Abq Autumn

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.

 

 

A Walk In The Park

Some clouds and a light rain has provided us with respite from too-early Summer weather.  I  loaded a roll of Kentmere 400 in the pinhole camera and took a stroll through near-by Tiguex Park.

A Bentzin Folder

I had just one roll of 120 Kentmere in my refrigerator so I dicided to use it in my Bentzin Primar folding camera which I had used only once before since its acquisition in 2018.  I bought the camera on ebay because I had been very impressed with the quality construction of my Benzin plate camera.  The camera's features are an interesting pre- and post-war mix.  The Compur shutter and the uncoated Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan lens definitely look  to be from the 1930s.  

 On the other hand the self-erecting feature and the plastic advance knob are typically found on folding cameras made after 1945.  This camera also has two ruby windows on the back, indicating an option of getting sixteen frames from a roll of 120 film.  However, my camera did not come with the half-frame mask which would enable that choice.  The Bentzin looks like it was little used, including a faultless bellows and no Zeiss bumps in the covering.

 Being a Friday morning, the old guys and their restored classic cars were available in the Plaza Vieja to help with camera testing.   

 

 

 One of the old guys had come for his last ride.

 

For a three-element lens, the Meyer Gorlitz Triplan lens delivers impressive performance.  I have the same lens on one of my KW Patent Etui plate cameras and on my Certo Dolly SuperSport, and they make images as sharp and undistorted as the four-element Tessars.

I remembered that the Rada rollfilm adapter for my  Bentzin plate camera came to me with a thin cardboard mask for half-frame images.  It does not quite fit in the Bentzin folder, but it would be just a few moments work to cut one to fit.

A Kodak Mystery

I went late one recent morning to the nearby Tiguex Park with my Kodak No.1 Autographic Special.     After 10 o'clock the New Mexico sun is often an impediment to getting pictures I like, but on this day there was a helpful slight overcast.  As I worked my way through the eight frames of the Kentmere 400 film I listened to the persistent complaints of a critic up in the cottonwoods, a Coopers Hawk.

I am a bit out of practice at using the camera, but as always, the uncoated Tessar lens yielded images with a unique look. 

 

From when I first acquired this old Kodak in 2007 I have always regarded it as the most interesting camera in what has now become a rather large collection.  The camera's design, materials and construction were all state-of-the-art a hundred years ago, and it still remains a practical and competent performer.  

What prompted the rescue of the No.1 Special from the display cabinet on this occasion was an email from Scott Rust:

" Hey Mike - I'm curious to see what you think about this one! Early model? Late model? Special order? Is the back a transplant from a different camera?

It's been fun trying to figure it out, but I've hit a wall on any additional information.

I found this on Craigslist probably 7 years ago - seller left it on their front porch and I put $10 under the mat - very clandestine now that I think about it. Maybe it's some sort of geeky nerd illegal photography syndicate fencing unauthorized modded cameras.

At any rate, that mask was a big surprise when I looked at it earlier this week. It'd been there the whole time but I didn't notice it and assumed the camera was a 6x6. 

LMK if you want any additional shots. 

Scott "

 Scott included some photos of his camera which looked much like my 1915 model, but it had a number of different features, the most significant being two ruby windows on the back, and a 6x6 mask to enable the option of getting twelve square images from a roll of 120 film.

 

 

Scott, in a subsequent message, also gave me a link to Pacific Rim's collection of yearly-issued Kodak catalogs which included the twelve years during which the No.1 Autographic Special was offered by the company.  None of the catalog illustrations or descriptions show or discuss the unique dual-format features of Scott's camera.

 

So, we would both be interested in finding additional information about this interesting variation of the Kodak No.1 Autographic Special.  Scott can be found at the Bluesky site were he posts about his camera adventures, and there is also a link there to his photographic work. 

 

1915

Santa Fe

 After our visit to the Obscura Gallery we drove to the center of town and took a brief walk near the Art Museum.  I snapped a few shots with the Olympus Infinity Stylus on the way as I wanted some more images made in good outdoor light to subject to iPhone scanning.

 

I was happy with the cellphone scans, but am still struggling a bit with the GIMP photo editor to get consistent results.  I'll work on that and also try to come up with some kind of support for the camera to smooth the work flow.

Scanning a roll of film with the old flatbed was a half day process, so the time saved with the cellphone scanning seems like a real gift. 

Virtuosos

 We drove up to Santa Fe to see an exhibition of the works of Ansel Adams and Paul Caponigro at the Obscura Gallery.  Our map app drove us around in circles for a while to find the place, but it was easily recognized with its small herd of horse sculptures in the yard.

The gallery is a small adobe with two rooms devoted to prints.  There were quite a few by both Adams and Caponigro and some other well known photographers; all were originals produced and signed by the artists.  Print prices ranged from about $3000 and $10,000.  Among the prints in the back room there was a big photogravure I had not seen before by Edward Curtis.  The gallery owner was busy on her computer and her phone during our visit, but she was welcoming and willing to discuss the photographers and their work.

 I had only seen Caponigro's work before in books and online, so I enjoyed seeing some actual prints.  I can't say, though, that the prints produced an impression that seemed greatly superior to what one can find in good reproductions in print.  In fact, Caponigro seems to have produced his pictures with the intention of presenting them primarily in book form.  I only have the small Aperture book of Caponigro's phtographs, so I will look for some of the bigger books such as Master Works from Forty Years or The Wise Silence.

Those eye-watering prices made me conscious of the fact that I really know very little about the economics of galleries.  It seems that nearly every other building in Santa Fe is an art gallery; the competition must be fierce.  I imagine that walk-in sales must represent a tiny portion of the total.

 After visiting the gallery we drove across town to get lunch at a breakfast/lunch place called Cafecito.  We had some good empanadas with a pot of mate and an excellent slice of baclava for desert.  So, a nice day in Santa Fe which I hope to repeat in the near future.

Another Twin Lens

I took my Mamiyaflex II for a morning walk in Old Town.  The temperature at 9:00 AM was already about 70 degrees in the last week of February.  That made for a nice walk, along with a little anxiety about what will come in the Summer.  The car club guys that hang out in the Plaza on the weekend did not really take a winter break this year.

I found the Mamiyaflex at a yard sale some time ago.  I didn't really need another twin lens reflex camera, but it looked to be in pretty good shape for its age except for a little peeling of the covering.  It is also interesting because this Japanese camera from the 1950's bears a very strong resemblance to my Kodak Reflex II which is only a little older.

Given the amount of time the Mamiyaflex sat on a shelf since its last use I was not surprised to find that it was not working quite perfectly.  The advance was a little rough, and when I developed the film I found that the frame spacing was very irregular.  

I also found that I had a little trouble with framing my images in the viewfinder, which seemed dimmer than I remembered, especially in the corners.  That may have been due in part to the sunny day reflections on the viewscreen, and I suspect my own dimming vision may also be implicated.

Over all though I can't complain about the quality of the images.  I'll see if a little cleaning and lubrication will help with the rough advance issue.  I may also try inserting a plastic fresnel lens under the viewscreen to see if that will brighten things up a bit.

Medium Format

I took my Yashica-Mat for a walk in the Botanic Garden.  There were few other visitors on this sunny winter morning.  I have been disappointed in the increasingly manicured look of the place, but it is still a nice plece of nature to have nearby when I might not feel like going to the river or the mountains.

The conservatory always has an abundance of flowering plants regardless of the season.  This time of year I look forward to seeing and photographing the exotic lilies.

 

 The dry climate side of the site has native plants from the southwest deserts.

The medium format images from the Yashica-Mat have a kind of solidity which is particularly nice compared to what often comes from even the best of the 35mm cameras.

Having the close-up lens kit for the Yashica-Mat adds quite a bit of versatility in subject matter possibilities.  An eye-level finder like I have for the Mamiya C-330 would also be nice as shooting high with the waist-level finder requires a more flexible neck than the one I currently have.  I do have a steadying hand-grip which fits the camera, but I couldn't find it before this outing and my success rate suffered a bit as a result.