Tower in the City

[k5083]

<p>This post is Rick Drawbridge's fault.</p>

<p>Six days ago he posted about <a href="../classic-cameras-forum/00Y3ar">his Iloca Rapid B</a>. It seemed a cute camera, and it had been a while since I dropped some extra cash on a 1950s rangefinder that I'll never use. So immediately on reading the thread, I nabbed the next derivative of the camera that showed up on ebay. Cost me almost ten hard-earned dollars, plus shipping.</p>

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[k5083]

<p>Mine is different from Rick's in a number of ways besides the Sears branding and less elegant styling. It has a conventional right-hand crank winder. The back opens by lifting a latch at the side, with no complex manipulation of the rewind knob. I think it is the last version of the Tower 51.</p>

<p>Sears also printed essentially the entire user manual on the bottom of the camera. What is not there (mainly loading instructions) is on a sticker inside the camera.</p>

<p>This one came with no reps and warranties and a fuzzy listing photo, so condition was a toss-up. In this case I was fortunate. It's clean with hardly any traces of corrosion, the lens is fine, the RF patch is bright and perfectly aligned, and just from listening to the shutter I could tell that it was good. My product photography doesn't compare to Rick's, but trust me, my camera looks just as nice!</p>

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[k5083]

<p>There was a roll of Kodachrome II film in it, wound to the end. Drat -- just a few weeks too late to get it processed. Then again, it was the old K-12 process. This stuff was last made in 1974 so it's a good bet that this shutter hadn't been actuated in about 30 years.</p>

<p>I shoved some drugstore C-41 film in there and documented my trip to work this morning. It was a snowy morning in the New York area.</p>

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[k5083]

<p>The camera handles fine. It doesn't feel as good as my Zeiss-Ikons or Voigtlanders from this era, but I like it better than my Retinette.</p>

<p>The main thing I hate about German 1950s RFs is the tiny viewing porthole. Your cornea actually has to touch the eyepiece to frame a picture through this thing. I was wearing glasses today so I just settled for pointing the camera approximately at the subject.</p>

<p>The Tower has the typical sprocket wheel that engages the film perforations in the middle of the camera. On this particular camera, I can't figure out what that does. The shutter is reset through the wind crank, and you can crank and fire the camera fine without film in it. It seems like the only purpose of the sprocket wheel is to rip up the holes on your film. Luckily this one has fairly smooth action and doesn't do that as much as some of my other RFs.</p>

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[k5083]

<p>You can't really tell from these pictures, but the lens is nice and sharp. I had to save the jpgs at quality level 2 in PS to keep the file size down for posting here, because of the amount of detail in the tree branches.</p>

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[k5083]

<p>This final shot, with no trees, shows the sharpness a little better. I walked to a drugstore at lunchtime to drop off my film, and picked it up on the way home. Cost was $2.37. Ran it through the scanner when I got home in about the time it would have taken to convert RAW files.</p>

<p>I'm happy with my new little camera. It's a lucky thing that it's pretty enough to display, especially after I got out the metal polish and buffed it up a bit, because it will never get much exercise. The Japanese RFs of a decade later are just so much handier. But I can definitely see using this once in a while.</p>

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[tomscott]

<p>Very impressive shots August. They look plenty sharp on my monitor. Damn it. Got to go look on ebay some more.</p>

[craig_supplee]

<p>Looks like a neat little camera to drop into the pocket when going out. I really like the village train station shot. It's amazing, but there is the exact (from memory) same clock in the middle of main street in a small town by me in Michigan. Love the instruction manual.</p>

[craigd]

<blockquote>

<p>"This post is Rick Drawbridge's fault."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Okay, it's now a CMC tradition: <a href="00Y4wo">blame your new camera purchase on a CMC post a week earlier</a>!</p>

<p>I love that evenly-lit, almost featureless, yellow-gridded teal surface that you used as a background. What is it, a vinyl tablecloth or something? It makes the camera seem to be floating in some kind of abstract mathematical space -- the world of Platonic Forms or some such.</p>

<p>Nice pictures, too. "Sharper side of Sears" is very good.</p>

<p>While my product photography (i.e. camera porn) doesn't compare to Rick's either, I think my latest post shows improvement. All I did was buy a tabletop mini-tripod, stop down to f/16 with my macro lens, and eliminate all direct light. It does wonders. No harsh shadows, no glaring flash highlights, decent DOF, and good sharpness.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Very nice. I'd never seen that manual-on-the-camera trick to that extent. Cool (I am a child of the 50 and 60s, after all).</p>

<p>There's something charming about the results from it. Of course that may be the photographer rather than the camera, but it has a nice not-too-sharp effect.</p>

<p>There's something nice about finding a camera for less than $10-20 and making it do something, isn't there? Of course, Gene M led the way here, but we can carry on the work with such crappy old cameras (as some would put it) as we love, or not.</p>

[jodys]

<blockquote>

<p ><a name="00Y6Go"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=6106234">Craig Dickson</a> </p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"This post is Rick Drawbridge's fault."</p>

<p>Okay, it's now a CMC tradition: <a rel="nofollow" href="00Y4wo">blame your new camera purchase on a CMC post a week earlier</a>!</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p> </p>

 

<p>Yes. I certainly blame my Praktiflex purchase on JDM von Weinberg's postings on the same.</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>OK, <strong>August</strong>, I'll shoulder a small portion of the blame, but I'd prefer to call it inspiration...What you have there is a re-branded Iloca Quick-B, originally with an unusual 50mm Ilitar f/2.9 lens, about which I can tell you very little. Just why it's called a "Quick", I have no idea. I'll try to post a pic of mine tomorrow. A very nice series of images you've produced; I've yet to put a film through my copy, and I'm heartened by your results; love the "Fresh Snow pic, and the Sears shot shows that the lens is capable of acceptable sharpness. Now <em>you're</em> on the slippery slope...! Thanks for posting.</p>

[k5083]

<p><em>Looks like a neat little camera to drop into the pocket when going out.</em></p>

<p>You need a big pocket. The styling makes these cameras look smaller than they are. <br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>I love that evenly-lit, almost featureless, yellow-gridded teal surface that you used as a background. What is it, a vinyl tablecloth or something?</em></p>

<p>Self-healing cutting mat with a 1-inch measuring grid on it. Just happens to be on my desk (useful for cutting up prints and other hobby work), but I did think it made a cute background. I wanted to pose the camera on a bunch of old Sears receipts but couldn't find enough. I usually do a slightly better job with my camera porn but wanted to turn this around quickly.<br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>What you have there is a re-branded Iloca Quick-B, originally with an unusual 50mm Ilitar f/2.9 lens</em></p>

<p>That confuses me a little. I thought "Quick-B" was just the British label for the Rapid-B. Mine has a 50/2.8 Cassar just like your Rapid. With the right-hand wind it actually does earn the "rapid/quick" descriptor at least by comparison with its own knob-winding predecessor and with slightly earlier contemporaries like the Baldinette or Ikonta 35. I can wind and fire as quickly with this as with any modern non-motorized camera. Rewinding, however, takes forever until you learn to spin the knob by sliding your palm along the corner of the camera rather than laboriously pinching and turning with two fingers.</p>

<p>Thanks to all for the generous compliments on the snapshots.</p>

 

[jamesmck]

<p>August - I like everything about "fresh snow" and "clock." Good performance from photographer, camera, film, and scanner. Mind saying what scanner you "ran it through?"</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<blockquote>

<p>I thought "Quick-B" was just the British label for the Rapid-B</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Nope, the Quick and the Rapid are quite different cameras, though your copy looks to be a later version than mine. From recollection the Quick came later, and is a totally different camera. It's not quite so well made as the Rapid B, and quite different in operation. I'll try to post some more information later, when I get a spare moment. Meanwhile, here's a rough pic of my Iloca Quick-B. I have observed that it came with a variation in lenses. I notice yours does have a lever wind, but the body and lens assembly appears identical.</p><div></div>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>But then, perhaps I shouldn't be so adamant! There's a strong similarity among all three cameras when I look closely, <strong>August</strong>, and possibly your <em>does</em> look a little more like the "Rapid-B" with the lever wind shifted to a conventional position. They're a very awkward camera to research in depth. Perhaps someone more enlightened than me can make a definitive identification...</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>Nice photos and interesting post, August. This camera appears to be a little gem. Didn't Sears sell the Tower brand in their catalogs at one time?</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Tower was a major "house" brand for Sears among others like SEROCO and so on for all kinds of products.</p>