Zorki 6 and Jupiter 8

The Zorki 6 has just about every imaginable improvement over its Barnack-style predecessors: 

• Easy loading hinged back
• Fixed film take-up spool
• Lever advance
• Large combined viewfinder/rangefinder window
• Viewfinder diopter adjustment

My only complaint with the camera's design is the forward placement of the strap lugs.  When you hang the camera strap over your neck the camera is left pointing upward at about 45 degrees.  That results in the lens pointing upward in the direction of the sun and a possible danger of burning holes in the shutter curtain.

I took the Zorki 6 on a walk through Old Town Albuquerque loaded with Kentmere 400 which I processed at home with HC-110b.  What showed up in the results was a remaining intermittent light leak and a bit of shutter capping.  So, still a bit of work to be done on this camera.

I was pleased with the performance of the Jupiter 8 lens which I used on this occasion. 

The last time I used the lens it was mounted on my Leica IIIa.  I had intended to make some shots from the top of the Chaco Hotel, but when I got out of the car there the camera fell out of my pocket and onto the pavement.  The camera was unhurt as the lens landed nose first, but there was a substantial dent in the lens's filter ring.  The Jupiter 8 is probably my best Soviet-era lens, so I decided to get a proper tool to make the needed repair.

The tool straightened out the dent perfectly, and I used it on a couple other damaged lenses as well.  Given my history of dropping things, it seems like a good investment.

Housemates

 The dog heads for the closet whenever I bring out a camera.  I coax her out with a treat and then have to allow her up on the couch to get her to pose for a photo session.

The cat is not much bothered by me chasing her around the house with a camera, but at age fifteen she doesn't get above floor level, so finding good lighting has gotten to be more of a challenge.

This whole roll of Kentmere 400 looked underexposed.  I think the bottle of HC-110 has gotten tired, so I'll open a new one for the next session.

Chance Encounters

 We went to a backyard jazz concert this evening.  A woman we had not seen in ten years was in the audience.  She was the person who adopted one of the cats who hung out in our backyard at our first home in Albuquerque.  I wrote a tribute to that cat, Spot, when he went off to his new home.  He was just one of quite a few, all of whom were ultimately adopted.  Well, we did keep one, Ruthie, who I have photographed many times.  And, of course, we also came to town with two others, Richard and Rio.  Anyway, it seemed like a good excuse to celebrate all the cat friends in our life.

Spot

Stripey

momma cat

Sister

Rio & Richard

Ruthie

********************************************

Also:

Angelitos Negros - Eartha Kitt - 1953

Shut Down

The Minolta X-700 given to me by a friend recently came mounted with a Vivitar 2.8/35-70 zoom.  It doesn't seem a very versatile range for a zoom, but I thought I at least ought to give it a try.  The pictures from it look ok, so maybe I'll find a use for it.

The dog and I took a walk into Old Town last Saturday.  At 3:00 in the afternoon, the stores were closed and the streets empty.  Normally, the area under the covered walk would be full of jewelry vendors and their tourist clients.  I've shot the red chairs empty of diners before early in the morning before the restaurant was open.

Though there was no one around to appreciate it other than me, a fine old Oldsmobile was parked at the curb in front of the church.  I didn't see the owner.

We try to get out to the river with the dog a couple times a week.  This is one of the locations where there is a big sandbar where the dog can get in a run.

We have mostly stayed close to home this week.  That doesn't suit the dog, but the cat is fine with the current arrangement.

cats

Show Stealer

Whenever I'm making pictures around the house I often devote the last few shots on the roll to images of my cat, Ruthie.  Pretty often, I end up liking those unplanned pet portraits better than what I had originally set out to photograph.

I still tend to think of Ruthie as being a kitten, but she was born to a feral mother in our backyard soon after we moved to Albuquerque, so she is near ten years old now.  Where does the time go?

Kentmere 100

In shooting the last roll of Kentmere 100 I put through the Leica I looked for subjects and lighting that I thought would challenge the film's capacities.  Exposures were one stop below box speed.  I processed the roll in PMK Pyro for ten minutes at 71 degrees, with two tank inversions each fifteen seconds.  The negatives were scanned on my old Epson 2450 flatbed using SilverFast SE with the Ilford Pan-F Plus 50 film profile.

THE UNDEAD

My Pentax K1000 came to me in poor shape.  I was able to revive it enough to shoot a roll of film, and then I put it aside for a long while.  There was still a small issue with the lens, and the through-the-lens meter looked dead.   Yesterday, I decided to take another look at the camera.

The 50mm f-2 Pentax-M lens was clean and sharp, but the rubber focus ring was loose and slipped at either end of the scale.  Looking at the lens more closely I saw that the rubber focus ring could be lifted up and off with a small screwdriver.  A couple drops of glue solved the slippage issue.
     The light meter problem was also easily diagnosed.  Removing three screws allows the camera's bottom plate to come off.  Taking out three more little screws frees the battery compartment.  Not unexpectedly, the wire to the battery holder was corroded and disconnected.  Splicing in an extension to reconnect the wire to the bottom of the battery compartment seemed an intimidating task because of the tiny diameter of the wires.  Really nothing to lose, however, so I screwed up my courage, picked up a little Weller soldering kit at ACE Hardware and tackled the job.
     Stripping the tiny wires is tricky.  If you try to use a knife or a wire stripper, the likely result is that the tiny wires will be destroyed.  It turns out, however, that you can just use a lit match to burn off the insulation.  I took a short piece of small-diameter wire from an old video card and joined it with my solder gun to the battery holder and the stub of wire from the camera body.  My soldering won't win me any ribbons at the county fair, but it was good enough to bring the meter back to life.

I like the uncluttered view through the K1000 finder, and the meter seems to give me the exposure I am looking for better than some of my more sophisticated cameras.  I only have a couple of normal K-mount lenses at this point as I gave away my previous K1000 kit with the wide-angle and telephoto lenses.  I guess I'll see if I can find a couple more lenses.  Even if I decide against keeping the K1000, I could use the lenses with the nice little Pentax ME which is just one step from being fully restored.

Update: 
Through the generosity of a friend I now have a good kit for the K1000 including 28mm, 50mm and 135mm SMC Pentax lenses.  I also added a 2x telextender and a +4 close-up lens.

The Pentax ME

This is a delightful little single lens reflex camera.  Pentax excelled in ergonomic design and the ME represents one of their best efforts; the ME fits your hands like a pair of expertly tailored gloves, and it can even be stuffed into a jacket pocket.

The standard K-mount SMC 1.7 50mm lens is unbeatable.  The viewfinder is exceptionally bright and easy to focus. Accurate exposures are ensured by the electronic auto-exposure feature; you pick the f-stop and the camera adjusts the speed and shows it to you with an led display in the viewfinder.
     Aperture-priority exposure automation has always seemed a great enhancement to the picture making experience to me.  I have appreciated it in the past with a couple of my rangefinder cameras such as the XA.  Aside from the convenience, automating that one aspect of the process also seems to encourage a more adventurous approach to photography, and I find myself more ready to attempt pictures in challenging lighting than I might with fully manual film cameras.  On my first outing with the camera I did not even get out the door before I started snapping pictures.

This camera came to me with a few small issues.  I put a roll of Fuji 200 film into the ME to try it out and the back popped open on about the third exposure.  I thought I had likely not securely closed the camera after loading it, but half-way through the roll it happened again.  The latching mechanism has a couple little hooks that are supposed to mesh together; one shows some wear and may just need a little discreet bending to work properly.  Until I get that figured out I decided to just apply a couple of strips of black tape to secure the back and that worked fine for a second go with a roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200.

Before I had loaded any film in the camera, I attempted to adjust the ASA dial to the 200 value and found that it would not budge.

I removed the rewind assembly from the camera, but could not see a way to fully disassemble the ASA dial.  I tried wiggling the adjusting lever, but felt some metal fatigue threatening to break the tab, so I just put the whole thing together again and replaced it in the camera.  Luckily, the ME features a two-stop under and over exposure compensation on the ASA dial, so having the setting stuck at 100 ASA actually permits using any film in the 25 to 400 ASA range.

Somehow, I neglected to take the lens off the camera before shooting the first roll.  When I did that I was shocked to see that the mirror was speckled with black dust and there was also some on the rear lens element.

The source of the dust was easy to identify; the narrow black foam mirror bumper just above the ground-glass screen was very deteriorated.  I brushed off the loose pieces and that left enough in place to do the dampening job for the mirror, but replacement of the foam is clearly in order.
     It turns out that one can easily find spare parts for the ME on ebay.  Eight or ten dollars will get about any part needed, and whole parts cameras are even available at the same price.  With a bit of luck, working examples of the ME can be found for not much more.

Given the ME's popularity, there is no shortage of good information about the camera on line.  I was particularly impressed with the quality of work done with the ME which is on display in the Flickr Pentax ME/ME Super group.  Among the laudatory articles on the ME I turned up were accounts of experiences with the camera by two of my favorite photo bloggers, JR Smith at Fogdog, and Jim Grey at Down the Road.

(See Part Two for some additional repair notes.)

New Territory

Thanks to some generous loans and donations of equipment I have recently been able to get acquainted with some film cameras that I likely would not have gotten to otherwise.  First up is the Minolta SRT 202

The SRT 202 is big and heavy for a 35mm camera, but it is also very well built.  This one shows few signs of use, works perfectly, and it seems likely it could go on serving the needs of film photographers for a couple more generations.

The camera offers full manual control along with through-the-lens metering at full aperture.  The shutter has a 1/1000 top speed with an ASA range going up to 6400.  A depth of focus preview button is perfectly positioned for quick access.  The bayonet-style lens mount allows quick lens changes.

The standard lens for the SRT 102 was the MD Rokkor-X  1:1.4 f=50mm.  This fine six-element design is beautifully coated and very sharp at full aperture.  Minolta made all their own lenses in a wide variety of focal lengths and they are generally available at reasonable prices today.

My only experiences with Minolta cameras before was with earlier models.  I picked up a Minoltina AL-s rangefinder at an El Paso junk store for ten bucks many years ago.  I unstuck the shutter and adjusted the infinity focus and found that the Rokkor 40mm f1.8 lens was really excellent.  I was less impressed with an even-earlier Autocord tlr which I only kept for a short time.

There is quite a lot of good information about Minolta cameras available on line.  The Rokkor Files site has an excellent history of the whole SRT series which stretched form 1966 to 1981.

While browsing the Minolta SR Series group at Flickr I came across a reference to the use of the Minolta SRT 101 by W. Eugene Smith.  It turns out that Smith's Minamata photo essay was done with the Minolta.  Smith's assistant, Takeshi Ishikawa, wrote a book many years later about Smith's making of the great story and the Minamata survivors which was reviewed in the New York Times Lens feature.  The slide show includes a couple shots made by Ishikawa of Smith using the SRT 101; in one he has two of the big cameras on straps around his neck.

The slightly expired Kodak Color Plus 200 used here was also a generous gift. Judging by the multi-lingual labeling the film is likely intended primarily for overseas distribution, though it can be had in the U.S. through several on line sources including Walmart which sells it for less than $3 per roll. The film works particularly well with the Unicolor C-41 developing kit, yielding nice color and showing no spots or blotches which sometimes plague other films.