stuart_pratt

Mon Dieu, Zut Alors and Sacre Bleu! That writing looks even tinier than that on the Westons !?

Thanks. Striking images. For some reason the last one is particularly arresting.

I think that’s an S2.The S was an early SLR from the late 40s.

I had an RTS 2, and loved it. The battery is the same as the first version, a 6v 4LR44 which are readily available. I’m not sure what the viewfinder needle in the lower left is? There is a flag that pops up down here when the exposure compensation is set, so it might be that. The on/off switch is on the front of the body to the right of the lens (as viewed when holding camera in normal position) and those markings on the ISO dial are the exposure compensation settings. Press the switch and the meter comes on, and goes off automatically about 16 seconds later IIRC. The shutter was a revelation, using a magnetic switch that tripped easily with a gentle squeeze. Something that was taken up by most manufacturers since. It looked and felt great, but the electronics were, allegedly, a bit flaky and I sold mine before it got to the flaky electrics stage. If you can get a working one at a good price, it will accept Yashica lenses of the same era at a fraction of the cost of the Zeiss equivalent. Many will say the reason you have a Contax is for the Zeiss glass, but if you want to play with a lovely ergonomic camera for the experience, the Yashica glass is pretty darn good (my ML 50mm f1.7 is stellar). If the first version has the same exposure lock as the second, watch out for leaving it on as it will drain the batteries.

Yeh, where is that? Those stone blocks on the LHS look like they’ve been cut so you can’t get a fag paper between them?!

Slip of the finger, 2.8 not 2.3. That would be nice.

A Spotty SP2 with Tamron 35-80 f2.3-3.8, loaded up with HP5. If the skies ever clear, that is.

If you are skilful enough to take great photographs, they'll still be great photographs with the old lenses.

Wow. My eyes are bleeding!

For my money, the Nikon Z6 and Z7 take some beating.

Excellent job. Great idea to use the histogram as a shutter speed calibrator!

If you go from 1/60th to a 250th you’ll need to UP the ISO, not drop it, unless I’m not understanding your point? I’m not sure I follow what influence the shutter speed has on the ability of the camera to focus accurately? We’re not talking motion blur here. OK, the person might be swaying very slightly by breathing, but I don’t see how upping the shutter speed will help nail the focus?

(Positively Leicaesque Yashica FX-D)

All the old manual bodies need the film advance lever in the off position to turn the meter on - rules them out for most left eye viewers.

I agree, not blurry, just off focus. The LHS of the eyebrow is razor sharp.

Too many? More than you need, maybe! Cracking shots and processing as ever.

Well I did just that and the new bona-fide adaptall mount works just fine with correct exposures. Swap it for the old one, and it under exposes by one stop? To resolve this issue, I've consigned the old one to the metal recycling bin!

The man who owned 3,000 cameras

‘Don’t eat pizza when you could have bought another camera’ ?

I think you may be referring to the Brenizer method. Not something I’ve ever dabbled with.

An art indeed. Seldom cures the problem in question and gives you several others. (although I confess, when all else fails, I've done it myself!)

It’s probably just as well to remember that there is only one plane of focus. When you focus your camera, let’s say at 5ft, it’s only those items that are 5ft away from the film plane that will be in correct focus. Beyond that to the front and back, everything will be out of focus, to some degree. You see this very easily when you shoot ‘wide open’ (at large apertures, or small f numbers, like f1.4 or f2). Now, smaller apertures give you increased depth of field (or depth of focus), but this focus is only really 'apparent' rather than actually in focus. If you look through your camera and start at a wide aperture, so you have a bright view, and focus on something that is receding (a wall running away from you etc.), hold down the DOF preview lever, and progressively close down to smaller apertures (bigger f numbers) you will see that what appears to be in focus increases to both the front and the back of the point you focussed on. It’s not really IN focus, it’s just less out of focus than with the wider, more open aperture you started with. The scale on your lens give you an idea of the ‘acceptable’ level of depth-of-field for ‘normal’ prints viewed at a 'normal' distance. If you blew up your shot to poster sized and looked at it from 4 inches away, you’d see that it wasn’t actually pin sharp in front of, or behind the plane of focus. However, from a few feet away, that poster shot would probably be acceptably sharp, and what you would ordinarily call, ‘in focus’. The depth of preview lever gives you a chance to ‘preview’ the scene before you take the picture, to help you assess what will be in ‘acceptable’ focus. There is a downside of course, in that the view gets dimmer and dimmer as you close down the aperture. This is probably why, as others have pointed out, it’s a feature that nearly all high end cameras have, but few people use very often. It’s useful from the point of that when you don’t use it, you get shown the depth of field you’ll get with the lens wide open.

A spotmatic, if you can get a serviced one with a decent meter. Personally I like the Yashica TL Electro X with the meter switch on the RHS of the body, rather than the left, which always feels a bit counter-intuitive to me, at least for a right handed user. The Super Takumar series lenses that I have owned have all been really well put together, and the smoothness of the focussing, after all this time is testament to that amazing Japanese grease! The viewfinder on the Yashica is brighter than the spotty too, and with an f3.5, that might count for something. Also, with the Yashica, you get a flowery 'Y' or even an 'atom' symbol on the pentaprism! I'd probably go digital though, if you really want to see what it can do,.

A couple of months ago. The kids (19/20) love it, seeing pictures of Mum and Dad in funny clothes, half cut.

Or opened a fresh box of 50 sheets of 10 x 8 with the lights on? Oh yes. Turning the light on to see how your print is getting on? Sabattier effect anyone? And if I had a pound for every time I've overexposed a print because I've not stopped the lens back down after focussing on a new neg, I'd be a rich man right now.