Balda Coronet

 
This camera is more commonly labelled Balda Baldinette II. Coronet was one of its name variants, and this one had a sticker with Coronet marked on it, so that is what we shall call it.

Released in 1961, this 35mm camera comes with a selenium cell light meter, Isco-Göttingen Color-Isconar 45mm f/2.8 lens, aperture down to f/22, and it will focus down to 1.2 metres. The prontor shutter has a top speed of 1/250, and there is a cable release for long exposures on the Bulb setting. There is also a flash PC socket and cold shoe.

One of the lightest cameras in the collection at 270g.

Story time with Nicky:
So we have a lot of cameras, some are ours, some are Tash's, some are mine and some are the forgotten children that no-one loves. This one is one of mine, Tash has her Halina which is pretty much the same thing, but about 4 times the weight.
I spotted this camera on eBay listed as "Prontor 250 camera", and immediately said "That's a Balda" along with things like "Prontor is the shutter" and "Dude doesn't know what he's got", so I bought it.
Upon arrival two things struck me, 1: It's a Balda but it's not a Balda. It looks like a Balda. It's made by Balda. Yet strangely it doesn't say Balda on it. Anywhere. All it says is "Coronet" on a tiny sticker that has all but fallen off. 2: It doesn't weigh anything. This made more sense when I took it apart later and found that the top and bottom plate are pretty much the thickness of foil carry out trays, the body and lens housing are plastic, the covering is paper thin fake leather and all the mechanical bits are as simple and flimsy as possible.
So I quickly checked it over. The film advance moved, the shutter cocked, the light meter reacted to light and seemed to agree with the Ikophot, so far so good. Then I checked that the aperture moved and the shutter behaved at all speeds, both did, excellent thought I. Functionality confirmed I stuck some film in it (there was my first mistake) and I took it out with me to work one day. I lined up a shot and took it, happy days, nice little camera, easy to use, built in light meter, light to carry. What's not to like? Ok, shot 2 taken, wind on and nope, not winding on... Try again... Still nope. Bugger.
What am I doing wrong... It worked a minute ago. Head scratching ensued, it felt like it was trying to wind on but something was slipping or jumping out. I pulled the bottom plate off it (2 tiny screws into plastic) and things became clearer. The frame counter is a plastic disc that sits atop 2 spring tabs and locates in a hole in the bottom plate, so it falls out. The winder is a simple aluminium plate with a thumb lever bent on one side. There is a small spring that screws onto it and a tiny finger which turns a ratchet to advance the film. The ratchet has 2 notches to engage, one was fine the other was worn. That explained the missing every second shot. So I found that if I held the spring down I could assist it to wind on. The only downside of this ingenious solution is it meant opening the camera after every second shot. Not fun.
So progress though it's first roll was slow, then it got worse. The light meter broke. No idea why, just suddenly stopped working. Now to take the top off and investigate. The light meter is a very neat little Bewi unit which bolts onto the top plate, which sounds good, but it is completely sealed, glued shut. So there is no way to repair it. Resigned to replacing it I hit up eBay again only to realise that this Balda/Coronet thing is completely unique. After months and months of searching we have not seen another one quite the same. There are many which look very like it, many with viewfinders, some with light meters but none with the same arrangement of shutter release button and with all 3 units on the top plate. It has a light meter on the right, a bright frame window in the middle and the viewfinder window on the left, along with a very odd front left shutter release.  All of this leads to a problem, a light meter is hard to find, there are other Bewi meters around but so far I have only found 2 that look the right shape but neither are exactly the same.
So by now the poor camera is hobbling along with 2 broken legs, the kind thing to do would be to take it out back and shoot it, but oh no, that's not how we do things here, every camera deserves a loving home. I persevered and finished the roll. That gave me a chance to dig deeper and remove the damaged ratchet, and after trying to work out how to find spares for the world's only copy of this camera I found the answer lay within. Instead of just replacing I figured I would have to repair the damaged parts. This was easier than you may suspect, a small screwdriver heated on the gas stove allowed me to melt the plastic piece and put a proper edge back on the ratchet. This worked great, I rebuilt the camera and this time I ran my test roll through it. Success! It didn't miss a beat. Now time for some real film again, but lets not go daft, let's be sensible. Fortune finally struck. Tash was shooting some HP5+ in her Chaika and upon finishing the roll loaded the development tank. We developed the film and I noticed that the frame numbers stopped at 32, Odd I thought. It turned out that the Chaika had got bored of the film and stopped winding prematurely. So here I was with a few frames left on a roll of HP5+ and a camera to test. Perfect.
I shot the frames and stuck the film in some Rodinal then waited to see if all the effort was worth it. What greeted me was nothing short of amazing. The camera worked, but not just that, the pictures looked good, in-fact, close-up they looked great. So very happy with the results I put some Fomapan in it and went out shooting with Tash on one of the most miserable days we have taken cameras out. Think damp, windy, drizzle, an oppressive atmosphere that would have horror movie location scouts salivating, that kind of day. Never the less we were determined to go out. Tash took the Ferrania Zeta and I took my Balda, two plucky little cameras that needed some love, and they both blew us away.
The Balda produces beautiful shots, the lens is sharp and the camera is a joy to use. It was never going to be perfect and part way through decided to not wind on, having become accustomed to this I no longer worried and simply pulled out my Victorinox and opened it up only to find the screw that holds the spring to the winding lever had come loose, an easy fix in the field and it was back up and running.
All in all this camera has been a bit of a roller coaster, but I wouldn't be without it. It is an absolute delight to use, it's easy to carry on a walk and it takes such lovely pictures.