Inside the Samoca-35 Super

The little mid-'50s Samoca rangefinder brings a good price on ebay because of its unusual design.  However, you don't see many pictures posted from the camera, and I have never seen anything on line about restoring the Samoca until now.  A few days ago, Urs Fischer emailed me saying he had seen some of my Samoca shots on line.  He asked if I knew anything about adjusting the vertical alignment in the rangefinder as his was out of alignment.  I had to reply that I could be of no help with the problem as mine was in good working order when I got it and I had no need to look under the hood of the camera.

Undeterred, Urs proceeded to completely disassemble the camera, and he sent me the set of pictures.

Urs said he encountered no great difficulty in taking apart the Samoca, or in getting it all back together again.  Unfortunately he did not find the key to adjusting the misaligned rangefinder.  Here is what he reported back about his findings:

I took my camera completely apart, under the topcover one can clean all the glasses and mirrors, but the length adjustment is done by the cogwheel on the frontplate, the beam splitter and the deflector mirror are glued to the rangefinder housing without any possibility of adjustment. The distance measurement is done by a moving lens. That's why I thought of the rangefinder window cover has a adjustment optic and because it is knurled, and because mine is missing.

So anyway, perhaps time will tell,

meanwhile I wait to see the first pictures,

thanks and regards

urs fischer

So, still another chapter to go in the Samoca restoration, but the information Urs contributed is a big step forward for those of us with an interest in the unique little Samoca-35 Super.

UPDATE (June 3, 2022)

The mystery of rangefinder adjustment appears to have been solved!  I received an email from Christian Treiber with the following explanation: 

There is a screw hidden in the axis of the upper Knob that will show the distance.  When you take up the leather, you will see the Nut, and deep in the nut is a screw where you can adjust the Split sreen or picture .  There you can synchronize the infinity of the lens and the split window.

* * *

Since it has been a long time since I last made any pictures with the Samoca, I loaded a roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200 and shot all 36 exposures over the weekend in the Plaza Vieja.

I had to make some substantial contrast adjustment to the pictures from the Samoca.  I suspect that was no fault of the camera, but rather a function of my C-41 processing.  I'll try some Fuji next time around to see if I can sort out the processing issues.

July Albuquerque Meet-Up

New Mexico Film Photographers are invited to attend a meet-up each month to talk about any aspect of film photography.

The next Meet-up:

When: Sunday, July 1st, 9:30 AM
Where: Michael Thomas Coffee Roasters, 202 Bryn Mawr Dr SE, Albuquerque
Who: Veteran film users and anyone looking to get started in film photography.

No dues.
No rules (except an interest in film photography).

Fomapan 100

I was reminded by a posting at Filmwasters how much I like my little Voigtlander Brilliant, so I took it along on a walk through the neighborhood loaded with some Fomapan 100.  The writer at Filmwasters categorized his Brilliant as a box camera as his model has a fixed-focus f-11 lens.  Mine doesn't fit in the box category as it is equipped with a focusing 3-element anastigmat Voitar lens.  Otherwise, the cameras appear identical with metal body construction and the superlative viewfinder.  Voigtlander was the pioneer among camera makers in first marketing a 6x6 camera with the brilliant finder in 1932.  Other major camera producers like Kodak and Ansco only got around to offering brilliant finders after WWII.

I processed the 120 Fomapan in Rodinal 1:50 and like the results better than what I have gotten so far from the two rolls of Fomapan 200 that I've shot so far.  However, the grain and tonality were not up to the quality I used to get from Acros in Rodinal.  I may try the film again with stand development in HC-100 or Rodinal to see if that gets me closer to what I am looking for.

2926

I've been watching the restoration of the 2926 locomotive for the ten years we've been in Albuquerque.  It looks like all the parts are back together.

On the day of my visit the task being worked on was making the whole thing water-tight.  That is quite a challenge as there are hundreds of old brass fittings that must withstand very high pressures.

The camera was my Fed-1g with the Fed 3.5/50 lens.

The Car Show

Perfect weather for the annual car show at the Albuquerque Museum; lots of sun, but not too hot.  The sun, of course, does pose some difficulty for photography as the reflections of the sun on the acres of chrome are just about impossible to avoid.  I could actually deal with that with the use of a polarizing filter on an slr, but I always end up choosing to use my older rangefinder and scale-focus cameras for which a polarizer is not very practical.  On this occasion I shot Tri-X in the Benzin Primar plate camera and Fomapan 200 in the Leica.  Here are some from the Bentzin Primar, which always amazes me.

It is not hard to imagine why the plate cameras became so popular for a time in the 1930s.  The 6x9 or 9x12 format behind a 4-element Tessar produces images of extraordinary resolution, and the camera folds flat enough to slip comfortably into a coat pocket.  The Rada rollfilm adapter I use adds a considerable amount of bulk to the outfit, but it is quite a bit more convenient in use than a stack of individual film holders.

Nikon F2

The Nikon F2 is a heavy-weight, but still nice to shoot because of its smooth precision in operation.  I took off the bottom plate and repaired a corroded wire to the photomic meter, but it is still not going to work.  The meter itself responds when I apply voltage to the contacts, but it appears likely that there is some additional corrosion of the connections at the battery holder, and that is inaccessible without some major disassembly which I likely won't undertake.  That is not really an important impediment to using the camera, however, and I may still find a non-metered finder some time.  I put a roll of Kodak ColorPlus through the camera, with most of the shots being made with the Nikkor-P Auto 2.5/105mm.

cottonwood

Randall Davey Audubon Center, Santa Fe

Studio Gate

sigh

grape leaves

my fence

My desert four o'clock

ruthie

social networking

June Albuquerque Meet-Up

New Mexico Film Photographers are invited to attend a meet-up each month to talk about any aspect of film photography.

The next Meet-up:

When: Sunday, June 3, 9:30 AM
Where: Michael Thomas Coffee Roasters, 202 Bryn Mawr Dr SE
Who: Veteran film users and anyone looking to get started in film photography.

Please note that the June meeting will take place on a Sunday rather than on a Saturday because of scheduling conflicts.

 The monthly Meet-Up is sponsored by the New Mexico Film Photographers group at Flickr.

FOMAPAN 200

I am going to like Fomapan 200 once I get its peculiarities figured out.  One of the attractions of the film is the ISO200 rating which potentially provides more flexibility in responding to lighting levels than the Kentmere 100 that I have been using lately.  I started off this first roll at our favorite local craft brewery.

I shot the Fomapan 200 at a stop less than the box speed with the idea that I would be processing it in PMK Pyro which with Kentmere requires a shooting speed reduction of around a stop.  I did not find any very good guidance on line for the Fomapan/PMK combination, so I took a stab at it with 9 minutes at 23C in PMK 1+2+100.

I was very pleased with the Fomapan's fine grain which compares favorably with the slower Kentmere film.  However, most of the outdoor sunny day shots did not achieve my goal regarding tonal depth.  Sorting out the many influences on that quality involves many elements including the camera, lens, exposure and processing.

• The Nikon EM appears to be operating well, but there is a faint flare spot appearing intermittently in the images which indicates a probable need for a light seal replacement.
• The 28mm Rokunar lens has good resolution, but the wide-angle often captures a bit too much of the bright sky.
• Giving the film a full extra stop of exposure may have been a bit too much to retain good detail in both shadows and highlights on a bright day.
• My guessed-at time and temperature for the PMK processing may have significantly  missed the mark.

I am encouraged to experiment a bit with this film because of the many good results I have seen posted on line in the Fomapan 200 Creative Flickr Group.  The film seems to respond well to processing with a great variety of developers including a couple of my favorites, Rodinal and HC-110.  There are also poor to awful results posted in the same place and some naysayers.  My feeling is that the people who denigrate the film have just not taken the time to work through issues of exposure and processing.  It is instructive to examine recommendations for processing times and temps suggested by the Massive Dev Chart site for a variety of films using HC-110B:

Film	Devel	Dil	ASA/ISO	35mm	120	Sheet	Temp

Fomapan 200

HC-110

B

200

3.5

3.5

3.5

20C

Ilford SFX 200

HC-110

B

200

9

9

20C

Kodak TMax 100

HC-110

B

200

7

7

7.5

20C

So, the very short time recommended for Fomapan clearly shows a significant difference in the film's chemistry.  Most people including me would be reluctant to use times under 5 minutes, but the option to use HC-110 dilution H at twice the B dilution gets around that issue.

A Fine Day for Tractors

The Corrales Tractor Club put on a show Saturday.  Lots of restored tractors, custom cars, military vehicles, and good hotdogs.  What more could a guy ask for?  I took along my Argoflex Forty loaded with Lomography 100 color film to test the results of the shutter cleaning.

Toy tractors were a big toy store item for many years.  I don't know if they remain so popular today.  I always had toy tractors of various kinds as a kid, the most common being the green John Deere models.

The appeal of tractors to city kids is a little mysterious since few would have any experience with the real thing.  My guess is that some of the attraction is attributable to family histories of migrants from rural areas to the cities during the Depression years.  Back then, having your plow pulled by a tractor rather than a team of horses or mules was certainly a symbol of prosperity and progress.  I don't recall family conversations about tractors, but they did keep me well supplied with the toy versions.  My grandparents moved from rural Wisconsin to Seattle in the late 1930s.  My father's family were farmers in Nebraska.  My grandfather ended up working a long time in Seattle at a John Deere warehouse, so I did have a little direct experience with the machines as a child.

I actually reversed the family migration history in my mid-thirties, moving from San Francisco to rural Idaho.  I did some farm work there which included a year as the maintenance man for the Elmore County Fairground.  Part of that job gave me the frequent opportunity to drive a Farmall tractor.  It was great fun.

I shot the cars and military vehicles on a roll of Fomapan 200 in the Nikon EM  which I'll run through some PMK Pyro developer later today.  While I was pleased to see the Varex lens turning in its usual fine performance, I was not as happy with the Lomography film which has given me better results in the past.  This roll showed some odd white spotting.  I can't yet rule out problems with my processing, so I'll try some other color film with the Unicolor kit soon to try to sort things out.  I also got some light leak along the film edges which shows I need to exercise more care in respooling 120 roll film onto the 620 reels.

foreground / background

I am trying to be more mindful of foreground/background relationships in the photographs that I make.  I have been helped along in that effort by the use of some late film-era cameras that feature aperture priority exposure control.  Needing to first set the aperture forces me to think about the resulting speed selection and the consequences of the aperture for capturing the depth of field of a particular scene.  I had the Nikon FE with me during a recent visit to the historic Gutierrez-Hubbell house in Albuquerque's South Valley.  In the shot of the child's room I wanted to focus primarily on the iron bed ornamentation while retaining the character of the rest of the room in the background.

Most of the rest of the roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200 was shot in the Botanic Garden, also with the Series E Nikon 1.8/50 lens, sometimes with the addition of a push-on +4 closeup lens.

High contrast can provide good separation of foreground and backgound picture elements, but also challenges a film's capacity to maintain a good range of tonal gradation.  I think the ColorPlus does very well, particularly considering its modest cost.

Lens characteristics exert great influence on forground/background relationships, mostly in the way that the out-of-focus areas are depicted.  The Nikon normal lens I was using produces very smooth out-of-focus backgrounds which can yield a watercolor-like effect.

The misted glass behind the succulent in the conservatory provided a kind of filter effect which worked along with the depth of focus of the chosen aperture to provide some separation of foreground and background.

I have used long lenses primarily as a way to minimize foreground distractions such as bars and fences in zoo enclosures.  However, the longer-than-normal lenses can also help in other ways with establishing a desirable relationship to foreground and background picture elements.  I'm thinking this is a possibility I might explore further with the Nikkor-P Auto 2.5/105 which only fits on my Nikon F2.  That camera also features a 1/2000 top shutter speed which facilitates better control of depth of focus in bright light conditions.