My History With Leica

 These were the three best images from a roll of Kentmere 400 shot in my Leica IIIa during a walk in Old Town and a visit to the VM coffee shop and the adjacent vintage sign and vehicle collection.

 My IIIa Leica was a body-only purchase from ebay.  I shot it for a while with Soviet M39 lenses, which was really fine.  Still, I thought it would be nicer to shoot the camera with actual Leica lenses, so I eventually found a good local deal on a IIIc with a 135 Hektor and a 3.5/50 coated Elmar.  I didn't keep the Leica IIIc long because I prefered the simpler construction of the IIIa.  The Hektor telephoto just seemed too awkward in use,  and I ultimately gave it to a friend.

I have made a lot of pictures with the 3.5/50 Elmar over the past six years and it has become a great favorite because of the consistent brilliance of its performance.  

Getting Started

 My first camera was a gift from my family, a Kodak Baby Brownie Special.

 I think that by the time I received that gift I was already enamored by the idea of becoming a photographer.  My next camera, also a gift, was a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash.  The first I bought for myself near the end of high school was an Argus C3.

 All of those cameras were perfectly adequate as image makers, though you wouldn't guess that from the pictures I made at the time.  What was lacking in my early efforts was not proper equipment, but rather some guidance from someone with expertise and some teaching skills -- in other words, a mentor.  I'm sure I was in proximity to such a resource many times over the years, but I never really developed the skill of establishing the necessary relationships.

What got me thinking along these lines was an article I came across in the Santa Fe New Mexican about Santa Fe Preparatory School photography teacher Sarah Meghan Lee.  Before she became a darkroom instructor at the school she was a photojournalist and photo workshop leader.  Those credentials are impressive, as also are her comments on photography's history as reported the the article, which by the way was written by one of the school's students.

What an extraordinary opportunity is available to those prep school students! 

Rainy Day

The last of New Mexico's monsoon weather.

 

A Solid Performer

 Reading people's accounts of discovering and using the Argoflex Forty, the consistent theme found in  all is the surprising excellence of the images from this fundamentally simple camera.  What is often overlooked is the quality of the camera's design and construction.  That is especially apparent if this 1950s Argus is compared to the many earlier pseudo-tlr cameras.  Some of my pre-war brilliant-screen cameras make nice images too, but their metal bodied construction seems very flimsy compared to the solidity of the bakelite Argoflex.

 

Voigtländer Brilliant

 We took our dog, Roxie, for an outing on the West Mesa to the east of the volcanoes.  She would have preferred to splash in the river, but it is waterless this summer.

 The area has a large network of horse trails with many types of jumps.  It would be fun to see the place in use, but we have never seen anyone on horseback there in the years we have been visiting the place.

 

I was able to finish off the roll of Kentmere 100 in the Voigtlander Brilliant the next day when we visited the Art Museum.

 

The very bright viewing screen of the little pseudo-tlr makes the camera a real pleasure to use, and I'm always impressed with the images delivered by the uncoated Voigtar f/7.7 lens.

No Adjustments Needed

 I am always impressed by how my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim (VUWS)  stacks up against much more sophisticated and expensive cameras in my collection.  I shot a roll of Kentmere 200 in the little point & shoot, aiming it often at subjects which I had previously visited with some high-end cameras.

The VUWS has been one of my most productive cameras over the past twenty years. In the past I mostly shot color with it, but that choice has been relegated by film prices to the digital realm.   The 22mm two-element lens handles black & white just fine.

 

Verichrome Pan

 I shot a roll of Verichrome Pan with an expiration date of 1981 in my Kodak Duo Six-20 folding camera.  This was the best of the shots from the roll.

 I thought the film actually performed pretty well considering its age.  I shot it at the box speed of 125 ASA and processed in HC110b for 7 minutes.  However, I had a lot of trouble managing the camera, my Kodak Duo Six-20 folder.

I normally choose to shoot a faster 400-speed film with this type of camera because that allows the use of smaller apertures and more leeway for focus errors.  Shooting the Verichrome Pan on a cloudy day meant having to open up to f/4.5 or f/5.6 which required more accurate focus estimation than what I was often able to achieve.  I also had a lot of trouble seeing the frame numerals through the camera's ruby windows.  In trying to get enough light on the window I managed to put. some ugly bright smudges on the images.

So, a disappointing outing with one of my favorite cameras.  I'll try to give it another chance soon with some newer and faster film.