I have five models of Kodak's post-war Retinas, all working well with fabulous lenses. The three rangefinder models have the 6-element Xenon. The lenses on the viewfinder cameras are both Tessar-types; the Retina I has an Ektar and the Retina Ia is equipped with a Xenar. I get around to shooting one or the other every few years, and never cease to be impressed with the quality images they deliver. Recently, I decided to put film through all of my Retinas. Over the last week I shot some Kentmere 100 in the Retina II, which was the first of the line I acquired about fifteen years ago.
I had to do some minor repairs to the Retina II when I got it. The bellows was partially detached and the shutter seemed to be a bit sluggish. I opened the shutter and cleaned it about three times, but the sound it made when tripped was nearly inaudible, and I was convinced for a long time that the main spring was weak. On looking at the pictures from the camera made over the years, however, I think the Compur Rapid is just an extremely quiet shutter and mine seems actually to be working just fine.
3 comments:
Beautiful work. That Kentmere sure likes that Pyro developer.
It is my feeling, after seeing your results with Kentmere 100, that this film is better suited to home or custom processing rather than just trusting my lab to do it right. My Kentmere stuff never looked as good as these images.
I think I've used Kentmere only with the PMK Pyro processing, so not sure how it does with other developers. PMK seems to handle about any slow, fine grain film well. I got into the Kentmere/PMK combo because of the fine work shown by a New Zealander who calls himself radspix on Flickr. He has done extraordinary work with quite a variety of films, both 35mm and medium format.
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