Another homely Argus C-3

The July 4th weekend seemed like a good time to walk around a unique

American village with an American camera. The village is Waterford,

Virginia, est. 1733, and the camera is a plain-as-a-mud-fence '50s

vintage Argus C-3. Although humble in appearance, the camera appears

to have better than average glass.

 

Thanks to a very strong historical society, the village is very much

like it was back in Civil War times, a delight to photograph.<div></div>

The mill wheel is rusting away<div></div>

The houses are all occupied and in excellent condition.<div></div>

Barn on the green. I should get a lens hood, it would have helped.<div></div>

These were all taken at f/8 or 11 on Fujicolor 100.<div></div>

The town cemetery has several graves belonging to Confederate soldiers. The town was pro-Union during the Civil War, which brought earned them neglect during the Reconstruction period.<div></div>

The surrounding area is full of great scenery.<div></div>

Dennis, great photos! Nice place to visit. Since I'm very much interested in the Civil War, I was surprised to know that the village was pro Union.

 

Cheers, Tito.

Great photos, rich locale

Very nice pics from an old stalwart, Dennis. I drive through our village of Waterford in Hertfordshire, here in the U.K., quite often. It has an official population of 175 and dates to before 1750. I wonder if there was any connection?

Support was hit or miss during the Civil War. According to an acquaintance who still lives in his family home of Welbourne just north of Middleburg, his ancestor was Colonel Robert Delaney who was a raider for the Confederates along the Union supply lines in that area. As I remember, he had to sneak back and forth from his home, partly because Union scouts were all over the place but also because Loudoun County had a fairly large population of Quakers, who were abolitionists. And of course, Harper's Ferry where John Brown & Robert E. Lee faced off earlier is just up the road. When the war was over, Delaney came home and put his sword in the umbrella stand next to the front door and swore never to lift it again. As far as I know, it is still there. His pardon from Andrew Johnson hangs in the sitting room. Quite an interesting area full of evidence and stories of an event which is just a couple generations away from most of us (140 years or so.)

Nice pics with a great historical perspective. The Argus seems to always get overlooked, at least by me, yours seems to be a good performer, nice job!

 

Todd

Wow.

I'll say it again... the mighty C3 rocks!

Thank you all for your gracious comments. I'm glad I excited some historical interest too.

 

Tito, if you want to read an interesting short article about the way it was in Loudoun county during the Civil War, try this:

http://storyroot.com/Anderson.html/ The Loudoun Rangers mentioned were the only Virginia-born unit to fight for the North, and they were from around Waterford. And the Leader of the Confederate unit that opposed them, Col. Elijah White, was the great-grandfather of my priest, Rev. Elijah B. White of the Church of Our Saviour.

 

Graham, apparently Waterford was known as Janney's Mill after the village founder, a German settler. Sometime in the 19th century an Irish immigrant managed to attach the name of Waterford to the town, after the port city in his native land. The town was also referred to as Milltown.

 

Jorn, would you by chance be referring to the Wellbourne Inn just off US-50 near Middleburg? My wife Ann and I spent the first night of our honeymoon there back in '81. I met a Mr. Morrison there, is he your friend?

 

One last thing for Mark O'Brien: I wish the lens on my C-4 was as sharp as either of my C-3s. The C-4 is a beautiful camera, but mine won't take a decent picture at any aperture wider than f/11, and it is in good adjustment too.<div></div>

Dennis,

 

I got started as a pro in 1947 selling magazine illustrations using an Argus C3 and Kodachrome film (ASA 12!). The lens was a 3 element Argus Cintar of amazing quality in both B/W and color. There were more Argus C3's made than any other camera in the world and they were made in Ann Arbor, MI.

 

After I had made some money, I bought my first Leica with an f2.0 lens. It was so bad (mushy flat) that I had to go back to my back up C3 until I could afford my f 2.5 4 element tessar type Elmar lenses which were killer.

 

After that, the Korean war (yes, it was my war)made me aware that Nikkor lense in f2.0 and f1.4 beat everthing in the world and I bought them for my Leica and also bought a Nicca (Leica "copy") with Nikkor lenses as well.

 

Lynn

Typo fro the former,

 

The Elmars were f3.5 tessar type lenses.

 

Lynn