When looking for a new digital camera, the new OM System OM-5 MkII fitted the criteria of what I was looking for, and when I saw the limited release Sand Beige version I thought that was the one. That was until I saw the price! It has been quite a few years since I bought a new digital, so it came as a bit of a shock that cameras these days have gone up a bit. The £1499 price tag was out of range and double what I paid for my Nikon D7000 back in 2013.

Slightly disheartened, but still loving the look, I chose the very budget friendly option to get a sand beige camera - repaint one!

For this project it had to be a Chinon CE-5 as I’ve done a couple of others and knew how they come apart. As luck would have it, I had just picked one up from a Car Boot Sale for a whole £1 in pretty good condition (but the shutter was stuck), and I had a very rough but working one.

Whenever I do any repairs, I have to document the disassembly with photographs as I have a memory not dissimilar to a Goldfish, and almost certainly will have bits left over if I didn’t have a record of the process. Even though this is the third repaint done on a CE-5!

With it all stripped down it was time to clean the body parts and rub them down with some fine wet & dry sandpaper to remove light scratches and give a good base for painting.

The colour chose was Tamiya TS-46 Light Sand spray paint designed for plastic model kits, so safe for the plastic body parts. I think the TS-45 is a pretty good, but not exact match to the OM-5’s Sand Beige.

Three coats of Sand, and three of clear Humbrol 135 satin acrylic varnish later, and sun dried in the garden, it was almost time to rebuild. But not before transplanting one of the leather panels on the front which had shrunk on the working body.

On a side note that only a collector of the brand would notice - the two CE-5’s have different design timer switches! Something I have not seen before in my other eight CE-5’s! All the others have the flatter style.

The hardest bit of this whole build was the lettering on the nameplate, This took many attempts to get to what it is now - not perfect, but ok for now.

One fun thing to do would be to re-create the OM-System promo image at the top of this page, but the silver CE-5 is proving hard to find. I do have the silver CG-5, but that is just not right - it has to be a CE.

I have to admit, this repaint does look pretty cool, and will sit nicely next to my Olive Drab version.

OM-5 MkII inspired CE-5

Agfa Jsolette - Kentmere Pan 400