Ive found a used classic pack camera! How can I check it to make sure it works properly?
First, unfold the camera by pulling the front out until it ‘clicks’ into place. Do the bellows have good, straight accordion-like creases, or do the bellows look ‘mushy’ and sag– as if it has lost its form? If it looks ‘mushy’, open the back of the camera (while it’s still unfolded) and check the inside of the bellows. There’s a black cloth liner on the inside of the bellows– if it has separated from the vinyl outer layer, then I’d reject the camera right there, because it’ll probably be difficult to repair, and if you don’t fix it, the liner will likely stray into the light path, causing odd shadows in parts of the image. If the cloth liner has not separated from the outer layer, try re-folding the camera carefully, and open it again a few times. Someone might have just been careless in collapsing the camera last time before it was stored away, and the bellows didn’t fold properly. If that’s the case, then you can likely solve the problem just by collapsing the camera so that the be
