Monsoon







New Mexico is experiencing slightly cooler weather from overcast skies.

I'm pleased to see that my 1953 Contaflex is performing well following its last cleaning. I gave the shutter a good soaking in Ronsonal and a final light brushing with extra fine graphite suspended in a little lighter fluid. The Tessar lens and Reala film are always a nice combination.

Lunch at the Aquarium

Back at the Zoo



This time with the No. 1-A Folding Pocket Kodak Special. The camera will be one hundred years old this year. Its Rapid Rectilinear lens consists of four elements in two groups, placed on either side of the aperture in a design dating back to U.S. Civil War times. The symmetrical arrangement of the lens elements does a good job of nullifying spherical aberration, but the uncoated optics are subject to flare in contrasty lighting situations.

Using 120-format film rather than the 116 that the camera was designed for, I get a negative that is 2.25 inches wide by 4.25 inches long. That size is a challenge to scan with my Epson 2450. I can lay the negative in the 4x5 scanner frame, but it is difficult to get an image without Newton rings due to contact with the glass.

Those small problems aside, it is very rewarding to coax photographic images from such an early camera. One gains respect for the excellent work that was accomplished in the past with this simple equipment, as well as an appreciation for the subsequent technical advances that steadily made photography easier and more accessible.

Black-Crowned Night Heron



The Night Heron appears in great numbers along the banks of the middle Rio Grande. This one and another have made themselves at home on rock perches in the Albuquerque zoo's bandstand duck pond.

Using 120 rollfilm in a 116 folder

I put another roll of film through my No. 1-A Folding Pocket Kodak Special after making some modifications to make it easier to use 120 rollfilm.

The easiest part of the conversion is the modification of the 116 take-up spool. I made a couple washers from the rubber backing material off a mouse pad, cut them in half and glued them to the inside faces of the spool end disks. The 1/8-inch thickness is just right to shield the edges of the 120 film against the light.

For the supply-side, I made a film holder from a plastic Adox film can. A hole in the bottom and another in the rubber disk holds everything in place securely, and the film comes out through the slit down the side. Besides being simple to implement, this solution didn't require any irreversible modification to the camera.

The film rails need to be just an eighth-inch wider on each side to properly mask and support the 120 width film. I used some black mounting board. The first strip was made a bit wider so it would slide under the existing frame rails and help support the new ones. On top of that, I glued two more 1/8-inch-wide strips, and these were also glued on the outer sides to the metal frame using hide glue. The mounting board is tough stuff to cut, but using my mat cutter enabled me to make the strips thin and straight.

One solution to frame spacing is to relocate the red window to the center of the camera back, enabling the use of the center row of numerals on the 120 backing paper; using every other number yields six non-overlapping frames per roll.

I was reluctant to drill a hole in my nice old Kodak folder to get the proper frame spacing. However, I found that the existing red window in the lower right corner of the back let me make use of the 6x4.5 framing numerals to get five evenly spaced frames using every third number, starting with number 3.

I'm not sure that I made any real improvement in image quality through the conversion, but the camera is quite a bit easier to use. One problem that cropped up was that the film edge is closer to the red window, and I am presently getting quite a bit of light leakage onto that side. I'll try painting out half of the window, and I'll also see if some well-placed foam light seal helps.

So, still a bit of work to be done, but I only have an hour or two into the project, and it turned out to be quite a bit easier than I had anticipated.

Cactus Rose Ranch

Certo Dolly Super-Sport

A Super-Sport was one of my first old folders, acquired about six years ago. I did quite a lot of photography with it, but then got distracted with other cameras from my collection and traded it away. Of course, I later started to regret not having my Dolly around, so I picked up a couple more not long ago.

Cate



That is the first frame from the first roll through my new Yashica Lynx 5000E. Seems a good omen.



The 5000E is a hefty camera, though not quite as big as the Lynx 14 I had some time ago. The difference is a slightly smaller lens; the 5000E has a 1.8 Yashinon, while the Lynx 14 sported a massive f1.4. Otherwise, they are pretty much the same camera.

Argus Cameras of 1955



Thanks to Carlos Avilez, I have been able to add a page to the Ephemera section of my Vintage Cameras site displaying a sales brochure with details of the 1955 offerings from Argus.

Carlos' flickr photostream under the name Soulrac has some extraordinary images, including many made with simple cameras from the period illustrated in the brochure.

Stylus

Some images from my two-dollar Olympus.



I prefer the lesser degree of automation of my earlier 35-RC, but the point-and-shoot capability of the stylus is seductive, and the image quality from Olympus lenses is always superb.



Much of the appeal for me of the little Olympus Infinity Stylus lies in its polished black form. I think it is a good example of the design genius of Maitani who was so good at synthesizing combinations of innovation and tradition.



The design of the Infinity Stylus packed fully automated 35mm photography into a container that would slip effortlessly into a pocket. At the same time, the sculpted black case suggests the beautifully crafted small boxes from Japanese tradition known as Inro and their sash cord toggles, the Netsuke.

Camera Design



I picked up this plastic point-and-shoot camera recently at my local thrift store for two dollars. Judging from the graphic theme on the front, it was built in 2003, which marked the 75th birthday of Mickey Mouse. Conceptually, the Mickey Mouse camera with fixed aperture and a single shutter speed is essentially a box camera, similar in operation to the earliest photo image-making instruments. At the same time, the simple plastic camera features a number of refinements including the sleek, molded shape, an integral lens cover, and -- most importantly from the perspective of economy and efficiency -- a thumbwheel film advance. All of those features were pioneered by the Japanese company, Olympus, whose chief of design for four decades was Yoshihisa Maitani.



Coincidentally, I also acquired at the same time, place and price an Olympus Infinity Stylus, also known as the "mju". The Olympus is also a point-and-shoot; it first appeared in 1990, but it is a very sophisticated instrument, indeed, with auto-everything -- including the film advance, exposure and focusing. The compact, organic shape of the Stylus evolved from an earlier Olympus called the XA which dates from 1979; that camera also had a lens cover that was integral to the camera's front structure. While the Stylus, had a motorized film advance, the manual thumbwheel advance was a feature of Maitani's first great camera design, the Pen, which appeared in 1959. The Pen was also especially significant to camera design history and evolution in it's price point, which was about about a fifth of that of similar quality cameras then on the market.



All of the above Maitani/Olympus history comes from a nicely done web site developed by a Maitani fan in Hong Kong.

Oly



I shot another roll of Kodak BW400CN in the thrift store Olympus 35-RC. I'm going to have a hard time getting rid of this camera, in spite of the fact that I have two others.







I guess part of the problem is that the monetary value of any of my old cameras seems insignificant compared to their over-all worth to me. Each camera is unique in the way that it captures images of the world, as well as in the evidence of past use which each carries. I wonder how the previous owners regarded their cameras, and I feel a sense of obligation to those photographers of the past.

old machines

C3

I've had three or four Argus C3 cameras; the only one left in my possession is a Matchmatic model, dating from 1962. The camera has a few surface blemishes, but it works perfectly, and has a phenominally sharp lens, the f3.5/50mm coated Cintar.



My thanks to Julio F for his reminder to revisit the C3.

No.3

One of the perks of city life is access to a lot of garage sales, flea markets and thrift stores. Since coming to Albuquerque, I've picked up a five-dollar Agfa Clack and two Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim at 99-cents each. My latest acquisition is a six-dollar Olympus 35rc.

I always pick up any camera that says "Olympus", but when I retrieved this one from the jumble in the bin at the thrift store, it took me a long moment to realize what I was holding because it was so unexpected. The 35rc is a great Chrome-Age classic.



I cleaned the lens, put in a new battery, and took the camera along to a Saturday car show.



I've already got two of these cameras which I considered bargains at nearly ten times the price I paid for the last one. I suppose I shouldn't keep this one, but I think I'm going to have to run a few more rolls through it before I can part with it.

Summer in the Bosque