This camera and lens were included with an old leather bag full of camera stuff I picked up at Belleville Flea Market last week for 20.00.

The Sears T.L.S was a solid body that was identical to the Ricoh Singlex T.L.S. It featured short stroke advance, 1 -> 1000 shutter, DOF preview, self timer, M and X flash sockets, through the lens match needle metering, and universal Pentax type m42 screwmount.

I put some time into this during the week. It needed a thorough cleaning, and I replaced foam light seals and mirror bumper in the body. However, I was unable to bring the metering circuit back to life. Viewfinder prism has a big fat dark blemish visible inside, but it is below center in the view area. Shutter was sticking at slow speeds. After several flush cleanings of the shutter and the speed escapement, the mechanism got back to running, but somewhat slow across the range of shutter speeds, by a factor of about 1.75 (per electronic testing). That is, when set for 1 second, shutter opens for almost 2 seconds, and at 1/1000, actual duration is closer to 1/500 second.

The lens is an awesome piece of glass, very fast, f:1.4, with focal length of 55mm. It also focuses very close, down to about a foot and a half. However, there is a fine network of small scratches on the front glass that will not clean out. The question was, would it affect the images, and would it flare in the light?

I had a little time yesterday, the weather was cooperative, so I loaded the camera with a roll of Fuji 200 and took it for a test, skylight filter and sun shade attached to the front of the lens.

When I got out there I was faced with a milky late winter quality of light, some thin clouds coming in but enough sun to cast shadows. The lighting was appropriate for the subjects I chose. And yes, the lens did flare, especially with the light at certain angles.

I started at St. Martin's church yard, where some of High Ridge's earliest residents are interred, and ended at Pleasant Valley Nature Preserve, formerly known as Girl Scout Camp Hi-Di-Ho.
Maybe it was the quality of the light, but some of the subjects at the nature preserve seemed to echo the forms that I saw at the church yard.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are Copyright 2014 E.J.Kowalski.