Ultima Mechanical Timer

When I first received my proper mechanical film camera which was an Ansco Memar, the self-timer did not move at all.

That was not an issue, for I almost entirely shoot behind the camera instead of in front of it. On one occassion, I did take selfie using the only one Agfa Solina that has a working self-timer.

Group shot of party people — Party people taking a selfie

Then the self-timer remained un-used until I took some weirdly angled selfies in HKUST. These self-timers on the pronto shutter mandates a specific order of operation:

Set the shutter speed to anything but bulb
Advance the film, which also cocks the shutter
Pull the self-timer lever
Press the shutter release button to release the timer

Doing 3 before 2 has proven to be an effective way to kill the self-timer on one of my 2 Solinas.

After that, I have been on the search to find an external mechanical self-timer that plugs into the shutter release socket like a cable release.

Unfortunately, like external rangefinder these are obsolete because timers and rangefinder had been the built-in feature of most cameras after the 1950s. Because the scarcity, the occasional eBay appearance are unjustifiably expensive for their minor added benefits.

Front of Ultima mechanical timer — Front of the timer, not sure whether Ultima is a brand or product name

One day I saw one on Facebook marketplace, and thought that'll fulfill my wish to own one. I brought my Agfa Solina with the Vario shutter that doesn't have a timer to test that out with the seller.

Back of Ultima mechanical timer — Back of Ultima, showing the release button, winding knob and count-down display

This timer works by pushing the release button down, wind using the knob until number 8 or 12 are shown in the count-down window. Pushing the release button back up starts the timer and a cable release tip will poke up at the end of the timer until it ultimately retracts.

Ultima mechanical timer — Shutter release pin and adjustment mechanism

The length of the release tip is determined by how much the front-tube is screwed into the first screw, which can be seen as one assembly on the left. There is a limit to how much the release tip extends, and unfortunately it's not long enough to trigger a shutter release on Agfa Solina.

As it seemed worked alright, the seller offered that I pay half, and pay him the remaining half after testing at home with another camera. This thing probably worths no more than that half price to him.

Anyway, the timer does work on Bessa R3A (which doesn't have a timer as modern as it is), Ansco Memar and probably other cameras in my collection except Agfa Solina so I paid the guy.

Since then, this has been sitting in a box, only occasionally tested to make sure it still work.

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