jonathan_stark

Here's a website with some material from a Nokton fan, Robert Byrd: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze7asgb/newphotographythroughvintagecameras2/index.html

Mike,

 

This week the camera bag has an Agfa Karat 36 loaded with E100G, and the Rolleiflex Automat I bought from **you**, loaded with Ilford Delta 400. The VC meter perches nicely on top of the Karat, I use the old Sekonic 398M with the Rollei. Life is good!

Paul,

 

In my (admittedly limited) experience, you're not going to get raptor close-ups at Hawk Mountain. The observation point is basically a spur overlooking a saddle in the ridge that the birds soar along. What makes it interesting is apparently a considerable fraction of the northeast raptor population goes by the place during the fall. However, closest point of approach is usually several hundred yards away. Take the biggest glass you've got -- a 400mm for 35mm is not going to get you very close at Hawk Mountain. However, for simply bird watching, as opposed to photography, it's a great place to practice your identification skills.

My 90mm Leica Elmar lens is marked 4 - 4.5 - 6.3 - 9 - 12 - 18 - 25 - 36. It was made in 1931. Don't think I've ever used f36 - I should try it some day for kicks!

I'm probably gonna embarrass Mike, but I'll echo Lynn's comments - buy Mike's stuff, it's good, and Mike's a great guy to deal with. I bought a Rolleiflex Automat from him last week, and it was a great deal. The camera is in impressive shape. One of these days soon I'm gonna get a scanner and start sharing results, but you can take my word the first roll from the Rollei showed a very happy Tessar in top form.

 

Now concerning Solinettes - I have one of these, or I might have bought this one from Mike. The cool thing about Solinettes is they come with Solinar lenses, which are one of the great Tessar copies. Wide-open mine has that hallmark Tessar "rounded" look. I bought my Solinette from eBay a few years ago; it came with a bad case of solidified Agfa green grease jamming the focus helical. I liked the results enough that I sent it to Jurgen Kreckel to be cleaned and re-lubed. Now its a fun camera (but I'm carrying it's big brother the Karat this week....)

 

Cheers.

Hey, guys, I could read the Leica Forum and get this kind of bickering! Take it somewhere else, please.

Agree, thread mount of 1/2 inch diameter seems like a cine camera. By the way, Berthiot made lenses for Exakta also. See the web page: http://captjack.exaktaphile.com/Berthiotpage.htm

Mike,

 

Your report is very interesting to me, as I'm strongly considering the purchase of the same scanner in the very near future. I will be using mine with a WinXP system. I'd be very interested to hear any practical tips for do's and don'ts for installation.

Camera in the pictures is a IIIc, small c, Type 021.

Brian Wallen has a site about the great Kodaks of the 1930's-40's-50's. This is mostly Rochester Kodaks, with just a couple Stuttgart/Nagelwerke: http://www.prairienet.org/b-wallen/BN_Photo/Kodak_index2.htm

Lynn,

 

Heh, heh, heh, you can run, but you cannot hide! About 3 years ago I told my wife, "Honey, shoot me if I ever get into this Exakta nonsense." I thought I was prepared to be strong, but overestimated my resistance -- someone GAVE me my first Exakta. What's a guy gonna do? It only takes one -- leave it alone for a while and somehow more of them spontaneously generate!! Exaktas are gonna getcha, Lynn!

All bottom-loading Leicas and Leica clones. It took them until 1954 (M cameras) to figure out that it might be useful to be able to see where the film is going?

Bought my Dad an AF35ML new for Christmas in 1981. Originally it was supposed to supplement his Leica IIIc which was becoming harder for him to use as he got older. Today, at age 86 he still has the AF35ML, it is his main camera, and it still works very well for snapshots. Noisy, though! (Dad gave the Leica to me a few years ago, it's now been CLA'd and is back in commission -- that's another story.)

Stuart,

 

Can you provide a little more info about what kind of camera it is and whether the focal plane shutter has fabric or metal curtains?

 

There are some cameras such as later Canon V, VI, and 7 series that have steel foil curtains that always seem wrinkled, yet run fine.

Good tips at hyperfocal distance and zone focussing at: http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/marine/569/rusrngfdrs/focusing.html

 

Also, develop "mental yardsticks." E.g. I'm 6' tall. If I fell over on my face, where would the top of my head be? My living room is 26' back to front - is that object as far away as the other side of the room? Stuff like that. I use a scale-focussed Retina I, but mostly for medium and far distances. Good luck.

As a long-time user of both a Spotmatic and Spotmatic F, and with a mix of Super Takumars and SMC Takumars, I have never for the life of me understood all the hoopla about open-aperature metering, nor the complaints about stop-down metering. Yes, stop-down darkens the finder for the few seconds it takes to adjust the camera- so what? I'm not focussing then anyway, I'm metering. It's not like I take a new meter reading for each shot. Under the vast majority of conditions I use the on-board meter the same way I use a hand-held: take reading(s) once to establish general levels and then adjust on the fly by estimation as necessary. I obviously never understood how this got to be such a big selling point in the early 1970's. (rant over - I'll sit down now!)

Camera shows. Particularly camera shows towards the end of the day when business has been bad, and the seller isn't looking forward to the prospect of lugging his unsold stuff back home. Bring lots of cash - cash talks. Offer what you want to pay, not what the sticker says. Chat up the seller. If he/she's got several things you like, offer a package deal. You'd be surprised sometimes what kind of deals you can strike at shows.

Berk,

 

Buying on eBay is surely taking a chance. I've gotten some great deals, and a lesser number of not so great items. Some common problems are: sellers using words like "mint" to describe condition, not function; sellers who don't know what the actual function of an item is. Presently I'm more inclined to buy items to collect rather than use from eBay. For user items, I go to camera shows - do they have them in Sweden? Or I spend a little more and buy from a highly reputable seller like KEH in America. Or I join various specialty internet chat lists and forums and gradually learn who the reputable private sellers are. I never buy on eBay from a seller who doesn't specialize in selling cameras. But even there I have been burned. Camera shows are the best.

Craig, you mentioned Yuri. In my experience, Yuri Boguslavsky (Fedka) is great, completely safe to buy from. He stands behind the stuff he sells, his prices are higher than your average Russian/Ukrainian eBay seller, but worth it. I've obtained a FED 2 from him and a Jupiter 11 lens. There was a little problem with the Jupiter 11, he took it back with no questions and worked with me to get me a better example. He's an absolute gentleman.

Oddly enough, every once and in a while I get away with loading a roll in my Leica IIIc without trimming the leader. Wife has a picture of me loading the IIIc out in the middle of nowhere last fall - brought extra film with me, forgot to trim the leaders beforehand. For some reason, film went in like a guided missle that time, no problems at all. I was concentrating so much didn't hear the wife sneaking up to shoot this little scene with her digicam. She keeps it on her desktop - baseplate on a nearby rock, camera upside down in my hand, gritting my teeth in concentration sliding the film in.......

Still have to fix the mirror in the Ciroflex that fell off the chair the other day. It would probably go faster when I stop working 11 hour days plus the hour commute each way!

 

After the Ciroflex comes the sticky shutter in the Bolsey B, patching the bellows on the Duo 6-Twenty, etc etc....

This is a little hit-or-miss, but I've seen cosmetically worn but functionally good Rolleicord III's at camera shows this past year for $125. I'm talking about cameras with clean lenses, all shutter speeds working, and firm smooth focussing action. The III has the 4 element Xenar lens - you can't go wrong.

Rick & Mike - thanks for the good advice. I'll definitely use either contact cement or doublesided tape.

 

Winfried - interesting point about the posts. In the Ciroflex, the mirror is apparently fully supported across its whole length and width by lying directly on the body. There are "ridges" or bumps that position the mirror but they lie outside the dimensions of the mirror. By the way the mirror didn't break (lucky), it just came unglued. It's in pretty good shape once I remove the old glue from the back, so I'll just re-glue it then check the focus as Rick suggests.

 

I'll let everyone know how it turns out. Thanks!

I set my Ciroflex D down on a chair off balance yesterday and of

course it hit the floor (fortunately in its case.) But the shock

caused the 50-year old glue behind the reflex mirror to let go -

apparently the mirrors were just glued to the metal body. My

question: any suggestions about kind of glue to use when re-attaching

the mirror? (Actually a slip of paper is involved too - paper glued

to the mirror then to the metal camera body.) Would appreciate

responses from anyone who's done this kind of work before.

 

I've found a great Ciroflex repair site,

http://daniel.mitchell.name/cameras/ciroflex/ciroflex.html

I've got to do a little disassembly to get in there - take off the

front panel to release the parallex correction lever in order to

remove the finder.

 

Thanks for your help.

I can't help you with Meyer lens serial numbers. But, if you want to take a different tack identifying an Ihagee camera, on Hugo Ruys' site www.ihagee.org there's an Ihagee camera identification guide and a listing of Ihagee models and production years. That might be useful.