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.  

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.  

Genealogy

 Both of these cameras have a common ancestor, the German Zeiss Ikon Contax.  That fact turned out to be useful when the film advance on my recently acquired Nikon S locked up.

 

 

Since the Nikon S and the Kiev IIa both have Contax lens mounts, I was able switch lenses, putting the Nikkor-S 1.4/50mm on the Soviet-era Kiev IIa. As a test of the compatibility I loaded the Kiev with some expired Plus-X and took it to Old Town.
 

The Plus-X was from 2011 and had been in my refrigerator for about five years.  I thought at first that I would give it an extra stop of exposure to compensate for the film's age.  However, Bob Eggers told me he had better luck just shooting old Plus-X at box speed and developing longer than fresh film would require.  So I took his advice and processed in HC-110b for seven minutes at 20 °C.

The Marvelous 7s

My Minolta Hi-Matic 7s was the last great thrift store. bargain in my collection of old film cameras; I got it about five years ago for less than what it now costs for a single roll of film.  It came with a case and a lens cover, and it works like new.  The 1.8/45mm Rokker lens is superb and the CLC metering system achieves perfect exposures under any lighting condition.   I especially like the auto-parallax correction which is a big aid to precise framing.

Like many of the mid-'60s cameras, the 7s meter wanted a 1.35V mercury battery.  That battery is no longer available, but a 1.5V battery has always worked well for me, though it does make a better fit in the compartment if you add a rubber O-ring and top it with a small pad of aluminum foil for good contact.  All of the camera's many features are well documented in the 7s manual at the Butkus site.

The 7s is particularly well suited to street work because of its quiet shutter and reliable performance.  The camera hangs nicely from the neck strap, and on a sunny day you can select a small aperture for maximum depth of focus and shoot from the hip with abandon.  On a sunny Friday stroll through Old Town Albuquerque I finished off a roll of Kentmere 400 in about twenty minutes.