll take the 12 frames or so it permits each time you use it. Just to be sure to have enough autonomy for the next sequence. Or, alternately, each time you take some frames, you’ll need to rewind, just to be sure… Something not very conducive to the durability of the spring. And then how many frames will you allow your new MOOLY to take per second? Of course you can add something to offer some kind of choice: say frame per frame, then 3 images per second and if the spring is strong enough, 6 per second… But it is impossible to tell the motor how many frames your camera will allow to take in a second depending on the shutter speed you use… Something electronically regulated modern motors will be told instantly… Ultimately this piece of fine mechanic will be something priced two or three times the value of an electric device with electronic regulation, have much more moving parts and complicated precision engineered components prone to eventual failure and to what purpose? To get a cumbersome and very awkward to use and heavy device, less reliable and less precise… Just the same you’ll get in using a steam engine into your car! … MOOLY was a fine device when there was nothing better available. And to want a MOOLY today just not to be battery dependent is something I can’t even have dreamt possible…

Even the all mechanical famous Nagra tape recorder was long discontinued and sound reporters are happy now with electrical and battery dependent devices they have. The Nagra only survived until alkaline batteries became available because they lowered the battery consumption to a point carrying spare batteries in sufficient number was no more a liability. Today, modern cameras can pack newly developed (for military appliances by the way) lithium batteries with even more autonomy (my Hexar RF is fed by a pack of such batteries which allows for around 200 x 36 frame rolls each in normal operation, at five rolls a day in an expedition it means a set will cover 40 days of operation). The display system, electronic shutters and all other battery fed appliances are less and less consuming electricity too so increasing even more the autonomy.

Sometimes I imagine some of us are using horse drawn carriages instead of cars for fear of running out of gas!…

I’m far for being convinced by a new device just because it’s new or fashionable (I won’t have a rangefinder camera if I were so). I praise what the past reflections of our elders has brought to us and to this day a small format rangefinder camera is still for me the quintessence of the best things small format camera has brought and still brings to photography. I may be even iconoclastic in spreading my word about the lack of interest and real edge in performance of AF in general photography versus a good understanding of DOF rules and the precision of a rangefinder or in daring to write modern auto- all 35 mm reflexes are only optimised for fast long tele-lens action photography and better replaced for everything else by a small format range finder camera or a medium format classical SLR, depending on the assignment. But I’ll never negate what real progress can bring to us and let nostalgic feelings bend my judgement in such a curious way as to refute the evidence. May be it is because I’m a user and not a collector, even less a collector of “newly produced antics”, as I perfectly understand and respect the ones who devote time and money to the preservation of a heritage of the past. But the place of a MOOLY is now in a museum, no more under the camera of an active photographer.

Friendly

François P. WEILL

PS: I don't consider a "rapid winder" has anything to do with a clockwork motor :)))

-- François P. WEILL (frpawe@wanadoo.fr), March 24, 2002.

Francois, some interesting thoughts - many of which I agree with. Like many of us here I do enjoy purely mechanical things, however this isn't simply a nostalgia trip - I truly believe that this would be a viable alternative to the M motor.

Voigtlander already market the T winder for around $200, if all that's needed is a few springs and gears - a Voigtlander MOOLY should be reasonably cheap and reliable.

Regarding Chris's note about Tom's winder - this is of couse a modern update of the Leicavit not the Mooly but perhaps this is closest in spirit to the Mooly at present.

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), March 24, 2002.

I'd love a MOOLY too, although to be fair the current compact Motor M is pretty cool - if the batteries die you can always wind-on by hand (try that with an EOS or F4 or F5!).

What I would really like Cosina to make however is a new version of the AUFSU waist-level finder.

These things haven't been made since the 1930s and cost a bomb when/if you can find one.

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), March 24, 2002.