early Ercona I

The Ercona I was made after the war by the VEB Zeiss Ikon in what became the DDR. It has a Novar 11cm f/4.5

lens. Speeds are B, 25,50,

and 100. My copy of it is very early and lacks the provision for a mask to shoot 6x6 rather than 6x9-- It has

only the one red window on the back, in any case

 

Mine has a very dimly impressed "Ercona" on the back leatherette, but otherwise is identical to slightly earlier

production of the Ikonta C (521/2).

 

I was so inspired by the recent spate of old folder shoots here, most recently today with Louis Meluso's Franka

that I finally overcame my inertia enough to get out when there was some light on these darkening days.<div></div>

Here are some shots on Fujicolor Reala<div></div>

And the last<div></div>

Nice shots, JDM. I'm always impressed by shots from these old folders, and by the cameras themselves. Your camera is a good looking one and it looks like that lens performs very well with excellent color rendition. Thanks for sharing these. You guys are going to persuade me to try using folders before too long!

JDM, Beautiful photographs. I doubt that the DSLRS will be around as long as the camera you used to take these photos.

Pretty camera, and pretty shots, JDM. As Andy pointed out, this old lens certainly handles graduations of colour very accurately; there are a host of different browns and reds in your "Footpath" pic. I guess the large negative helps things along; at one stage in my life I was shooting on 10x8 inch Ektachrome, and nothing was really the same after that...

The full 1200 dpi scans are even better than these reduced versions. Although the light looks like late afternoon, these were shot at 1 PM CST.

 

Now on to the Belfoca and Weltax folders.....

Cool camera, nice pixs. - thanks....

The light and shade on the foot paths is wonderful. Reminiscent of the early American Landscape paintings. Love to see more of these. I may even be tempted to make a nostalgia visit next year to the US. Regards, sp

Good stuff, JDM.

 

Dunno about you, but to me there's something really satisfying about shooting with a very basic / fully manual camera. The feeling that I did it, and not the computer / autofocus / autometer camera. Plus, when I shoot in weird lighting, I have a higher rate of keepers when shooting manually than I do when shooting with auto-everything units.

Beautiful shots JDM, How much would it cost to get that kind of quality out of a camera made today? If people keep posting the great results from these old folders, maybe the new photog kids will get the bug to try something really good, instead of just good enough. Hats off to you and thanks for showing us your great results.

Great series JDM, the fallen log on the campus lake looks great. I have been trying to get my hands on an Ercona with a Tessa on it, for some time now, no such luck yet as they are decidedly rare in US and freight costs from Germany are astronomic at this time. Maybe one day...<p>

 

Well done.

Nice shots. Following is a shot I took with an Ercona II that sports a coated Tessar lens.<div></div>

Here's a 100% crop of the license plate of the car on the opposite side of the street. This was hand held and zone focus.<div></div>

Yes, they are actually great cameras. Although I shot mine on a tripod with a bushing adapter, it wasn't a lot more steady than hand holding. The real problem with these is that really tight composition is not easy because of the primitive viewfinder on the Model I.

Excellent lenses, though!

JDM, Very pretty camera and very pretty color results. Hard to believe they are taken a 1pm. I love the look of Reala. Thanks!

 

Robert, get out of town with those high res results. Amazing!

Pretty good for a camera that cost me less than $100, including shipping from Germany. I wonder how much better it would be if I used a tripod and didn't use hyperfocal distance to focus . . .