Paxina at the Midsummer Festival, and a Reality check

The Midsummer Festival is a yearly meet up for farmers and people with an interest in vintage vehicles, country crafts and the like. Admission was £6, and £5 for concessions. The young lady at the entrance, after a very cursory glance in my direction, and without comment, gave me a five pound note in return from my proffered tenner. A reminder that I was about to embark upon my eighth decade on this earth.

 

I took along a Braun Paxina 29 I'd recently acquired. These German extending tube cameras take 12 pictures on 120 roll film, and were fitted with various lenses and shutters. This one has the F/2.9 Praxanar Bayreuth, there seemed to be a vogue at the time for these fast aperture triplet lenses. The simpler Pronto shutter on this one lacks slow speeds, which is something af an advantage as they often don't work anyway.

 

 

I used an XP-2 400 ISO chromogenic film and set the shutter to its fastest speed of 1/200, on a dull day the aperture varied between F/8 and f/5.6. The film was commercially processed and scanned on my Epson 4870.

 

The viewfinder is far from being the worst I've used, better than the "point and hope" variety, but practically all the pictures have the subject towards the top, suggesting either that it's inaccurate or my framing was incorrect. I was tempted to crop off the excess foreground, but I decided to present the full frames as taken.

 

 

Country crafts:

 

I'm putting them on two at a time, until I get a little more confident with multiple uploads.I should add that I applied a small amount of unsharp mask after resizing them for PN. Here are the last two, many thanks for looking.

 

 

Great series, John. Thanks for sharing.

The shots look nice and sharp with a lot of clarity John. My experience with the German MF tube cameras was with the Agfa Isolas. Your camera looks like it has better build quality. The film has a sort of grayness to it, probably because it's not a true B&W film, but overall I'd say you did a great job with a camera that is simply made and simple to shoot. Especially like your last shot of the locomotive-like tractor What a beast!.

 

I took along a Braun Paxina 29 I'd recently acquired. These German extending tube cameras take 12 pictures on 120 roll film, and were fitted with various lenses and shutters. This one has the F/2.9 Praxanar Bayreuth

 

Nice shots! Bayreuth? Wasn’t he a baseball player?

Great shots from the Praxina, John! That 75mm Steiner Bayreuth f/2.9 lens appears on several cameras of the era and is rated very highly. From a previous post of mine:

 

"Karl Steiner began producing camera lenses in Bayreuth, virtually on his own, somewhere around 1947, and grew his business by creating lenses for mid-range manufacturers such as Braun and Franka. He tried his hand at a couple of cameras, the best-known being the 35mm Steinette, marketed in the UK as the Hunter. In 1955 he apparently saw the oncoming demise of the German popular camera industry and decided to specialise in binoculars. Today, Steiner Optik is a world leader in the optical field, renowned for binoculars, spotting scopes and military equipment."

 

Below, a pic of the Goldammer Goldeck IV, a very similar camera which offered the same range of lenses and shutters. Thanks for some fine images and an interesting post.

 

Goldammer Goldeck IV

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by rick_drawbridge

Many thanks for the comments, and for the information about the lens. The greyness I think is more down to the dull, flat lighting, and the tone of the subjects, particularly in the first picture. I've used the same film in brighter conditions, with much more contrasty results, as I hope to show soon. Some shots on the roll were less sharp, probably mis-focused. I'd have preferred to shoot at F/11 or 16 to give more margin for error, but the light wasn't up to it

 

The last picture depicts a traction engine, a sort of steam powered maid-of-all-work from the days before trucks and the like. They are often seen at these events. The second picture is of a Sentinel steam wagon. There were two at the show, its quite surprising to realise how silently they moved.

 

The camera is well made, although the lens bayonets into position rather loosely on this example. I had another one some years ago, but sold it. Neither of them showed any tendency to leak light. Thanks again.

Fantastic results. Thanks for sharing.

appreciated!

Great post John.. These are very cool MF cameras. Especially when you note these lenses are pretty fast too!! .. I want one!

Very nice work. I may have to get out my Agfa Ambi Silette and runs some b&w through it. It's nice to go simple now and then.

 

Rick H.