Back to the Brilliant

I took a nice morning walk through my neighborhood down to Tiguex Park, something I haven't done in some time. The camera was one of my favorites, the little Voigtländer Brilliant.  In describing the use and qualities of the finder the manual says:

"If you now look down vertically at this lens from a distance of about 10", you will see the finder picture (fig.3) the limits of which coincide exatly with those of the picture thrown on the film.  It is the right way up, is very brilliant and measures 1-9/16" square, i.e. two thirds the size of the picture."

The manual then goes on to describe a method for estimating focal distance using the image of a standing man in relation to pointers in the finder.  The man imaged in the finder is stated to be 5' feet 5", an interesting specification related to the average height of European and American males in 1932. 

There were no 5'5" men in the pictures I shot on the street and in the park, but I am pretty good at estimating distances and since it was a sunny day permitting the use of the f22 aperture setting, the resulting depth of field provided a good cushion for distance guesses.

I shot Fomapan 100 and developed it in the last of my bottle of Ilford DD-X.  I thought the tones and grain of the resulting images were pretty good.  I'm going to shoot another roll of Fomapan 100 in the camera and I'm thinking I'll try it in Rodinal next, which has given me good results in the past.

I remembered that a previous use of the Brilliant showed a light leak on one side of the images.  I put some black electrician's tape over what I thought was the right place on the back, but still had a bit of a leak this time.  So I'll be more generous with tape on the next use.  I have also added a bootlace neck strap as a aid to holding the camera steady at the 1/50 available on the shutter.  

The 7.7/75mm lens on the Brilliant is uncoated, but well corrected and capable of yielding good sharpness if one is careful to brace the camera solidly.

I have a couple fancy twin-lens cameras with a wide range of apertures and speeds as well as focusing through coupled taking and viewing lenses, but for me that brilliant view provided by the modest little Voigtländer along with its light weight and diminutive size make it a contender.

Fall Outing

 I had a nice bike ride with my Nikon F.  Went to the Botanical Garden and Los Poblanos.

I'm still working my way through my stash of expired film.  I did actually buy some 120 Fomapan, so will do something with medium format soon.

Celebrating SF 2926

The SF 2926 locomotive has been on a siding about a mile from our home under restoration for the fourteen years that we have lived in Albuquerque.  I have visited the site many times, but on this Saturday there was a special open house to mark the completion of the project.  All that is left to do now is to get through the bureaucratic processes to get onto the tracks.

There was free food and free drinks for the whole crowd that showed up, along with a brass band and a jazz group for entertainment, and plenty of memorabilia for sale including posters, books and t-shirts.

The SF 2926 sat rusting in a city park for many years, but now it looks much as it did when it was carrying freight all over the country.

Yashica Lynx-14

I decided it was time to get back to my Yashica Lynx-14.  It is one of the most interesting and unique cameras of the late rangefinder era.  There were a lot of fixed lens rangefinder cameras in production in 1965 when the Lynx 14 appeared on the market, so it took some innovation to get noticed.

Yashica's bid for popularity was primarily grounded in the massive 45mm f/1.4 lens with seven elements in five groups.  The camera was very well constructed and it also had a number of other features that made it competitive at that point.  The CdS light meter was coupled to the aperture and shutter.  The viewfinder had auto-parallax correction with the bright line frame moving as you focused.

My example is very well preserved, with no dents or scratches, and all the controls work very smoothly.  The shutter is quiet and seems accurate at all speeds.  The light meter is reactive to light, but does not read correctly.  The meter is adjustable by disassembling the lens, so it could likely be restored to proper operation.

The viewfinder is adequately bright, but the focus patch is small and lacks contrast.  When I got mine, I put a piece of reddish color film leader in front of the viewfinder window, and that did improve contrast somewhat.  When I took the camera on this last outing to Old Town Albuquerque I left the red film in front of the viewfinder, but I decided by the time the roll of film was used up that the slight improvement in contrast was not a good trade for the dimmer image in the viewfinder.

The last picture of the chess match at the Blackbird was a hipshot with estimated focus and framing.  I had to crop a bit to get the composition right, but I was pleased to get most everything in focus while using the maximum f/1.4 aperture.

In reading online sources about the Lynx-14 it seems that even when the camera was new the rangefinder patch may have been insufficiently contrasty to use the camera effectively in the low-light situations for which the camera was designed.  A bigger focus patch or a viewfinder diopter would have been nice additions.

Low light issues aside, the big Yashinon-DX lens is very sharp and contrasty and it can produce very pleasing images.  The f/1.4 aperture and the auto-parallax correction offer the possibility of exploring the potential of images with very limited depth of focus.

Cool Day

 I went to Old Town on Saturday with the collapsible Industar 22 on my Zorki 6.  A little rain and cloudy skies gave me some nice light for the Gekko 100 film.

In spite of the rain there were a lot of cars and people in the Plaza Vieja by noon.  Part of the reason for the crowd was that a Quinceañera was just getting started in front of San Felipe de Neri.

Some of the shops that closed during Covid have changed owners and some are being renovated and reopened.

I have gotten used to handling the Zorki 6 for the most part, though I still need a little practice with parallax adjustment in close-ups.  I'm thinking that the flip-open back will let me use a ground glass to compare the difference between what the lens and the viewfinder see.     I may try making some little close-up marks in the viewfinder.   The film was not tilted this time using the thin plastic washer, but it was slightly too high at the film plane, so i may try centering it with some thin foam rubber on both ends of the cartridge.

The Neighborhood

 A slightly overcast sky provided some nice light for an early morning walk through the neighborhood with the 35mm Jupiter 12 lens on the Zorki 6.  

 

The negatives showed a slight tilt again, so I'll go back to putting a thin plastic washer over the protruding end of the film cartridge.  Otherwise, the camera is working faultlessly.

Damn the Variables – Full Speed Ahead!

I've just about got the Zorki 6 sorted out.  I put a plastic washer on top of the film cartridge and the images showed no tilt in the film gate.  I'm not entirely sure that was the right solution, however.  I noticed that I really also needed to push the film leader firmly downward on the take-up spool.  So, I may just try that next time without the washer.

The film for this quick test shoot was some Gekko MW100 from about a dozen rolls that were given to me some time ago.  I was somewhat skeptical about its capabilities given the 2007 expiration date, but it seemed worth a try given the current cost of film.  I shot it at box speed and gave it an extra minute in Ilfotec DD-X on the theory that it is rebadged Efke.  I was pleased with the outcome in terms of grain and tonal qualities, and I'm looking forward now to using the whole batch.

The Ilfotec DD-X was also a gift from a friend from about a year ago.  I finally got around to trying it out because I noticed that it is one of the developers Ilford recommends for Kentmere, one of my favorites.  So that is on the schedule too.

I used my Jupiter 8 lens on the Zorki 6 on this occasion.  It is a Sonnar copy and maybe the best of the bunch of my Soviet lenses.  I wish it had click stops for the aperture like the Industar 61-LD, but I can't complain otherwise.  My plan is to move next to trying the Zorki 6 with the Jupiter 12 and either the collapsable FED 50 or the Industar-21. Those are both Elmar copies and seem just as sharp to my eyes.

I think the Zorki 6 is handsomely designed.  It is probably not functionally superior to a lot a lot of similar rangefinder cameras, but I think that it incorporates a lot of the best features of the long Soviet Barnack line and it was the last model before the slr takeover. And, last but not least, thirty bucks!