Problem with Konica Hexar AF

[John H.]

I have a mid-nineties Konica Hexar AF (black) that I have not used for several years. The last time I used the camera it worked just fine, and it was stored in a dry environment, so its condition remains mint.

Unfortunately, the camera appears to have a problem in the electronics --

When I put a battery in the camera and turn it on to any setting (P,A, or M), the LCD window shows the --- that it should. I open the camera and close it (no film) and the LCD shows [ 0 ]. When I then press the shutter-release button, all of the cells in the LCD window turn on, and they remain on as long as I keep the battery in the camera - even after the camera is turned off.

With the camera turned on I started pressing some if the control buttons to see if that had any affect on the situation. When I pressed the SELECT button, the screen changed, and instead of the meaningless characters, it shows E22, which I am assuming is some sort of error code. I have no means to decifer the meaning of this code.

Has anyone encountered this before? Better yet, any suggestions about how to fix the problem or where to sent the camera to have it repaired?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

 

[ricohflex]

john

I don't think your cam is faulty.
It is just trying to tell you to put in the film.
E22 could be a code that says "put in bty" or "put in film"
Some energy may be retained after you remove bty in the capacitors so LCDs display a bit after bty removed. Yah, I learned that the hard way when I was fooling around with an old hifi amplifier a long time ago. The main power Ac switch was off and plug removed. I got a shock touching some ciruit parts with a screwdriver. My hand involuntarily jumped up and can feel the numbness.
All cells in LCD display could be a prompt asking you "put in film?"

 

[John H.]

Thanks for the suggestion, but this is apparently not a "no film" code. I put film in the camera and powered the camera on. All of the controls seemed to work fine until I snapped the first shot, then I got the same garbled LCD readout and the camera "locked-up", so I'm still in search of a fix. Thanks all the same.

 

[rubric]

Hi John. You may want to post this question on the Yahoo Konica Hexar group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hexar/?yguid=117839967. HTH.

 

[hongsien]

I hope there is nothing serious with your Hexar, but I also stored my Ricoh Gr1 in a dry cabinet for three months wihtout using it in this period. It was not able to work anymore, and needed a print to be replaced (SGD 150), heard it is a common problem with the GR1......hope you find out the cause! Good luck!.......

 

[John H.]

Hi John. You may want to post this question on the Yahoo Konica Hexar group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hexar/?yguid=117839967. HTH.

Thanks. Done.

 

[czeyang]

Did you "upgrade" your hexar to have the functions of the hexar silver?

 

[John H.]

Did you "upgrade" your hexar to have the functions of the hexar silver?

No. But that's a good question. I was not aware of the "secret code" stuff until I started researching the possible causes of the problem I'm having -- even if I'd known about them earlier, I wouldn't really have had any reason to try "re-programming" the camera. Thanks for your interest.

 

[czeyang]

Coincidentally my hexar also had that problem last week. I took out the battery till the LCD display is gone. Put the battery in again. Tried to take a photo again but locked up again. Took out the battery again. The camera went back to normal after the second time. After a few hours it acted up again.

Thinking that it's because I did the "upgrade", I tried the steps again, but instead of putting D[FE] I put D[FA]. Now the camera seems to be working well again. Keeping my fingers crossed. I would hate to lose such a great cam.

 

[John H.]

czeyang,

Could you be more specific about the steps that you went through both the first and second round of "programming"? I did not try to make any upgrades but it was recently returned to me by someone who purchased it from me on Ebay. I need to confirm that the buyer did not try to modify the programming. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. I really need to get this thing fixed and am having a difficult time making any progress.

 

[czeyang]

I guess if you want to see that it is unmodified, you can try putting the camera to Manual mode, and if you press the exposure compensation buttons while half pressing the shutter, whether the shutter jumps to the metered reading with just one press. That's one of the new features of the Silver that the black hexar does not have unless you upgraded the firmware.

Basically I just followed the instructions to give the Hexar silver the silent mode. At the most maybe can send it in to Konica (Minolta).

 

[rubric]

Has anyone ever brought their Hexar AF down to Konica-Minolta after the merge? Do they have a separate technician for Konica cameras? I spoke to one and he didn't seem very helpful with my Hexar and wasn't even aware of the 'upgrades'.

 

[John H.]

I have spoken with Konica-Minolta USA in New Jersey a couple of times and in both cases was told that they no longer support the Hexar AF and that they have no spare parts available for the camera. I've made calls to repair shops all over the US, and no one is really interested in looking at the camera since they have no access to spare parts. One well-respected shop here in Seattle made an over-the-phone diagnosis of the problem with the camera (bad signal / circuit between the shutter and the main board), but they don't have the means to repair it.

There is some reason to believe that the camera is supported overseas, but I've not been able to verify this.