arhphotographic

This is only the second camera made by Cosina that I have tried so far and I have to say they are good little cameras. Although there is a lot of plastic on this Cosina CSM it does feel solid and well balanced in my hand. It is mechanical, only needing two small 1.5v batteries for the light meter. It takes M42 screw lenses of which I have quite a number to choose from.

To take a picture I first focus on my subject. Pressing the shutter button half way causes it to click into place, the lens then stops down to whatever aperture you’ve chosen and the light meter is activated. In the viewfinder there are three LED’s , a red -> and <- and a green for correct exposure. If one of the red LED’s light you simply turn the aperture ring in the direction the arrow is pointing, very nice touch as it means you can keep your eye to the viewfinder in changing light conditions. Once having metered the subject you can press the aperture release button, pictured on the lower left in the image above, and just check focus again with the lens wide open before committing to taking the photo. Slightly unusual but effective.

Apart for the obvious shutter speed dial and a shutter button which can be locked, not much to see on the top plate. Note the little pin on the shutter speed dial between B and the ASA marks

It has the usual X sync port for a flash unit which has a maximum 60th second shutter speed. But it has an additional one marked A???

(Big fanfare) Enter the Cosina AEC adapter, seen below mounted on the hot shoe.

Yes the CSM is an all manual camera but with a twist. Mounting the AEC adapter onto the camera turns it into a manual mechanical aperture priority camera ???

The AEC adapter is powered by a single 6v battery. To mount the adapter you have to first move the shutter speed dial, on the camera, onto 1000th, the top speed for this camera. Lifting the lever on top of the AEC adapter moves its shutter speed dial up, allowing it to slip onto the camera hot shoe. Then lowering the lever locks into the pin I mentioned earlier on the cameras dial, superimposing another speed dial over the cameras one.

The cable from the AEC then attaches to the A in the front of the camera, as you can see above. AEC stands for Automatic Exposure Control. I guess that the adapter taps into the cameras light meter and then moves the shutter dial accordingly. It is quite noisy as the video below demonstrates.

But the question is , does it work? Well……..

The tulip above was in shade but with the AEC no problem

In contrast these bleeding heart flowers were in direct sunshine. Maybe a little to light??

All three photos above have varying degrees of brightness/ darkness. The camera fitted with the AEC does a good job I think.

However there were a handful of occasions where the camera struggled and produced some badly underexposed images like the one below.

With a little adjustment. Not bad!

Being mechanical the AEC is always going to be slower, perhaps not so good for fast moving situations. However for the subjects I chose it wasn’t a problem.

I did have a couple of images that has some kind of light leak. The door latch for the film compartment is missing so I had used some black tape to secure it. This may has lifted a little in use leading to the light leaks.

The Cosina CSM, without the AEC adapter, is a simple to use manual camera that does a good job quietly without any fuss. Adding the AEC adapter makes it more noisy, but does add a certain fun factor which is much appreciated in these difficult times.