john_smullen

<p>In my experience the biggest single advantage of the KX over the K1000 is the full information viewfinder. Having shutter speed, aperture and an intuitive match neddle meter in the viewfinder made picture taking a joy. And to my eyes it appeared to be slightly brighter.</p>

<p>An Agfa Super Silette with the 2.0 Solagon.</p>

After removing the polish try black shoe dye.

 

To be honest, unless you are going to repaint and rechrome the other body parts I would just leave the leather as is. Deep perfectly black leather will look out of place alongside metal parts with decades of wear..

The description could be applied to several cameras issued in the past 8 decades! I could see it applied to one of the early Kodak Retina cameras.

Hi. McKeowns should be thought of as a very good reference guide for determining which cameras were produced by which company. It is useful only as a very rough price guide that tends to be on the high side most of the time. Ebay is probably the single best indicator of what a camera is worth. That value can be quite different from the value an owner attaches to it. Please understand the market for used Retina and other film cameras has taken a steep dive in the past couple of years and is unlikely to recover.

It is a tiny finder with nothing other than the borders of the finder for alignment. If the errors are more or less consistent try compensating.

Hi. It is a wonderfully well made camera that at one time could have commanded a price well above $250.00 because of collector interest. These days I would think a realistic price would be close to $100.00 if it is in nice condition.

 

It would make a very nice addition to a collection. The Retina cameras (including the little I's) are a delight to hold and work the controls on. As a camera to make pictures with it is as others mentioned a bit on the heavy and bulky side. There are other Retina cameras I would select to shoot with.

You might contact KEH to see if they are interested in making an offer. In my experience their offers are fair, but they are looking for equipment to resell that is in very nice condition.

 

Ebay is the single biggest internet marketplace for cameras and I don't think you will find a larger or more representative audience elsewhere. Check closed auctions to see what bidders are willing to pay for comparable cameras and price your collection to attract bidders and not at what you wish it was worth. Realize the market for used film cameras is not what it once was and there is a lot of equipment sloshing around.

Hi. I used Camera Wiz in Harrisonburg, Virginia to rehab the exact same camera - Super Silette with Solagon 2.0 lens and Synchro Compur shutter. He did excellent work and it was done on time.

What a great project. I'm sure those will be handed down within the family for generations to come.

 

A neighbor built a grandfather clock for his wife on their 30th anniversary and it is still ticking away 20 years later and a source of joy to both of them.

 

I've had an interest in american clocks for many years and have restored and repaired several as a hobby. My tall case clock measures out at 98" and dates from 1875.

If your goal is to take quality pictures with a camera that looks like it fits into the 1940's timeframe, then I would not horse around with the medalist or other large camera. Instead use a Kodak Retina or Agfa Solinette folder and they will look "period", take excellent pictures and be much much easier to carry and operate.

 

I don't understand the reluctance to use 35mm...it was certainly available back then. Do you think that anyone in this audience will really know or care that a functioning prop like a 35mm folding camera is not technically right.

 

To be honest if your goal is to create a permanent record of this event then you should have someone else shooting lots of keeper pictures with a digital camera. I know that's heresy, and my Canon VtDeluxe is shuddering at the thought, but it is practical. You could continue to play the part and run off a rolls or two on a Kodak Retina IIb or Ia.

"highest i saw was $50.00....which is hard to believe cuz that was for a minolta for parts...aka not in working condition...."

 

The SRT200 is a basic SLR with a simple match needle meter. There are lots of comparable cameras from other companies and demand is not as broad as it once for older slr's.

 

Heck I bought a really nice XG-1 with lens, strap, etc., for $20.00 to take on a trip.

"Point of fact, a great number of Japanese tin toys from the 50s and 60s were made from tin cans and other recycled bits. And not in the modern sense of recycling, but in the sense that old cans were simply squashed flat and die-stamped into new shapes.

 

In another and more lucrative area of collecting---that of tin litho toys and robots from the 50s and 60s, the great majority of which were manufactured in Japan---it's generally accepted that any given specimen of wind-up toy may very well bear a lithographed coffee or tea or tobacco tin label on the inside.

 

So, no, stories such as that aren't perpetuated by slackjawed xenophobes---stories such as that happen to have a strong basis in fact. Fact that has seemingly escaped those who haven't thoroughly researched the subject. :)"

 

If those that repeat such stories were to qualify them by saying "Toys from Japan made in the 1950's were cheap..." that would be fine, because by in large the toys were cheap and inexpensive and they met a huge demand :). I suppose there were some toys made directly early on from re-stamped cans, but that was the exception. From first hand experience I can tell you that the insides of my pressed metal wind-up Constellation airplane were not made from Sapporo beer cans.

 

We all know (or should know by now) that Japan was rapidly rebuilding after the war. They were also moving to become big in trading, ship building, consumer electronics, watch making, banking, car manufacture, etc. Heck, by 1964 they hosted the Olympics in Tokyo and used it to showcase a recovered Japan and several new products.

 

To bring this back on point their camera and sport optics industries were producing quality products that within 10 years would come to dominate those markets. I'm fortunate to own a few good examples from Canon and Pentax. Japan also made some fun to collect inexpensive cameras. I've got a Toko Mighty (love that name) that has a dual finder system, extra lens, hood, film cassette, etc., and could at one time actually take a picture.

 

Unfortunately most of the comments I hear cover all Japanese products with no limitation as to product or time. Statements like "Japanese products made for several decades after the war are cheap junk, etc." are clearly wrong. They come across as mean spirited and xenophobic.

"Hi John S, I think Japanese camera quality began in the 60's but hey, what's ten years among friends? "

 

Take a look at the early 1950's rangefinders from Canon and Nikon. Very very high quality bodies and lenses. Pentax, which was working on reflex cameras in the early 1950's came up with the first successful SLR, the AP in 1957, followed immediately by the S and the hugely successful K model in 1958. They were excellent quality cameras that led the way for other Japanese camera makers to follow. They were so successful because they provided what consumers wanted, not what the camera company thought consumers should have. A crucial difference in mindset.

 

"Answering the original question, in the beginning quality was bad,"

 

Only in cheap consumer goods. They quickly became prime producers of high quality consumer goods of many types. The emericans sat there with their collective thumbs stuck where the sun don't shine.

 

"got better as they incorporated Deming's quality "religion","

 

Deming was popular in soime large companies and his ideas made sense. Too bad american companies had their heads stuck so firmly in the sand that they ignored him.

 

"improved with the European technology given to them,"

 

There is not a business around that does not borrow technology when given the opportunity. Look at the history of the U.S. automotive business.

 

"peaked in the late 60's and 70's and continued on a gradual decline to today's levels as they moved manufacturing offshore. "

 

Nonsense. Goods from Japanese manufacturers continue to receive positive marks and are held in high esteem by consumers. Why, because they are well designed and don't have the quality problems american goods have the reputation for having.

 

"An after thought, in the 60's I could never get all the kids in the midget Japanese cars and they never made it through the winter snows without getting stuck or not operating in sub-zero temperatures (how did your heaters work in the cold)."

 

The choice was simple: buy a bigger poorer quality american car, put the occupants on a diet or stop having kids. I had no problem moving three kinds and wife around in that 1970 Corona sedan.

 

I had no problem with the heater or the air conditioner doing the job in those Toyotas. Somehow I think that rear wheel drive cars of any make are not known for their snow handling abilities. Actually we had a 2 foot snow here that fell over 8 hours or so. It took a good deal of backtracking and running on partly deflated tires but I made it home in that rear wheel drive stick shift 1979 Toyota Corona wagon.

 

" In other words they were sub-par and still are compared to American "Iron" for me."

 

Oh, yeah, like the Pinto, Vega, Valiant, Pacer, Chevette POS that detroit cranked out?

 

"The fake "First Energy Crisis" was about pricing to inflate the economy to pay off the Vietnam fiasco. There was never a real shortage of oil, just like today. Guess what we're going to payoff this time. "

 

No kidding. On what bit of conspiratorial fantasy do you base this on. So tell me which cabal mysteriously cranked up the market prices worldwide.

 

"Hi Roger S, a corvette is a very, very pleasant drive. In fact they are a "HOOT" to drive! Smilie! "

 

The older corvettes had a suspension and ride that could rival an empty lumber truck. A real butt buster. Fun to be seen in though.

As an owner of a Pentax SV, several Kodak Retinas, an Agfa Super Silette and a Contax II the news of Nikon discontinuing production of film cameras is not particularly bothersome - I wasn't in the market for any of their products! Nor is the news of Nikon dropping out of the film camera business particularly surprising because the irreversible trend toward digital has been obvious for 10 years. If anything Nikon is a bit late.

 

The Nikon decision is troubling because fewer companies will supply the film, paper and chemicals that allow cameras with mechanical FP and leaf shutters to record images. As someone who cherishes those old mechanical picture boxes the future looks a bit dimmer as a result of the Nikon decision.

I agree - the shot from the back tells a much more interesting story about the participants while still reminding us that it is a veterans day parade.

 

Front parade shots are usually picture postcard stuff.

There are plusses and minuses to being known as the office camera buff. Sometimes you are given junque cameras by people who really think they are worth something. Other times you get to help, and that's fun. I was able to get a Minolta P&S camera of a co-worker going again after about 15 minutes of fiddling. For others I've had the pleasure of showing them how an SLR can be used to make pictures.

"The CL is black, the FM2T is grey. The Leica CL is smaller, the FM2T is lighter. The CL is not easier to handle and the lenses cost dearly. Both have a noisy shutter, although the CL's is cloth and the FM2T's is metal. Oh, yeah. The FM2T has a faster shutter but not as fast as the Contax G2's; and the FM2T's flash synchronization speed is 1/250 instead of the CL's 1/60th. Cool, huh?"

 

Was this a review, listing of a few features or an argument that one is better than the other two????

 

I would be more interested in how the three cameras are to shoot and how well they make pictures.

Congratulations...you have the least common combination of lens and shutter for that camera - both are top quality. It's a very compact camera that is easy to hold and focusing is a snap because of the bright and contrasty finder.

I've used a IIIc, IIc, Ib, Ia and several I's. My favorite is the Ib because of the reasonably bright finder, very nice lens and compact size. You have to make do with a viewfiner rather than a rangefinder, but in my case the changeover wasn't all that difficult.

I agree...a IIa black dial is a good choice for a camera to use.

Harry Scherer of Zeisscamera.com offers a program where he will locate and restore the camera of your choice for the cost of the camera plus normal repair charges. It seems like an attractive alternative to seeking out a restorable camera on your own.

It would be interesting to find out how far the SLR project got. Instamatic was certainly a success for over 20 years. In sense it represented a return to the way Kodak got it's start. By selling inexpensive good quality everyday cameras they could tie in sales of film.

When you shoot below 1/30 you are using the gear train. I've seen compur shutters that run reasonably accurate for several shots then slow way down for others because of the effect of dried out lubricant. Try dry firing several shots in a row.

Were you shooting below 1/30?

It is interesting how feature creep can sometimes make a product harder to use. The classic Retina view/rangefinder camera was continually improved with features like optional lenses that required optional finders, meters, bottom winding lever. The result was the III series that were no longer compact and easy to use.

 

I wonder if a simple high quality rangefinder camera could have survived along with a totally new focal plane SLR from the house of Kodak. At the time they would have added innovation to their reputation for quality and been able to capitalize on name recognition. Who knows...monday morning quarterbacking 50 years later is always fun!!