Photography & Vintage Cameras

custom car

2012-01-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

I picked up a copy of Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence at a yard sale down the street. This VW was parked at the entrance.

Here's the explanation.

Learning to be a photographer

2012-01-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

From the Ceiling Lamp Series -- Cole Thompson

I recently came across the work of Cole Thompson in an interview which appeared on Aline Smithson's LENSCRATCH. Thompson shoots and processes his images digitally, but only shows black and white as a final product and his work is clearly informed by a great depth of knowledge of and appreciation for photography's long history. The photographer is also a gifted writer, and he is very generous in sharing information about his techniques and the sources of his inspiration. I've added a link to Cole Thompson's blog over in the right-hand column, and I'll be following his work closely from now on.

Kodak Duo Six-20

2012-01-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

The Kodak Duo Six-20 is perhaps the most elegant of the company's medium-format folding cameras; it was made in the NagelWerk factory in Stuttgart. This Series II model has a Compur-Rapid shutter with speeds from 1 sec. to 1/500. The lens is a unit-focus f3.5/75mm Anastigmat. The camera was built to accomodate 620 roll film and yields 16 frames in 6x4.5 format. The flip-up finder provides a bright view of the subject.

San Felipe de Neri Church, built 1793

The materials and construction quality of the camera is first-rate throughout. The lens and shutter at this point in time may need light cleaning, but the camera's basic simplicity makes serious problems unlikely. Aside from the need to re-roll 120 film onto 620 spools, about the only problem that is likely to arise is with the long mechanical linkage of the shutter release. Extending the lens to the closest focusing position may push the shutter release lever beyond the reach of the linking lever and lead to additional alignment problems. On my camera, I have also found that I need to avoid closing the front door with the shutter cocked as the cocking lever may get hung up on the door latch.

Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 35

2012-01-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

I found my little Ikonta 35 in a Las Cruces pawn shop about nine years ago. Its small size along with many of its features make it well-suited to travel and street photography. A very large number of these cameras were sold in military post exchanges in Europe in the '50s. Most had the three-element Novar, but this one is fitted with a front-focus, four-element Tessar. The Synchro-Compur shutter has speeds from 1-second to 1/500; the f-2.8 Tessar will stop down to f-22. The camera's size makes it unobtrusive, and the strap lugs make it possible to hang it around your neck for hip shooting.

Las Cruces Street Fair, September 2003

Once you get used to the camera, the Ikonta 35 is a good-handling, quick shooter. Unlike the Kodak Retinas from the same period, the Ikonta does not require the lens to be set back to the infinity focus position before closing. So, you can preset focus, speed and aperture; if you also wind on after each shot, then getting to the shooting position means just flipping open the front and cocking the shutter. Like most of the compact cameras of the time the Ikonta has a very small viewfinder window compared to any modern camera, but that is something one gets accustomed to with use.

The following pictures were made recently on Albuquerque streets.

There is quite a lot of film and TV production going on in and around the city. There is a large studio complex south of town and these big trucks are often found supporting location shooting in Albuquerque neighborhoods.

winter birds

2012-01-15T19:46:00.000-07:00

Kodak Retina Ia For Sale

2012-01-14T15:44:00.000-07:00

This compact Retina Ia shows few signs of use. The focus, shutter, aperture and film advance all work smoothly. The film counter is inoperative as the little leaf spring has the tip broken off, but this does not interfere with the operation of the camera. The 4-element, coated Xenar lens is a spectacular performer. Very nice leather case included.

$35 with free shipping in the U.S. SOLD

At the River

2012-01-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

Ektar

2012-01-05T21:14:00.000-07:00

The only Kodak Ektar lens in my collection is attached to a rather modest camera, the compact folding Retina I.

Kodak used the Ektar name to designate a whole class of professional-level lenses of the highest quality, all of them featuring unit focusing. The simplest of the line was probably the 3.5/50mm lens on my Retina I, basically a Tessar type with four elements in three groups. Ektar lenses with more complex designs were standard on the medium format Medalist, the Signet 35, and the Bantam Special which used 828 roll film.

I haven't made a habit of New Year's resolutions in the past, but this year I am determined to more fully explore the potential of some of the fine cameras in my collection which have not got the attention they deserve. Consider this post a first installment on that proposal.

Why Old Film Cameras?

2011-12-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

When I'm out and about with one of my old cameras people often comment on them and ask if I use them because they make superior photographs. The answer is no. For me it is just a rather arbitrary choice to stick with a set of tools and traditions, much as a painter would choose to work with oils or watercolors rather than acrylics. There is a great body of work by past and present film photographers which I can easily access in the process of perfecting my own art, and I am happy also to admit a bias toward the accomplishments of photography's distant past.
Photo aesthetics aside, I am entranced with artifacts of the mechanical age, which happens to overlap a considerable portion of my own life span. Evidence of this will be found in the photos I share on line, many of which are of old cars, planes and trains. It is no coincidence that I get around Albuquerque on a twenty-five-year-old motorcycle.
While there are formidable economic constraints on the the number of old vehicles I can personally own, there is much less a deterrent to the acquisition of old photographic equipment. One of the benefits of the dawning of the digital age was that it left stranded a great quantity of precision cameras which one could pick up for a small fraction of their original value. Of course, that is a situation which is changing over time much as was the case with the old cars which I bought and discarded with abandon in my youth. Bargains in on line auctions seem to me to be less frequently encountered as old cameras flow into the hands of collectors and the dealers who cater to them.
One of the benefits of film camera technology that persists is the access it provides for the individual to the entire photographic process. It remains possible today to build your own camera, to create your own photo-sensitive materials, and to process them into images which you can show to the world. To put this in simple, concrete terms, a light-tight box with a pinhole can be put together by anyone, and applying some commonly available chemical substances to a paper or glass surface will make it ready for image recording.
With somewhat more commitment to craftsmanship it is also possible to construct rather sophisticated medium- and large-format cameras. I cannot think of anyone offhand that goes to the extreme of grinding their own photographic lenses, but the knowledge and materials to do so are certainly out there. Such endeavors will hold little attraction to those whose main focus is efficiently illustrating a story or earning a living at image making, but for the process-oriented photographer the barriers are surmountable and the results satisfying.
So, those are some of my reasons for sticking to photography with film; I'm sure there are a great many more.

* * *

Family Photo

2011-12-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

All my Kodak Retina folders date from the 1940s and '50s, and all produce excellent images. The Retina I in the rear has an Ektar lens made in the U.S. The IA model in the back-left has the Xenar lens, which I believe is a Tessar clone. The three to the front have the six-element Xenon lens.

Kodak acquired the Nagel Camerawerk in Stuttgart in 1931. The first Retina model was brought out there in 1934, along with the 35mm cassette which popularized the format. The last folding models of the Retina line were produced in 1960, but the line continued with fixed-lens models until 1969.
Each of my Retinas has its own page at my vintage cameras site and there is a good description of the whole line and its history at Wikipedia.

Shooting the Kodak Retina II

2011-12-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

My 1949 Retina II was made for the European market as evidenced by the distance scale in meters. The leather camera covering is perfect, with none of the Zeiss bumps which have appeared under the skin of many of my other old cameras. When I got the camera the bellows was detached at the rear, but that was easily repaired with a bit of glue. It did take me quite a few tries, however, to get the shutter cleaned and operating properly. The f2 Xenon lens is faultless and perhaps the sharpest I have on any of my Retinas.

The pictures here were shot recently on Fomapan 100. I really like the film's grain and tonalities, and the cost is less than $2 per roll. Unfortunately, quite a few frames are marred by some squiggles that span the image's width which appear to be a manufacturing fault.

Words and Photography

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

NYC, 2005 Mike Connealy

Useful critical thoughts about photographs are a fairly rare commodity. In general, one does not expect to find them in on line forums or at photo sharing sites like Flickr. Visitors to such sites typically dispense brief assessments of the displayed work, in the process telling us more about the viewer than the work in question.

What generally goes unrecognized is that real critical thinking and expression regarding photography or any other art form is a craft that can be exercised proficiently only with practiced dedication. One good place to start the study of the craft is a book by Terry Barrett, Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images. Here is something I wrote on the subject about eight years ago at PHOTO.NET:

Making meaningful and substantial statements about visual art including photography is a very difficult undertaking. Our brains seem to be organized to jump from immediate visual impressions directly to judgment without conscious analysis. That is probably a good strategy for survival under primitive conditions, but it doesn't form a solid basis of dialogue about art. A book that has been very helpful to me on the art of criticism is Terry Barrett's Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images. In this small text Barrett lays out the elements of good criticism and provides many well-executed examples. As he says in the introduction: "...the four activities of criticism -- describing, interpreting, evaluating, and theorizing -- can be thought of as seeking answers to four basic questions: What is here? What is it about? How good is it? Is it art?" He goes on to convincingly show that the element of evaluation (including judgments and ratings) is the least important of the basic critical tasks, and it may not be necessary at all. I have found an effort to first just systematically describe what I see in a photo is extremely helpful, both to my own understanding and to communicating meaningfully about a visual experience. Only after the descriptive step has been taken am I able to begin real critical interpretation and evaluation.

Rick Poynor published a fine example of photo criticism this week on the Design Observer blog. The subject was the work of Saul Leiter, with specific reference to Leiter's incorporation into his street work of fragments of lettering. Poynor illuminates the subject with his own experience in design and typography, but he also recognizes the specifically photographic aspects of Leiter's techniques and vision. In addition to his sensitivity to the appearance of lettering in our day-to-day existence, as Poynor shows, Leiter was also very expert at incorporating the typographic fragments into his compositions using selective focus and muted colors to weave very complex patterns in a mere instant. Poynor's analysis incorporates all the basic principles of useful criticism laid out by Barrett, and is well worth study.

Mesa del Sol

2011-12-18T22:52:00.008-07:00

Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock incorporated an energy-conserving glass facade in the Mesa del Sol Town Center building which can also serve as a public theater backdrop for video projection. The building was meant to be the center-piece of a large community with an integrated business park and housing development on Albuquerque's south mesa. Given the state of the economy, however, it seems unlikely that the city will support the construction of hundreds of newly-built homes any time soon.

These pictures were made with one of my two Kodak Retina IIa cameras. I recently adjusted the rangefinder and it seems to be working well. That is an easy repair on the camera, but reassembling the advance and counter mechanisms is a little tricky. I'm also going to take a close look at the other and, if I can get both cameras working equally well, I'll put one up for sale here.

Holiday Picture

2011-12-12T13:03:00.004-07:00

Margaret wanted to send along a picture of the grandchildren with her yearly holiday letter. I scanned a copy of a recently-made studio portrait she liked, but I found that nobody local currently sells ink cartridges for my old Epson Stylus Photo R2400. So, I bought the ones I needed on line. Mostly, the printing went ok, but a couple prints got big dollops of extra ink, producing this interesting effect. Some additional texturing was added by Richard the cat when he walked over the still-wet print the next day.

winter

2011-12-07T06:22:00.008-07:00

Some cold northern air slipped south into New Mexico and brought snow to most of the state. Albuquerque was hardly touched, but the Sandia mountains to the east showed us what it looks like. I walked about a mile up the Pino Trail into the Wilderness area. There were only a couple inches of snow near the trailhead, but I got into some foot-deep drifts further on, and the only tracks on the trail were bunnies and coyotes.

The Diomatic shutter on my No.1 Kodak Series III performed well in spite of the cold. I'm still getting a few negative scratches from the beat-up frame mask, but nothing photoshop can't handle easily.

Pandabout

2011-11-29T15:30:00.011-07:00

avyavy

2011-11-27T13:08:00.005-07:00

This is the first photo posted in about a year on Flickr by the amazing "avyavy". I first became acquainted with his work through his Flickr pinhole folder, Transience. I was particularly taken with the painterly qualities of his pinhole images, but he actually pursues a similar style in all his posted work.

I generally have little patience with the efforts of most people who attempt to produce painterly effects with photography; avyavy is the one who gets it right every time. His Flickr photostream is well worth studying at length.

Eleventh and Mountain

2011-11-27T10:28:00.001-07:00

South Broadway

2011-11-25T20:01:00.008-07:00

The little Olympus Infinity Stylus is often the camera I choose when I need light weight and compactness, but don't want to sacrifice flexibility and image quality.

Los Poblanos

2011-11-25T04:11:00.003-07:00

Cranes

2011-11-23T18:16:00.006-07:00

I went out for a late-morning ride and found hundreds of cranes and Canada geese in the fields of the Los Poblanos Open Space. I went home for the Pentax and a telephoto, but by the time I returned most of the birds were gone, likely toward a next stop at the Bosque del Apache refuge 90 miles to the south. I'm hoping to get back to Los Poblanos again, and will try some different film and lens combinations.

Under the Central Avenue Bridge

2011-11-22T09:16:00.005-07:00

My Zeiss Ikon Contaflex I is one of my top favorites in my collection because of its quality construction, its compactness and its classic Tessar lens.

No.1A Pocket Kodak

2011-11-21T16:18:00.005-07:00

A walk in the Rio Grande Bosque.

My 1A Pocket Kodak was built for 116-format film, but it seems to work fine with still-available 120 rollfilm. The only hitch is that you have to keep the red window covered and roll on the film without reference to the numerals on the film backing. I normally can get six exposures on a roll of 120 by advancing the winding knob 2-and-one-half turns between shots. I got a little off this time because Acros seems to have a shorter leader than the Kodak film, and I ended up with just five exposures. Next time, I'll start the Acros with an initial six turns instead of the eight-and-a-half I give the Kodak to get to the first frame.

Shooting the Zorki 2-C

2011-11-18T18:27:00.008-07:00

The Zorki 2-C is the most reliable of my of my Soviet-era cameras. The shutter, rangefinder and film advance all work as they should. I also like the camera's compactness, which makes it easy to have on hand when needed.

When the 2-C model appeared in the mid-'50s it was most often equipped with a fixed-barrel Tessar-type lens. Those were excellent lenses, but add considerable bulk. My preference most often is to screw on one of my somewhat earlier collapsible models, either the FED 50 or the Industar 22. Both have an anti-reflective coating and are capable of outstanding resolution.

La Angelita

2011-11-17T06:46:00.002-07:00

San Jose de Armijo Cemetery

Soviet Glass for Sale

2011-11-15T12:33:00.007-07:00

Soviet-era lenses for M-39 mount SLR cameras. These are leica thread mount (ltm), but can only be used with slr; they will not properly focus on the rangefinder models.

1. Industar f3.5/50mm. Serial # N6242823. Good glass. Needs lube to smooth out focus; this is an easy job, but I don't have a camera on which to test the results. $4 + $5 U.S. shipping.

2. Industar 3.5/50mm. Serial # N6308123. Good glass. Smooth focus and aperture. $6 + $5 U.S. shipping.

3. Helios-44 f2/58mm. Serial # N0128071. Clean glass, surface wear on barrel. Focus, aperture and pre-set rings operate smoothly. $10 + $5 U.S. shipping.

All three lenses for $20, U.S. shipping included.

I've had very nice results from my Soviet lenses and am sorry I never got to see how these would perform. The camera they came with lasted me exactly one day. I thought I might pick up another, but nothing interesting and affordable has showed up, so it seems time to pass them along to another commie camera enthusiast.

Albuquerque Municipal Airport Terminal

2011-11-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

The Albuquerque Municipal Airport, financed by a half-million dollar WPA grant, was opened in 1939. The Pueblo-style terminal building was designed by Ernest Blumenthal.

The Airport was one of many New Deal projects undertaken in New Mexico from 1933 to 1943. By 1935 over half of the state's population was employed in public works development and construction such as the airport terminal.

The Albuquerque Museum Photo Archives contain a selection of photographs made when the Terminal was in use in the 1940s and 1950s; they can be viewed in a set at Flickr.

My photographs of the terminal were made with the Minoltina AL-S.

Old Town Shop Window

2011-11-12T14:04:00.002-07:00

George Conrad Connealy

2011-11-11T17:08:00.004-07:00

Cameras for Sale

2011-11-11T10:57:00.004-07:00

Thinning the herd.

Kodak 35 Rangefinder
Anastar f3.5/50mm Lens.
Very good condition. Clean lens, accurate shutter and rangefinder.
Not my favorite Kodak, but a good shooter.
$35 (Free shipping in the U.S.) SOLD

I will be listing a number of cameras here that I am not using and would like to see in the hands of others who will appreciate and shoot them. All are film tested.

panda love

2011-11-09T20:01:00.010-07:00

Took my Panda for a walk in Old Town this morning.

Derby Disappointment

2011-11-07T18:14:00.013-07:00

Not all projects work out as hoped.

I shot a roll of film in my Foth Derby at the Day of the Dead parade. All the images were misframed and a large portion of the negative strip was black. I believe the problem lies in my efforts to use 35mm film strips rolled up in 127 backing paper. The process worked ok the first time I tried it, but the last two attempts have been failures. My guess is that the film is buckling and interfering with the movement of the camera's cloth focal plane shutter.

One company, Efke, still makes 127 roll film, but the price is now close to $10, and I'm not willing to lay out that kind of money even though I'm very fond of my little Foth Derby. If I can figure out how to properly roll up some 35mm film inside the 127 backing paper I have saved, I can shoot a roll for a couple bucks. I'll check around the net to see if there are any good hints available on using 35mm film with 127 backing. I may also break down and buy one more roll of Efke just to make sure that there is not some other source to the problems I am seeing; I'll be out the ten bucks, but the backing paper can be re-used many times.

Another possiblity I'm mulling over is to acquire a film splitter that would let me produce 127-format film from 120 rolls. Goat Hill Photo has a model for $35 that looks like it would get the job done.

El Día De Los Muertos

2011-11-07T10:35:00.013-07:00

The yearly Marigold Parade in Albuquerque's South Valley celebrates the Day of the Dead.

It was a nice excuse to try out my newly-acquired Ansco Panda, a diminutive plastic wonder that produces 6x6cm images on 620 rollfilm.

The Panda is constructed with a wrap-around-style film frame which reduces the dimensions of the box camera to the smallest possible size. A curved film plane helps image sharpness, and a short 50-60mm focal length means you can get everything in sharp focus from six feet to infinity.

Below are all the cameras in my collection that require the use of 620 roll film. The Vigilant on the left and the Monitor on the right yield 6x9cm negatives, while all the rest including the Panda produce 6x6cm squares. While each of these cameras is capable of producing excellent images, the most surprisingly good is the ultra-simple Panda, which is hardly larger than a Baby Brownie.

The 620 format has been extinct since the mid-'90s, but it is possible to use 120 film in the 620 cameras if you trim down the rims of the 120 spools or re-roll the 120 film onto the old metal 620 spools. On my vintage cameras web site you will find a page on trimming 120 spools and another on my blog illustrating re-spooling 120 to 620 reels.

Voigtländer Vito II

2011-11-05T21:01:00.008-06:00

The Vito II is a gem of a camera, and one of my great favorites.

I found two Vito II cameras one night on ebay; I won the bids on both at $15 each. Both cameras were in excellent condition with Compur-Rapid shutters, but one lacked an integral take-up spool and a rewind knob. I took the needed parts from an older model I had with a slower Prontor shutter.

Zorki 2-C + Jupiter 12

2011-11-02T15:44:00.007-06:00

My Zorki 2-C is a favorite among my Soviet cameras. It is only a little larger than the FED 1g, but it is still small enough, even with the wide-angle lens and accessory viewfinder, to fit into a jacket pocket.

This shot at the Halloween car show was made on Fomapan 100 and processed in Rodinal 1:50. The film is cheap, and I like the tonal range it produces, though keeping highlights from blowing out is a bit of a challenge in contrasty light. I found it helpful to scan the negatives using a color profile, which accounts for the toned appearance of the image.

Olympus 35RC

2011-10-31T09:26:00.005-06:00

A couple more off the last roll through my little Oly 35RC.

The Kimo theater got a new sign recently.

Albuquerque probably has more than its share of old cars quietly rusting in driveways and back yards. This old VW pickup is one of several in a lot close to the city center; they have been sitting there for the three years we have been in town, and possibly quite a bit longer than that.

The Olympus 35RC is a very reliable performer, due in part to the shutter-priority auto-exposure which provides just enough help to get the picture right every time. The E.Zuiko 5-element lens is exceedingly sharp and produces image quality which seems at odds with the camera's very compact size.

Until recently, I had three 35RC cameras. The first one was purchased from a seller in Las Cruces; it made some nice pictures for me in a trip to the Northeast, and later in Greece. The auto-exposure stopped working at one point, but it turned out to be just a tiny bit of lint caught in the mechanical exposure control linkage. A light leak proved harder to fix, and I ended up getting a second example of the camera. About a year ago, I found a third example in a bin at a local thrift store and paid about five bucks for it. I traded away that one for a Yashica. I was a little reluctant to get rid of my first one because of its sentimental connections to some nice travels, but finally found a worthy recipient who I gave it to the other day.

Halloween Car Show

2011-10-29T17:43:00.004-06:00

I suppose this will be the last of the shows for this year. It was definitely chilly riding the bike there this morning; I'm going to have to get some fingers for my gloves. These shots are all from my Olympus 35RC.

Living in the Southwest

2011-10-15T07:02:00.006-06:00

I doubt if I could generate much of an argument over the idea that early Fall is the best time to be in New Mexico. I've been out nearly every day during the past week, exploring the edges of Albuquerque.

View Larger Map

On Thursday I rode to both the north and south ends of the Sandia mountains on the city's east side. The morning ride took me up a curvy little road into the hills at the north end of Tramway.

On the way home for lunch I stopped to admire the Sandia Pueblo bison herd in a large pasture across the highway from the casino.

In the afternoon I headed south to the pass between the Sandias and the Manzanos. My destination was the small Santo Niño Cemetery across the highway from Carnuel.

My camera for both trips was the compact mju.

Another year, another litter

2011-10-14T17:39:00.005-06:00

This is the fifth litter in five years for the snow leopards.

Kirtland Air Show

2011-10-11T06:36:00.002-06:00

A Slide Show

Albuquerque Texture

2011-09-29T17:39:00.012-06:00

My little Kodak Retina I deserves a lot more attention than I have given it over the years it has been in my collection. The camera's compactness and reliability make it a great travel companion, and the Ektar lens always yields images of startling clarity.

Albuquerque Views

2011-09-19T20:27:00.000-06:00

One thing I appreciate about the little plastic Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim is that it gives me a perspective very similar to that which I get from my pinhole camera. In addition, the two-element lens provides surprising sharpness.

Break Time

2011-08-07T20:44:00.001-06:00

One Subject, Four Cameras

2011-08-05T18:01:00.007-06:00

I photographed this fine little sculpture-fountain at the Botanic Garden yesterday. It is a subject I have photographed on other occasions with at least three other cameras.

Argoflex Forty

The boy with a swan became a popular subject for artists midway through the 19th Century. There are sculptures and fountains with this theme in many cities around the world.

Kodak Recomar 18

The inspiration for all the works of art on this theme was most certainly a depiction of a boy with a goose by the Greek sculptor, Boethus, dating from about 160BC.

Olympus 35RC

The fountain in Albuquerque's Botanic Garden appears to be a bronze casting, possibly from the early Twentieth Century.

Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim

more mods

2011-08-03T14:22:00.003-06:00

I spent some time this morning trolling the web for details of the history of simple cameras. I did turn up some interesting bits about that, but I also happened on some amazing stuff about modifying a couple of my favorite Vivitar plastic cameras, the Ultra Wide and Slim and the PN2011.

The articles by the acclaimed technical writer, Nano_Burger, are on the Instructables.com site. If you click on the above photos you will be magically transported to the associated articles.

I have to admit, while admiring the level of craftsmanship displayed by Nano_Burger, it is pretty unlikely that I will actually choose to hack my Vivitars. The truth is that I'm a pretty clumsy craftsman, and I fear I would damage my beloved but flimsy plastic cameras. I also tend to enjoy working with the challenge of simplicity which the plastic cameras provide.

Some of my favorites from the VUWS are contained in a Flickr-based slideshow:

A page on my web site is devoted to the Vivitar plastic cameras.

The Sunny Day Cameras

2011-08-01T13:57:00.013-06:00

I was recently introduced to the work of Herman Krieger, a photographer living in Eugene, Oregon whose web site features a lot of black and white photo essays done with classic film cameras. Krieger uses some very fine classics including an Ikonta 6x6 rangefinder model, and his photos all have a crisp European style which probably can be attributed at least in part to thirty years residence in Holland. Interestingly, that same crisp style carries over to his pictures made with the simplest of cameras, an Ansco B-2 Cadet box camera.

When you first look at Krieger's photo essay entitled, "Along the Riverbank Bike Path with a 'Bent and a Box", you are going to find it hard to believe that these ultra-sharp images have come from such a modest camera. Everything pictured is in sharp focus, showing great depth of field, and even subjects in motion show none of the tell-tale blur that one would normally associate with box camera images. Scrolling down to the page bottom clears up the mystery.

Krieger explains that his extraordinary box camera images are the result of having made some relatively simple modifications to the camera's shutter:

"Original exposure setting is 1/25 at f16. By covering part
of the circular shutter opening with black electrical tape,
and placing a small washer over the aperture opening,
the exposure setting became 1/125 at f22. This enabled
the use of Kodak T-MAX 400 film with the camera."

Here is a picture of a similar shutter from one of my own Brownie Hawkeye Flash cameras which shows the components Krieger talks about. The shutter is held open with the "B" setting to give a clear view of the parts.

The round black hole is the aperture allowing light into the lens. When the shutter release is activated, the cover paddle is lifted and the kidney-shaped opening in the circular shutter plate rotates past the aperture, with the time of its passage being determined by the spring tension and the length of the kidney-shaped hole. At the end of the cycle, the paddle flips back down to cover the opening and the shutter disk rotates back to the starting position.

So if you want to modify a Hawkeye Flash as Krieger did the Ansco, you would reduce the size of the round aperture with a small washer and shorten the length of the kidney-shaped slot with some tape. The result will be greater image sharpness and depth of focus due to the small aperture. The shortened shutter speed greatly reduces the likelihood of camera jiggle at exposure, and also makes it possible to arrest moderate subject movements. The ability to use a faster film like TMAX 400 also enables a wider tonal range in high-contrast lighting situations.

Summer Color

2011-07-31T18:23:00.025-06:00

Albuquerque's Botanical Garden is a twenty minute walk from my house.

This Coopers Hawk found itself trapped briefly in the desert side of the conservatory, but it soon found a way out.

When I visit the heritage farm section at the back of the gardens I am always reminded of the years we lived in southern Idaho. I worked for a time there as the caretaker of the fairgrounds in Glenns Ferry. The place was pretty run down when I started, but there was a lot of lumber and paint laying around the grounds. I built benches and planters and painted all the buildings and fences. I watered the grass with long lines of aluminum pipe, and I fertilized it by hauling around a manure spreader behind a big old Farmall tractor. When we got close to the opening date for the fair I hired a crew and built a pole barn with new stalls for the pigs and sheep. It turned out to be the best job I would ever have, though I didn't know that at the time.

Two-wheel Albuquerque

2011-07-29T14:43:00.005-06:00

More from the No.1A Pocket Kodak. Getting the most from the 131mm lens requires a steady hold. A tripod is best, but I find I can get by most times by bracing the camera on my knee or on the ground.

We are finally getting some monsoon skies which encourage me to get back out on the street with my cameras.

Recent Discoveries

2011-07-28T12:48:00.004-06:00

I've been pleased to find several blogs recently devoted to the use of old film cameras and have added links to them in the right-hand column:

PHOTIQUE

picturenoise

shot on film

I can say from my own experience that maintaining such web productions takes a lot of dedication. Please visit these sites and leave some feedback for the hardworking authors.

I particularly like the way photos are exhibited on the PHOTIQUE blog. It appears that the photo display is a capability built into the posterous.com blogging system. I wish the Blogger system offered something as good.

Summer in the Bosque

2011-07-24T16:34:00.004-06:00

I took a long walk this morning along the river. It was the first time in quite a while as most of Albuquerque's open spaces have been closed because of drought and fire danger.

My negatives were overly contrasty, not what I expect from Tri-X. Time to start a new bottle of HC-110, I guess.

Argus Cintar

2011-07-14T19:33:00.009-06:00

I've had an Argus Cintar lens rattling around in my tool box for about five years which I have used as a loupe. Recently, I acquired a nice C3 body with just a 35mm wide-angle, so it seemed like a good excuse to see if the Cintar could still deliver. The F3.5-50mm Cintar is a Cooke Triplet design; this one is a pre-war uncoated example. I had partially disassembled the lens, so it needed to be put back together and adjusted. Four small set screws at the lens front can be loosened to permit collimation for proper infinity focus.

To test the C3 with the Cintar, I took it up to the J&R VINTAGE AUTO MUSUEM in Rio Rancho which has an extraordinary collection of restored classics. Photography at the museum is something of a challenge as the lighting is dim and the cars are packed tightly into all the available space. Nevertheless, I thought the C3 and the resurrrected Cintar handled the situation quite well.

big boy bikes

2011-07-09T15:58:00.004-06:00

Cate at Tiguex

2011-07-05T14:29:00.002-06:00

The new bellows is keeping out the light from where it doesn't belong. However, I'm still having problems with framing and film scratching in the No.1 Kodak Series III. I'm also seeing some under-exposure, even though the shutter appears to be working perfectly. My thought is that the light transmission capabilities of the glass in some of these old Kodak lenses is poor compared to newer standards. Luckily, the big 6x9 negatives allow for a large margin of error.

Albuquerque Architecture

2011-07-04T09:58:00.007-06:00

Margaret and I went to see the current exhibit at the UNM Art Museum of the drawings, paintings, collages and architectural models of Antoine Predock. It is just a short walk from the Museum to one of Predock's buildings which houses the UNM School of Architecture and Planning.

Since I had my Foth Derby in my pocket, that was what I used to shoot with, though it wouldn't be my first choice as a camera for architectural subjects.

The picture below was made of the same subject some time ago, using the Ikonta 521/16. The Novar lens on Zeiss is a three-element anastigmat much like the one on the Foth Derby, but the larger format clearly gives the 521/16 the edge for this subject.

Predock's design studio is not far from from where I live in Albuquerque. The city is home to several of his creations in addition to the Architecture School including the La Luz residential development, the Rio Grande Nature Center, and the Mesa del Sol Town Center. All of those buildings and hundreds of others around the world are featured on his web site. Also prominently featured at both the web site and the UNM exhibit are samples of his big motorcycle collection, and his thoughts on a variety of his many interests. Some of those interests were touched on in a 2007 interview of the architect by Vladimir Paperny.

Central Avenue

2011-07-03T10:58:00.007-06:00

View the slideshow.

A block of Central was roped off for an afternoon car show. The street can get pretty rowdy on weekend nights, but the heat of a July afternoon kept the atmosphere mellow.

I managed to tame the curly exuberance of the Efke 100 film a bit by winding it up against the curl and leaving it overnight. That let me lay the film strip flat on the scanner in the 4x5 mask area. I was pleased with this last roll from the Foth Derby.

State of the Art Lens Making, 1939

2011-06-30T10:32:00.014-06:00

From Popular Photography, August 1939

Read the full text in a new window.

No.1 Kodak Series III

2011-06-26T15:30:00.019-06:00

I found this interesting Kodak folder recently on ebay. The No.1 Series III was produced by Kodak from 1926 to 1932. Conveniently, it uses still-available 120 roll film.

The camera is very well built and has several unique features. The majority of Kodak folders had simple self-cocking shutters, but this one sports the No.0 Diomatic with a cocking lever opposite the shutter release, and speeds from 1/10 to 1/100 as well as B and T. The Autotime face plate under the Anastigmat lens has a windowed swinging dial that really helps to determine exposure, unlike the cryptic version on my No.2 Brownie. With a minimum aperture of f32 the camera easily handles 400-speed film.

When I took the camera out of the box, I was glad I hadn't paid much for it as it was in truly horrible condition. The leather covering had been stripped off and the body of the camera had been sprayed with black paint, even covering over the ruby window. Worse, a light bulb held inside the bellows revealed it to be deteriorated beyond repair.

Since the lens, shutter and viewfinder all looked fine, I decided to replace the bellows. The Kodak bellows are held in place by ten or twelve metal tabs at the rear, and the front is secured behind the shutter with two or four rivets and glue. The old bellows is first cut out to give access to the fasteners. The tabs are then lifted with a hooked tool such as those in a Kobalt kit that I found at Lowe's for five bucks. The rivets can be ground down slightly with and electric drill from the inside to allow separation at the front end. After attaching the new bellows, I found it necessary to seal the rivet holes with some black silicone.

The new bellows proved light-tight, but there are still a few things to be done to the camera. The viewfinder is not quite centered in landscape mode, and that results in misframing. I also roughed up the frame mask while bending back one of the bellows tabs, which produces a band of scratches across my negatives. Still, the results from the first roll were excellent in most respects, and I'm looking forward to working more with the camera.

urban texture

2011-06-25T13:08:00.000-06:00

Broadway Bridge

2011-06-24T13:11:00.005-06:00

The Broadway is a double-leaf bascule bridge, a design that dates back to Roman times. It was the largest bridge of its type when completed in 1913, just a year after the Steel Bridge.

The wikipedia article has good illustrations of the bascule design and some history of the Broadway Bridge.

On the water

2011-06-24T12:57:00.008-06:00

My Zorki 2-C performed flawlessly on the Portland trip; it's a favorite among my FSU cameras. The pictures from the boat were all with the Industar 22 lens.

I would have done more pictures with the Zorki, but I forgot to put my scissors in the camera bag and had no way to trim the film leader.

Mike does Portland

2011-06-24T11:58:00.001-06:00

We were treated to a fine boat ride up the Willamette.

Photo by Margaret

The Fremont Bridge

2011-06-23T14:41:00.008-06:00

"The Fremont Bridge is a steel tied arch bridge over the Willamette River located in Portland, Oregon. It carries Interstate 405 and US 30 traffic between downtown and North Portland where it intersects with I-5. It has the longest main span of any bridge in Oregon and is the second longest tied arch bridge in the world (after Caiyuanba Bridge across the Yangtze River, China)." wikipedia

Peregrine falcons have been using the bridge structure as a nest site since 1994.

A crew was working at the west end of the bridge where I was taking pictures. One of the workers asked me if I had heard that the area was over-due for a big quake, and that the city's bridges would not likely survive the event. He seemed to be experiencing some genuine anxiety over the prospect.

Sure enough:

"Scientists and geologists said Portland is not ready for a massive 9.0 earthquake and our bridges would likely collapse. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is one of the most dangerous fault lines in the United States, running 600 miles long from northern California, along the Oregon and Washington coast, into Canada. Scientists didn't know it was there until the 1980s..." http://www.koinlocal6.com

There were three reader comments at the end of the article, all of them moronic.

Good luck, Portland.

The Steel Bridge

2011-06-22T18:48:00.004-06:00

Completed in 1912, the Steel Bridge crosses the Willamette to Portland's city center. Counterweights in the towers raise the center section to allow passage of boats.

The camera for these shots was one of my frequent travel companions, the Ikonta A 520.

Ricoh 500

2011-06-15T16:03:00.008-06:00

This Ricoh 500 was an early acquisition some years ago when I first got interested in old film cameras. It bore a resemblance to the mid-century Nikon and Contax rangefinders, and it also had some interesting design innovations of its own. Dribbling a little lighter fluid into the shutter got it working well. The pictures from it were a disappointment, however; they were all lacking in sharpness.

I found some reports of similar experiences to mine with the camera, and it got parked on a shelf for the next five or six years.

Recently, I came across some rather nice images that others had made with the same camera. I decided it was time to revisit the Ricoh. This time I removed the lens retaining ring and screwed out the front lens group so I could get access to the shutter blades to clean them. More importantly, I correctly reset the infinity focus using the collimation process described by Mike Elek. The results speak for themselves.

More photos from the Ricoh 500 are in a brief slideshow:
Old Town Shadows.

Occidental Life Building

2011-06-12T13:28:00.002-06:00

Henry Charles Trost was the designer of the Occidental Life Building which was built in Albuquerque in 1917.

Bosque Trail

2011-06-09T13:55:00.007-06:00

Early Summer

2011-06-07T16:31:00.005-06:00

Fiesta, San Felipe de Neri

2011-06-04T14:37:00.003-06:00

Jupiter 12

2011-06-04T14:33:00.000-06:00

Albuquerque Morning

2011-06-01T13:47:00.003-06:00

Kodak's Autotime Scale

2011-05-31T15:44:00.003-06:00

One of my favorite Kodak cameras is the little No.2 Folding Autographic Brownie. It makes very fine images thanks to the excellent two-element Rapid Rectilinear lens. It also sports a curiously complicated dial on the shutter front in which the numeric speed and shutter settings are supplemented by words describing light conditions and subject choices. The key to this wordy mosaic is to be found just above the words, "BALL BEARING". There will be found the name Kodak gave to the exposure system incorporated in the shutter face, "Autotime", and the Patent date of 1908. Using the "Autotime" name in a web search turns up quite a few early Twentieth Century ads from photography magazines along with historical notes on the details of the Autotime exposure system.

Kodak's directions for obtaining correct exposures using the Autotime dial was to use the speed settings at the top of the shutter to select the prevailing lighting conditions, the possibilities being "Brilliant", "Clear", "Gray", "Dull" and "Very Dull". Once a selection was made from those choices, the photographer was then instructed to move on to selecting the aperture designated as subject choices at the bottom of the shutter dial, with the possibilities being "Portrait", "Near View", "Average View", "Distant View", "Marine", and "Clouds". It was also explained that subject movement and depth of field considerations would also require additional adjustments. All of this, according to the Kodak ads and instructions, would result in an "automatic" indication of the proper exposure settings. That seems now like comical advertising hype, though perhaps a little less so at the time when popular photo magazines were providing exposure determination explanations which included the calculation of logarithmic exposure scales.

The original 1908 patent application (883607) for the Autotime Scale shows that it was not a Kodak invention. An American living in London, Frank S. Andrews, actually thought up the system, and his concept included some real automation which was not carried over to the Kodak product which first appeared on its cameras in 1909. Andrews did lay out the design to include the terms for light conditions and subject choices, but he also described a mechanical geared linkage between the aperture and speed settings for automatically maintaining the proper exposure when the speed was changed to adjust for subject movement, or when the aperture was altered to change the depth of focus.

Kodak's implementation of the Andrews design did not include any mechanical alterations of the shutter or aperture mechanisms. It was up to the user to make a determination of the lighting conditions and to apply that observation to the shutter and aperture manually. The Autotime Scale came installed on a number of Kodak models including the very popular Vest Pocket series which used 127-format film. The Scale could also be installed as an after-market accessory at a cost of $1 to $1.50, depending on the type of shutter. It is hard to tell at this remove how many users actually made practical use of this feature, as was also true of the Autographic feature which was offered on many of the same cameras. The company's stated aim was always to make photography more accessible to the common man, but there were also sub-texts about differentiating products from the competition and selling more cameras.

The novelty of the Autotime Scale did not pass the test of time in a very competitive market and was eventually abandoned along with the Autographic feature. Playing a role in in the demise were the establishment of the modern f-stop system of aperture designation, the availability of a wider range of film speeds, and a generally higher level of sophistication in camera design and construction. However, that was not completly the end of the Autotime idea.

In the 1950's the coupling of aperture and speed settings was resurrected by Kodak in its Retina line of compact 35mm cameras. In my Retina IIc, the shutter and aperture rings around the lens mount are latched together in such a way that incrementing the speed setting by one stop will automatically increase the aperture to maintain an equivalent exposure. This was part of an industry-wide introduction of the Exposure Value (EV) system which assigned a single value to designate a setting of aperture and shutter speed to produce an exposure of film appropriate to lighting conditions and film speed. This was made possible in part to the wide-spread use of exposure meters calibrated to the EV system and often connected directly and automatically to the cameras' shutter and aperture adjustments.

Westside Bosque

2011-05-26T19:46:00.004-06:00

at the zoo

2011-05-26T19:32:00.005-06:00

Luminous Daughter

2011-05-26T07:05:00.001-06:00

Cate

2011-05-24T22:19:00.000-06:00

C330

2011-05-24T09:00:00.002-06:00

I may not be sufficiently dexterous to use this Mamiya tlr. I do ok with it on still or slow-moving subjects, but there often seems to be one too many things to adjust to get the shot I want.

I duotoned the chickens to get adequate contrast after missing the exposure by a stop. The bellows lets you get close, but you have to remember to adjust the view for parallax while also watching the exposure scale to compensate for the bellows extension.

The Rapture

2011-05-21T18:22:00.006-06:00

a little rain

2011-05-19T17:11:00.001-06:00

hybrid hot rod

2011-05-17T10:23:00.005-06:00

There are always some interesting cars at the curb in the vicinity of the car shows. This one is a work in progress. I think it started life as a 1938 Buick 4-passenger convertible coupe with rumble seat.

Jupiter's Colors

2011-05-16T12:27:00.010-06:00

At the Albuquerque Museum car show.

I was very pleased with the performance of the 35mm Jupiter 12 on my Zorki 2-C. The color was a little odd in a few of the shots, but I'm inclined to believe that the fault was with the film or the scanning rather than the lens. One issue with the lens that I discovered some time ago is that the DOF scale is off by one stop. So, if you want to shoot at the f-16 hyperfocal distance with this lens, you need to set the infinity mark at f-11 on the DOF scale.

The Big Show

2011-05-16T08:04:00.005-06:00

The annual Albuquerque Museum car show.

I'm trying to resolve my love-hate relationship with my C330. It's big and clumsy, but capable of making very fine images.

Around the House

2011-05-11T21:03:00.002-06:00

I spent a good part of the day working on my Zorki 2-C, and then shot a test roll of Tri-X. The first shot is with the 35mm Jupiter 12; the rest are from the collapsible Industar-22. Still a bit of work to do on the camera, but I'm encouraged by the results so far.

No.1A Pocket Kodak

2011-05-09T15:45:00.007-06:00

I eliminated the last of the pinholes in my Pocket 1A bellows and shot a roll of TMAX 120 at the Zoo yesterday. I liked the results except for the fact that I let a bit too much sky into the pictures and the flare degraded the images a little. The last shot on the roll of some filter tanks near the elephant enclosure gives a better idea of the nice resolution of the f-7.9, 131mm Kodar lens. The detail images are 100% enlargements scanned at 1200 dpi.

Exposure was f-32 at 1/50 on TMAX 400, developed in HC-110, dilution H.

1A Zoo

2011-05-09T15:30:00.005-06:00

show

2011-05-07T20:24:00.007-06:00

We went to horse show this morning. There were some nice horses, but the undisputed star of the show was a very small lamb.

N.Y.U. Hawk Cam

2011-05-06T12:34:00.001-06:00

Watch live streaming video from nytnestcam at livestream.com

Patio Abstract

2011-05-05T11:50:00.001-06:00

Argus Sandmar

2011-05-02T19:46:00.008-06:00

I've been curious for a long time about the Sandmar lenses for the Argus C3. Recently, I was able to acquire a 35mm example inexpensively along with the viewfinder, and it came attached to a very nice 1953 model of the camera. There was little bidding competition for the outfit on ebay, possibly because of the missing lens shade. Most of these lenses were also sold as part of a set of two, the other being the 100mm telephoto.

The outer filter ring shows the model name of the lens along with its specifications: Argus Sandmar Wide Angle 35mm F:4.5 Nr. 422.
The rear ring contains the revolving focus scale along with an inscription showing the place of origin and a bit of post WWII history: Enna-Werke München US Zone Germany pats.pend.

The accessory viewfinder can be used both with the wide angle lens and the telephoto. The mask is pulled forward and placed over the front of the finder to provide the proper framing for the 100mm lens.

The Sandmar lenses are nicely made in typical German fashion, and they are coated for contrast enhancement. However, without the lens shade in place the results I got showed some flare, and I had to adjust the contrast significantly in Photoshop.

A brief slide show presents some example shots from the C3 with the Sandmar Wide Angle.

Spring in the Bosque

2011-04-28T15:44:00.006-06:00

Big Wheels

2011-04-26T21:30:00.001-06:00

Rio Rancho B&W

2011-04-24T15:33:00.005-06:00

I put a roll of 120 through my No.1A Pocket Kodak at the car show. This picture of a '48 Fleetline was the only one I liked of the six frames.

Shooting a 130mm lens handheld at 1/50 is really pushing the envelope. I used a cable release to cut down on camera jiggle, but one needs a solid support to get the most from this camera. I also need to take care of that leak along the bottom of the image.

Rio Rancho Color

2011-04-23T20:09:00.010-06:00

I went across the river this morning to a car show at Cabezon Park in Rio Rancho.

San Francisco - 1906

2011-04-19T12:49:00.003-06:00

A film clip of a cable car ride down Market Street in 1906.

Filmed by the Miles brothers: Harry, Herbert, Joseph, and Earle C.

yesterday's color

2011-04-16T21:29:00.011-06:00

Whatever other gear I lug along on my photo outings, the little Olympus mju often finds a pocket to ride in. My main objective is usually a monochrome rendering, but one can't always ignore the possibilities of color, particularly with subjects like classic cars, so I loaded some Fuji 200 color film in the mju on this occasion.

wheels

2011-04-16T19:37:00.007-06:00

Albuquerque's car show season got underway today at Worldwide Automotive where all comers got a free lube, oil and mechanical check. Quite a few of the cars will likely show up in mid-May at the Albuquerque Museum 27th Annual Car Show.

Progress

2011-04-12T16:33:00.007-06:00

The brilliant viewfinder makes the Argoflex Forty one of my favorites. I also like it for its stealth factor -- though it looks like a cheap box camera, it has very nice picture-making capabilities due to its coated, focusable lens and reliable shutter. I haven't shot the camera much yet due to an intermittent light leak, but today I figured out that the leak was in the vicinity of the back hinge, and a strip of black tape took care of the problem.

Dancers

2011-04-09T22:12:00.004-06:00

Albuquerque's 305th Birthday

The New House

2011-03-31T19:57:00.011-06:00

New to us and newly renovated, the house was built about 1923. The museums and the Plaza Vieja are just a short walk away.

We got blinds installed yesterday, so Margaret no longer needs a sun hat to read her email.

Richard assumed command on arrival. The other two cats had a rougher transition.

The house is pretty small and there's no outside storage, so the bikes are back in the livingroom.

The Little Brothers of the Good Shepherd across the street are a quiet bunch. I wonder which one owns the spiffy red sports car in the parking lot.

The historic Henry Mann house to our south has some great landscaping, but no tenant at present. We're hoping someone friendly rents the place so we can get a look inside.

I think the house on the other corner belongs to the same owner as the Mann house; she's a local jewler who now lives in a concrete castle down near the rail station.

We're currently sharing a flock of pigeons with our neighbor to the north. I've been discouraging them from roosting at our place with a liberal application of chicken wire.

The cats are digital. All the rest are shot with a Zorki 2-C and a collapsible FED 50 on TMAX 100, developed in HC-110.

Certo Dolly Super Sport (rf model) Part 2

2011-03-27T22:27:00.015-06:00

(Guest Post by Gil Zilberstein -- Part 2)

So, after all that what kind of pictures does it take? I have some samples below:
(NOTE: all color photos are on Fujichrome film)

The above 4 pictures were taken within 10 minutes of each other at the end of the day. The location is a road off the main highway at the northern (Marin) end of the Golden Gate Bridge. For the sunset photos, I turned almost 180 degrees around from the photos of the bridge. Now these things are a matter of taste, but I really like these photos, especially for an experiment with an old camera to “see if it works”. Also note that these were taken without the 6x6 mask, and therefore without film rollers . . .

The next set of photos were taken in Times Square in New York City, AFTER I installed Mikes 6x6 mask with the rollers.

Now, these kinds of photos were difficult or impossible when this camera was built. I really like the way these photos came out.

It is a credit to both the camera (especially the lens), and modern films that these photos came out so well. And, I guess that I as the photographer should take some credit too . . .

And finally, some black and white photos:

With the exception of the above interior shot taken in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, these are all catch-as-you-can street scenes. The results are not bad, but this kind of photography is not my forte, so I feel that I need a bit of practice for this kind of work.

So, that’s it for now. What do you think?
Am I crazy to use a 70 year old camera with a 100 year old type of film (120 rolls) in a modern slide emulsion, scanned to a digital CD so I can download it to my computer and sent it out over the web?

Maybe, maybe not, but I like it, and I had fun doing it. And as a side-benefit, I find that the slides themselves are beautiful on their own! I love just holding them up to a bright light and looking at all the colors. It really turns my camera into a magic box ! !

Gil Zilberstein
< gzilbers@gmail.com >

Certo Dolly Super Sport (rf model)

2011-03-27T22:03:00.016-06:00

(Guest Post by Gil Zilberstein)

Mike Connealy asked me to write a bit about my Certo Dolly camera.
If you haven’t seen it yet, his website is: < http://mconnealy.com/ > .

Let me start with the markings on the camera:
While I am sure it is a Certo Dolly, all it actually says on the camera is “ Super Sport” embossed in leather on the front.

On the lens/shutter assembly, it says: Compur for the shutter (the speed range
is 1-250 plus “B” and “T”). The lens is marked: Meyer Görlitz Trioplan 1:2.9, f=7.5cm, Nr. 884813.

I bought the camera on ebay, and didn’t expect much from it. I just wanted an inexpensive large format folder, and I have had good luck with getting nice photos from German folding 35mm cameras from the 1930’s (a Certo Dolina, and a Weltix).

The camera came with a leather case in excellent condition, with what appears to be a locking latch ! (No, I don’t have the key . . . ) (see fig. 1 below)

1

Here are some general views of the camera with the front closed:

2

3

Now, I don’t know how evident it is in these photos, but the top viewfinder/rangefinder/extinction meter unit was probably heavily brassed, because when I got the camera, someone had touched these areas up crudely with black paint ! I wish they had left it alone . . .

Now here are some views of the back, with the depth-of-field table/ red window cover open and closed:

4

5

And here is a close-up of the depth-of-field table:

6

And now for some views of the lens/shutter assembly:

7

8

9

So that’s what my camera looks like. So, how well does it work?

I’ll answer that in two parts: firstly, how well the features work over 70 years after it was built, and secondly, what kinds of photos it takes with modern films.

The shutter works perfectly, as far as I can tell, at all speeds. This alone is remarkable for a 70-plus year old camera. By the way, the shutter release lever is a backwards “L-shaped” lever on the lens/shutter mount. You can see it above in fig 9, with its hinge/fulcrum to the left of the “COMPUR” label. One rotates the top part with the teeth and the hole in it outward and downward to trip the shutter. The action is very easy. The shutter must be cocked manually before each picture. Referring to fig 7, the lever with the hole in it above the “B” on the shutter speed ring is for cocking the shutter. It moves to the right as seen in the photo.

Now for the focusing, referring to fig 7, the solid lever without the hole in it above the “1” on the shutter speed ring is the focusing lever. It is to the right of the shutter cocking lever mentioned earlier. As you swing it around, the whole lens/shutter moves forward and backward from the front of the bellows. The focusing action is smooth, but the rangefinder is very difficult to use. I don’t know if that was the original design, or if it is age-related and subject to improvement by adjustment.

Exposure adjustment is from the front. Referring to figures 7-9, the shutter speed is changed by rotating the ring at the top so that the desired shutter speed is opposite the pointer. To adjust the f-stop, there is a silver metal triangular tab (just below the shutter release lever fulcrum and under the letter “C” in “COMPUR”. you slide this back and forth to the desired f-stop setting.

By the way, you open the front by pushing a chrome button on the bottom, next to the wind knob (see figures 1 and 2). To open the back, there is a sliding cover-tab on the wind-knob side of the camera, under the carrying strap.

Now to the back of the camera for viewing. Referring to figures 4 and 5, the larger round window on the left is for viewing and composing. Right above it is a flat round knob for moving a mask into place if one is shooting 6x4.5 photos instead of 6x6. The knob can also be seen in figures 2 and 3, but note that the window for the viewfinder is square on the front. To the left of the viewfinder window is a slightly smaller round window for the rangefinder. Mine is so far out of adjustment, that only a particular, low eye position even lets me see it, and then it is hard to tell if it is the coincident type, or the split-image type . . . To the left of these round windows is a long rectangular window. It is on the left when viewed from the back (figures 4 and 5), or the right when viewed from the front (figures 2 & 3). This is the extinction-type “light meter.” I say “light meter” because: a) this device was always notoriously inaccurate, b) it is not a light meter in the modern sense. The way it works is you look through a kind of graduated neutral density filter at a series of numbers, and read off the dimmest one you can read without straining. Then you look up this number in an exposure table to get your shutter speed and f-stop settings. The problem is that your eye adapts, especially if you stare and take too long trying to figure out the dimmest number. (In other words, if you stared at the numbers long enough, more and more of them would become readable ! ! ) It was better than nothing, but not really accurate.

Film advance is by a rather stiff knob on the bottom. AND, you have to flip down the depth-of-field table by pulling up the tab at the top. Then you can see the three red windows so you can see the paper backing of your film roll and know where to stop advancing the knob for the next picture. (See figures 4, 5, and 6). I only use the middle window, which is marked for “6x6” (barely visible after all these years). If one wanted to shoot 4.5x6 photos, one would have to do three things: 1-install a special mask inside the camera BEFORE loading the film; 2 – turn the knob above the viewfinder window all the way counter-clockwise to put the correct viewfinder mask into place; and 3 – advance the film carefully until the next exposure’s number is in the LEFT-hand upper window, shoot the photo, then advance it carefully just a bit to put the same number in the RIGHT-hand upper window, and repeat for the next
exposure’s number. As I said, I only have the 6x6 mask (thanks to Mike Connealy’s generosity), so I only use the lower 6x6 window and use each exposure number only once. (Note: before Mike sent me the 6x6 mask, I did manage to shoot a roll successfully. What was remarkable was that I didn’t scratch the film, since the camera has no built-in rollers. The film rollers come with the mask . . .

(continued in next post with pictures from the camera)