No not that Diana, the made in Hong Kong plastic nearly everything camera of the early 1960’s. I spotted this camera in an antique store. It was absolutely the worst camera I have ever seen, so I bought it. It really can be distilled down to this, it is a semi light tight box with a single element plastic lens that produces an assortment of distortion and yields images with less contrast than Banff in a blizzard. So what is the appeal? Some people claim it allows the freedom to just create images. I claim it allows you to blame the camera when you don’t. Yes a distinctive look can be achieved with this camera but at what cost. For me I believe using it was a one time deal. I would rather use a Zeiss Ikon or a Voigtlander Bessa, if I want to shoot 120 on an old camera, I at least might have a chance of predicting the results and I’m sure I’ll still retain artistic freedom.
I needed to wait around for a few hours so I took my Pentax K-7 and only one lens, the DA35 ltd. These pictures are directly from the camera but re sized.
The automatic part of this camera no longer works so I thought I would find out why. It turns out that the selenium cell that is around the lens is no longer generating any voltage. It’s a very simple system where the voltage from the selenium cell deflects a needle connected to a small coil “galvanometer”. As the shutter is pressed there are two plates that move upward, on the top of these plates are steps that determine how far the plates slide based on where they intersect the needles horizo
Despite the effort to find time and the struggle to know when to stop I have managed to complete the first painting from my latest series. I originally came up with the idea in November of 2009 so at this rate it would take awhile. Fortunately now that I have the basic look and feel set out future paintings, in theory, should “develop” faster.
The Ql17 has a measure of cult status in the fixed lens rangefinder record. It’s f1.7 40mm lens is fast and the ability to set both shutter and aperture manually make it a very versatile camera. The shutter is extremely quite and it doesn’t have a pesky LCD screen on the back. I shot these pictures during a walk around the older part of downtown Abbotsford. I used Kodak 200 film and scanned them in after having them developed. The BW images are converted in lightroom where I now do most of my image processing.
The Lubitel 2 is an interesting camera, it certainly makes you think about composing your pictures. Primarily because you can’t. It without a doubt has the worst viewfinder I have ever encountered. Others have described it as tunnel vision, I would describe it as frustrating. It’s one thing to have everything reversed as with all TLR cameras but moving the camera can also make the image disappear entirely if you aren’t absolutely directly aligned. There are two focus aids though. One is that the finder can be configured as an eye level frame as seen in the picture of the camera and the other is the small magnifying element that can be flipped out to assist in focusing. While I’m on the subject of focusing, it also is unique. The image is not actually formed on a ground glass but is seen directly from a lens element that has a darkened spot in the center. It is very difficult to focus and requires the use of this magnifying loupe to ensure accuracy.
At the recent Vancouver camera show I aquired a Fujica 35 SE rangefinder. I had an opportunity yesterday to shoot a roll of film through it and am very impressed by the sharpness of the images. It has a f=4.5cm 1:2.8 Lens. The coupled exposure meter doesn’t appear to be accurate but because it is fully manual I just used my best available exposure meter (guessametering).
I made the animations smaller for slower Internet connections.
The Nishika N8000 was designed for making lenticular prints. The type of print where the image appears different depending on your viewing angle. In order to do this is has 4 30mm lenses spaced across the front that all have shutters that trip at the same time. The outer two lenses are spaced apart about the distance of human eyes and give a stereoscopic view. However what you can do is scan the 35mm negatives in and build the resulting files into an animated GIF.
I acquired a Vitomatic IIa rangefinder camera with a non working viewfinder. I found the that the problem was that a small lens used for creating the rangefinder image had come free from its holder and was loose in the mechanism. So in order to recover the lens and re-attach it it was necessary to disassemble most of the top plate. The meter had to be removed, which was easily done as one of the screws was also loose in the workings. Actually removing the viewfinder prism is a delicate operation and no force should be applied as the prism is optically cemented together. You can see in this image that the lens is missing from the frame on the left.
Once the lens was re-attached and the glue had time to set I re-assemble everything in reverse. (don’t forget the spring that tensions the rangefinder linkage)
In this image you can see the location of the screws that need to be set for adjusting the rangefinder. Loosen the set screw, set the lens on infinity and adjust the slotted screw until an item in the far distance has both images in convergence. The vertical convergence can also be adjusted with the square screw just beside the light-meter linkage. A pair of tweezers works for this or a small pair of needle nose pliers.
And now I have a working Voigtlander Vitomatic IIa, if only someone hadn’t scratched a flash setting reminder on the back of the top plate, sigh.
Update: I have taken a roll of Kodak 200 with this camera and am very happy with the exposure and the quality of the lens.
