I am grateful to Steve from California, who wrote to me the following:
“I have heard a possible problem that could occur with a Pentacon-6,  Let’s say the Pentacon-6 is sitting on a table with its shutter uncocked, next, someone goes and pushes the selftimer lever down then pushes the shutter release, I have heard that this will severely damage the camera’s mechanism, Truth or Myth?
Normally you cock the shutter, push down the selftimer lever, push the shutter release and about ten seconds later the camera fires of a shot.
I have on several occasions seen a warning about activating the selftimer without the camera being wound or shutter cocked saying that you would damage the mechanism. I have not taken any chances and have since removed the selftimer lever from my Pentacon-6 just to be sure.”

Here is the reply that I sent to Steve:

I didn’t know the answer to your question and wasn’t prepared to test on one of my cameras, in case I damaged it, so I rang the manufacturers in Germany and spoke with THE man who is the specialist repairer and maintenance person for the Pentacon Six and he tells me that this is another MYTH about the Pentacon Six!

He told me that if you advance the self-timer without having advanced the shutter, it will wind back down part of the way.  If you then advance the shutter, the self-timer will finish its trajectory, though the time delay will obviously be a little shorter.

I didn’t actually ask him what would happen if one pressed the shutter before advancing the film, but when the self-timer isn’t set and one presses the shutter release without the shutter being cocked, nothing happens, so I suppose that it’s the same here.

But why would one press the shutter of a camera without putting it to one’s eye first?  Then one would see that the shutter was not cocked.

Using a precision mechanical instrument requires methodical working, and setting the self-timer should be the last step, once everything else is ready: shutter cocked, metering done, shutter speed and aperture set, image focussed and of course, camera on tripod (usually) if using the self-timer.

Of course, it must be possible to break the Pentacon Six, somehow, just as it is possible to break a Hasselblad, if one is determined to do so and forces things, but this camera is inherently reliable and in my experience less susceptible to inadvertent damage than a Hasselblad 500C or 500C/M (I have both).

To read about more myths about the Pentacon Six, click here.

Since 1982 the Hasselblads haven’t even had a self-timer, or delayed-action mechanism, as that year the lens manufacturer, Carl Zeiss West Germany, switched from using Compur shutters, which had a delayed-action mechanism, to using Prontor shutters, which do not have one.  This applies to the 500C/M and the SWC/M, to my certain knowledge, and must apply to any other Hasselblads for which lenses with Prontor shutters are supplied.