One of the things I’m really enjoying, during my return to my film roots, is using really well made cameras. A good example of this has to be the well engineered Edixa Mat Reflex. When you get one of these box like but substantial cameras in your hand (camera and Edixa Xenar 50mm f2.8 lens the weight is 2 pounds) the care and attention to detail really does shine through.
Just notice the film wind on mechanism. Why go to the bother of making such an articulate armature? Perhaps because the makers were engineers and they saw an opportunity to make a statement of intent. Whatever the reason, the result of that seemingly small decision is to add to the enjoyment in using the camera, as the video below hopefully demonstrates.
Removing the rose coloured glasses for a moment lets deal with some facts. Cloth Shutter with speeds from B to 1000th of a second. Shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/8 of a second requires you to set the upper dial to 30th and then slide the lower lever to the required speed. Unlike some cameras of this era the shutter speed dial can be moved before or after the film is wound on.
A pentaprism viewfinder that can be removed allows the camera to be used at waist level. As you’ll notice from my encounter with the Miranda Sensorex here, I like this feature a lot😊 Looking through the viewfinder, my viewfinder, is at best a merky experience. On disassembling the viewfinder there seems to be some discolouration within the glass prism??? This makes focusing slightly more problematical than usual. However this gives me the opportunity to try the camera at waist level without the viewfinder on☺️☺️
In the image above you can see the flash terminals. Above them are the shutter actuation button and shutter button lock. I’m not sure if I like the location of the shutter button particularly as I found it to be incredibly sensitive. So I guess I found a good use for the button’s lock and was grateful for its inclusion.
With rose tinted glasses back on, just look at the detail in things like the film chamber above and below with the base of the camera.
The Edixa Mat Reflex has a non standard M42 lens mount. So while any M42 lens will screw into the camera you will notice that the aperture scale will be askew from its normal central position as you look down from the camera. As a result the little pin on the lens that closes the aperture down at the point of taking the picture, doesn’t come into contact with the camera’s mechanism and so remains open at full aperture. Why??? To sell more of their own brand lenses??
I have a couple of non standard M42 lenses so this is not a problem. I rather like the Edixa Xenar 50mm f2.8 lens, in fact it stayed on during my outings with the camera.
When set to Manual the pin pivots into the lens. Why not just have an ordinary pin? Once again an example of craftsmanship.
The sliding red depth of field scale on the lens allows you to see what is going to be in focus for your chosen aperture. Hyperfocal distance calculator built right into the lens. Nice
With all this goodness emanating out from the camera, what could go wrong? The human interface, me, set up the Weston light meter for the wrong film speed. So most of the images were way over exposed. 😫
However it gave me an opportunity to see how Fomapan 400 dealt with overexposure, so not a total disaster after all🤫
When an image is captured, a little circle on the the right hand side of the viewfinder pops out to let you know that you must wind the film on before taking the next image. Of course if you want to intentionally double expose a frame, you can simply wind the film speed dial manually and take the second image. Very nice indeed!
As you can probably tell I like this camera a lot. Having made a mistake with the exposure only serves to give me reason to go out again with it. I find it remarkable that a camera 50 years old continues to function as if new. I wonder how many Sony A7’s, Canon R5’s or Nikon Z7’s will be around in the year 2071? But then why should it surprise me , after all the Edixa Mat Reflex manual says:
“Your Edixa-mat will give you a lifetime of pleasure, and Edixa-mat pictures will top anything you’ve ever done before!”
How true 🤔
arhphotographic 
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