Wallace Koopmans Artlog

In my previous post Contax G1 I talked about this camera and its features and operation.  I can sum that up in two words ‘flawed beauty’.  Although a fantastic camera by many measures there were a few issues that bothered me particularly the focusing and the small viewfinder.  If I’m going to use a rangefinder I much prefer a larger viewfinder, that said the technical reasons for the small viewfinder (being able to adjust to different focal lengths) are understandable, it is more complex in itself than many entire cameras.

All this is forgiven when you factor in the lenses such as the 45mm f2 (6 elements in 4 groups) which is just incredible.  The camera is a technological tour de force but perhaps trying to be all things at once it detracts from the essence of photography.  Don’t get me wrong maybe what is needed is more time shooting with it but it comes across for me as a very large point and shoot with fantastic lenses.  An incredibly well made beautiful feature rich really big point and shoot…..okay there was nothing else like this camera at the time and maybe it shouldn’t be compared to anything.

It’s no secret that this is one of my favourite little blocks of steel.  It’s hard to believe sometimes that this camera is nearly 60 years old when you see the results.  My favourite characteristic of the images though has to be the film mask with its wavy edges.  It gives each image a postage stamp like look and proves that you didn’t crop your image.  More images and information about this camera can be seen here Super Paxette Photographers dont crop Paxette More Images Braun Super Paxette (Part 1) Braun Super Paxette (Part 2)

Because of the number of images I will break this into two seperate posts as well but here are the first 20.  There was a lot of smoke from forest fires so many of the landscape images relect that.

Previously I described the Baby Bessa and it’s workings.  Now for some examples.  I’ve included the film edge around the image so you can get a full sense of the  aspect ratio.  The film used was Kodak Ektar 100.  I used what could be arguably the best light meter in the world a DSLR, It’s accurate and gives immediate feedback including a histogram.

Here is a comparison crop between a 14Mpixel DSLR image and the Voigtlander unfortunately there is some motion blur in the Bessa image but as this is a typical result I have included it anyway.

Pentax K-7 32mm