JDMvW

<p>The reason I had not taken pictures before was suddenly imposed on my aging memory.</p> <p>At Tupelo and Brice's Crossroads there was what is clearly a "generic Civil War monument".</p> <p>Presumably these were chiseled out by the gross.</p> <p>For a moment I thought they had forgot to put the battlefield name on the one at Brice's Crossroads, but I discovered it was just a fleeting "Photoshop moment".</p><div></div>

<p>Years ago I had visited various northern (pardon the expression) Mississippi sites of the War for Southern Independence (aka War of the Great Rebellion). But I had inexplicably not taken pictures, so mopping up operations were indicated.<br> Here is what passes for the battlefield monument at Tupelo, MS.<br> (All Canon 5Dii w/ 24-105mm lens - I have a nice selection of EOS lenses, but somehow this is the one I always use.)</p><div></div>

<p>Ancient history from me.</p> <p>This was one of the first shots taken by me with my then-new Nikkormat FTn and probably the PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8. Kodachrome, of course.</p> <p>How I love that lens and that film, but time passes on.</p><div></div>

<p>Yes, me too for the benefits of Vuescan, although be aware that it, too, has a steep learning curve when you get beyond the basics.</p>

<p>Actually, the "Rebels" (US, elsewhere xxxD) are a good buy if you get the newest ones with lots of pixels. The 7D, although getting older, is still a superb camera at a 'professional' level for APS-C bodies.<br> Both Nikon and Canon reward their faithful with superb, cheap primes like the 50mm f/1.8 lenses.<br> The latest versions of the "kit" lenses like the 18-55 or so are similarly "loss leaders" for both companies. You have to spend much more than twice as much to get a "twice better" lens in the same ranges.</p>

<p>I've always been interested in these, but the combination of rarity over here and the high prices have deterred me.</p> <p>Here's as close as I've got - the wind-up Ricoh Hi-Color 35, aside from my Praktina winder.</p><div></div>

<p>I had one that got fungus in it, and found that no still-sane camera repair people will take on disassembly of one of these (or more to the point, the <em>reassembly</em>). Ended up getting a clean one for about $40-50 on eBay some years ago. Older zooms, even the original <a href="http://www.robertstech.com/vivitar.htm">Series 1 cult lenses</a>, are very cheap.</p> <p>I understand that the real trick is to get the helical threads back together right, so mark things and photograph every step. ....If naphtha (tiny, tiny amounts only) doesn't work.</p>

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<p>I personally wouldn't put in the work needed to do long night exposures on this film - I'd just get fresh film for that.<br> However, I'd certainly use it. Do the first roll inside in a bar, on the streets, or something not involving reciprocity, and see how it looks, then adjust for the remaining film. Maybe it will work out so you can use the rest for long exposure work.<br> It may be that being frozen and in a freezer it's been protected more than some think.</p>

<p>Plus the data for the picture itself may have strings in it, such that, if they were isolated, would say "f*K you" or some other prohibited abbreviation or string....<br /> The gibberish that makes up a picture when pasted in looks like this selection:<br /> ...iA8eDp4bXBtZXRhIHhtbG5zOng9ImFkb2JlOm5zOm1ldGEvIiB4OnhtcHRrPSJBZG9iZSBYTVAgQ29yZSA1LjAt...</p> <p>Some forums are more sensitive than others.</p>

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<p>Why here in Classic Manual, aside from the fact that people are nicer here, I mean?</p> <p>Well at least one of the cameras "predicted" seems to be film, though both might be "Modern Film Cameras", to be sure. However the conception of the cameras goes back to 1968. Close enough for government work, I think.</p> <p>Stanley Kubrick started out as a very successful still photographer ( see the wiki article, mostly about his films at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick ).</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Zenit S ( ?????-C )</strong></p> <p>An early “Leica” SLR<br /><br />1955-1961<br /><br />Kadlubek Kamera-Katalog Nr. KRA0500<br /><br />Type: PM3235. <br />“Very common version of Zenit-C with new standardized shutter sequence: 1/30s, 1/60s, 1/125s, 1/250s, 1/500s + B.”<br />( http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?568663372 )<br /><br />Mine is serial No. 599580xx (which is said to mean it’s from 1959)<br /><br />Industar-50 3.5/5cm Russian Tessar Lens for M39 Zenit N580633xx<br />Kadlubek Nr. RUS3460<br /><br />Since I had gone to the trouble to get a Zenit-M39 lens to adapt to my Start SLR ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00c7Ga ), the temptation to acquire an early Soviet Zenit camera, became, well, you know.<br /><br />I found both the lens and a Zenit-S (?????-C in Cyrillic). The camera is often called a Zenit-C, but the “C” here is “S” for synchronization. <br /><br />The early Zenits are especially interesting since they are very heavily based on the rangefinder Zorki camera, which itself is essentially identical to the earlier Leica rangefinders. <br /><br />I hardly need to go into vast detail on the camera in this regard, since it is so well covered in a number of posts.<br /><br />Among the most interesting of these is our own Rick Oleson’s essay at <br /> http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-9.html <br /><br />This might have been what Leitz would have done, had they decided to make their own SLR in 1955 or so. So the Zenit is kind of an “alternate history” camera, as Oleson points out.<br /><br /><br />Other discussions can be found at <br /><br /> http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?568663372 <br /> http://www.eyescoffee.com/collectcamera/zenits/index.php <br /> http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Zenit-S <br /><br />Manuals are available at several sites, including<br /><br /> http://www.zenitcamera.com/mans/zenit-s/zenit-s-eng.html</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Chicago - A Center of Photography - 1940</strong><br /><br />Once upon a time, America had really two major cities. New York, of course, and then the “Second City”, Chicago.<br /><br />This was as true for cameras and photographic gear as for restaurants, museums, and other cultural establishments.<br /><br />For example, one of the classical photographic magazines, <em>Popular Photography</em>, had its original offices in Chicago, Illinois.</p><div></div>

<h1>Taxona - noch einmal</h1> <p><br /><br />It's not that I don't have a number of cameras that I haven't posted on before, but one thing or another has led me back to classics that I like.<br /><br />I had previously (2008) posted a brief account of the Taxona ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00R6tH ) but hadn't yet reached the present "form" of my reporting. Just the other day I posted this one in a "Someday" post here on CMC, and that was what stimulated me to go out with it this last weekend.<br /><br />So.<br />Here is the 1952-3 VEB Zeiss Ikon Taxona<br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>Images from</strong><br /> <strong>Spiratone Minitel-M 500mm f/8 </strong><br /> <strong>Quantaray 500mm f/8 Mirror<br /></strong><br /> <em>Background</em><br /> <br />In another post recently ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00c1BM ), I had presented a Spiratone Mintel-M 500mm. I think this was the last incarnation of the rather long series of Spiratone mirror lenses starting with their import of a variety of the Soviet MTO 500mm Matsukov lens ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00bVwA ). <br /><br />Now, the Spiratone Minitel-M looks almost identical to the still-available new lenses from Korea variously sold as Quantaray and other import names -- I think Vivitar, Bower, Opteka, and Samyang are essentially the same lens. These sell new for USD 85-140 or so.<br /><br />The Spiratone Mintel-M is sold for about the same prices as the new ones.<br /><br /><em>So which should you get?</em> <br /><br />I thought it would be instructive to present a side-by-side comparison of the two. I posted a few days ago on another example of the Spiratone lens than the one used here and Gene M wanted to see images at ISO 200 of my infamous water tower test image. <br /><br />These are shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II body on a very solid tripod with a remote release, although I did not lock up the mirror. This is a test of how most people would use these lenses, after all. I did focus bracketing on these and chose the sharpest, so far as I could tell, although objectively there was little difference from one image to the next. I had lot of practice with manual focus years ago and haven't entirely lost the touch. The tripod head was a Manfrotto 393 'gimbal' head.<br /><br /><br />Here is the Spiratone Minitel-M showing the full sized image:</p><div></div>

<p>The other day I had tested a Canon T50 camera and had a spectacular failure (4 negatives on a roll of 24). So when I wanted to check out the Jupiter-8 lens so kindly sent to me by Kris Bochenek, I went back to an old favorite location where I had not shot for a long time.<br /> I decided to take the pictures with my whole "library" of LTM normal lenses:<br> <br /> Jupiter-8 5cm f/2 from Kris (Thanks so much).<br />Industar-61 52mm f/2.8 FED 4b<br />Industar-26M 5cm f/2.8 FED-2<br />Canon 50mm f/1.8 from Japan on eBay</p> <p><br /> I shot all of these on my 'new' Canon VL2 rangefinder, a camera I am coming to like more and more the more I use it.<br /> The location was a set of Illinois Central steam locomotive coaling towers that are actually quite famous, as a Google™ of "Illinois Central Coaling Towers Carbondale" will reveal.<br /><br />I had shot these a few years back as a part of a "Hopper in Carbondale" project (no pun intended).</p> <p> </p><div></div>

<p><strong>Shift and Swing Bellows</strong><br /><br /><br />Of course, I got here by a devious route. I try to pick up old Spiratone gear, and one item I kind of wanted was a bellows unit with shift and tilt that was called the Bellowsmat.</p><div></div>

<p><strong>Some background first </strong><br />This is one of the those cameras that I have frequently referred to as basically unlikely to still work and impossible to find someone who can service.<br />The other day, I dug out this one to look at it in response to a post about unworkable cameras - a sort of Triste Camerique ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00bmk2 )<br /><br />I looked at it again, and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. As it was, it was clearly impossible to load film into it without exposing it. So I puttered and finally figured out that there had to be shutter leaves in the lens assembly (this was a unique Pentacon SLR with a leaf shutter, back to that later). They were not visible, but I thought - it doesn't work anyway and am I not the Lord Naphtha, King of the Mild Solvents, Spirit of the Petroleum Wastes?<br /><br />So I splashed (actually, carefully) a little naphtha (aka, more expensively, as Ronsonol) into the area immediately behind the lens, proper, mount and worked the camera a little - <br />LO! The edge of the shutter blades popped out a little. A few more drops of solvent and suddenly the shutter popped into place, covered with dirt and solvent. I carefully wiped it off, worked it some more, and it started to close consistently after triggering the shutter (see below). I continued to work it, cleaning it as I went, and then left it to dry overnight.<br /><br />Is, is , it alive? (Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad).<br> <br />YES, IT'S <em><strong>ALIVE</strong></em>, BWA-HA-HA.<br /><br />So what follows is a report about the Pentina and how it is supposed to work (the match-needle metering is, of course, deader than a doornail unless somebody knows of a meter magic similar to naphtha for the mechanical parts)'<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Pentina </strong><br />first models 1961<br /><br /><br />When it arrived, I looked up some details about the model and the like on Dr. Mike Otto's fantastic (to a DDR-camera enthusiast) web page ( http://www.praktica-collector.de/ ).<br /><br />My model is the one shown at http://www.praktica-collector.de/114_Pentina.htm .<br /><br />But it was clear that no shutter was working, in the lens or out of it. So I accepted the widespread (as far as DDR cameras go) stories about repairmen fleeing in terror when they saw someone bringing in one of these. <br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p><strong>Cameras in Movies, Part <em>n</em>+1</strong><br /> Over the years. Photo.net has seen a posts on cameras seen in movies.<br />For example, <br /><br />the Exakta in <em>Rear Window</em> ( multiple discussions at http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00VBtt , http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/009F9p etc)<br /><br />the camera used by <em>Alfie</em> in the eponymous film ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00JcwH ) <br /><br />the use of the Stereo Realist in the big bug movie <em>Them</em> ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00YCII ) <br /><br />the probable, as I now think, use of a Ricoh Mirai in the 1989 version of <em>Batman</em> ( http://www.photo.net/modern-film-cameras-forum/00Yk4S ).<br /><br />There may even have been a prior discussion of <em>Close Encounters of the Third Kind</em> ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075860/ ), but if so, it is lost in the long list of titles of close-up photos of tigers, flowers, and such.<br /><br />Any how, as the <em>Rear Window</em> list shows, topics never grow beyond the possibility of recall.<br /><br />Sooo, here are a few examples of cameras in the <em>CE3K</em> movie, in this case all pretty much in the Classic Manual mode, as would be expected of a 1977 movie.<br /><br />Not too far into the latest edit, comes the recovery of the lost steamer Cotopaxi in the Gobi Desert:<br /><br />As the UN party moves closer to the site, some men in a truck prepare their cameras, then a photographer in a helicopter shows one of the few cases in the movies of a Nikon "twist" or "shuffle" - the wrist twitch still noted in veteran Nikon photographers when they mount a lens:<br /><br /></p><div></div>