JDMvW

<p>Does that lens cap say ISCO? maybe. Not much like anything at http://captjack.exaktaphile.com/Isco%20page.htm </p> <p>Here is the best shot of the Exakta (name covered) and the lens. There is just not enough detail for me to read the lens bezel inscription.</p><div></div>

<p>Here, the lens is being mounted -</p> <p>I've tried to ID the lens. Whatever it is, I don't have it, and I couldn't find anything that looked liek the same combination of silver and black at Captain Jack's site.</p><div></div>

<p>Here's the first shot of the Exakta camera (almost certainly a VX - see http://captjack.exaktaphile.com/Exakta%20VX%20&%20Varex%20VX%20Page.htm )</p><div></div>

<p>That is almost certainly a Rollei, probably Rolleiflex to the right, and perhaps a Contax III version to the upper right.<br> Is the press camera a Linhof, or what?</p> <p>Here's the first shot of the lens, at 43 minutes. I've hdef'd the heck out of it trying to show more detail.</p><div></div>

<p>This is said in some discussions to be an 8x10 camera - an odd choice for taking race car pictures - it was this photo that resulted in Jeff's broken leg, bTW.</p> <p>Anyone care to identify the camera? I have no idea.</p> <p>The same introduction film then pans to other cameras to establish Jeff's occupation.</p><div></div>

<p><em><strong>Rear Window</strong></em> (1954) -- a camera odyssey<br />As we've discussed here, and many times previously, this one really belongs in Classic Manual Cameras.<br> <em>some Photo.net posts about this one</em><br />http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/009F9p <br />http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00E1dZ <br />http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00VBtt <br /><br /><br> <br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window</p> <blockquote> <p><br />Professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race. Confined to his New York apartment, he spends his time looking out of the rear window observing the neighbors. He begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife. Jeff enlists the help of his high society fashion-consultant girlfriend Lisa Freemont<br> from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/</p> </blockquote> <p><br /><br />I was interested to see the films involved -<br /><br />Color (Eastmancolor) (negative)| Color (Technicolor) (prints) -<br> It's labeled Technicolor, but that was only the prints, so extensive restoration was necessary in making the newer restored DVD release from the much battered original negative.<br /><br /><br />The film explores the issue of voyeurism at some length:<br />As the nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) tells Jeff (james Stewart)</p> <blockquote> <p>The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the work house...They got no windows in the work house. You know, in the old days, they used to put your eyes out with a red-hot poker. Any of those bikini bombshells you're always watchin' worth a red-hot poker? Oh dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of home-spun philosophy?</p> </blockquote> <p>Jeff spends a lot of time looking at "Miss Torso" (Georgine Darcy). (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more).<br /><br /><br> An additional, but not quite explicit theme is impotence - a photographer who can't do his craft because he's stuck in a wheelchair while his leg mends. Jeff has trouble popping the cork on a champagne bottle, for one example.</p> <p>Given how important the (long) lens is, it actually doesn't appear until about 43 minutes into the film. Although there is some kvetching about the camera being held wrong (relating to the left side release on the Exakta), this really is not at issue, since I don't think he does much but use the camera as a viewer for the telephoto.</p> <p>However, cameras play an important part in the initial film moments.</p> <div></div>

<p>There is a list of newer lenses with and without hot spots at<br> http://dpanswers.com/content/irphoto_lenses.php </p> <p>They list the EF 50mm f/1.4 as having a hotspot problem, and I'd guess that would also be true of the predecessor since they usually didn't change much in the mount change over.</p> <p>I have the FD 50mm f/1.4, but have never shot IR with it.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Many thanks, as always.</p> <p>1959 was near the turning point for European vs. Japanese cameras - Japanese imports were starting to rival German in number.</p> <p>I did a 'study' based on Montgomery Wards catalogs in <br /> http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00Xhnq <br /> here is the chart of the year by year offerings of cameras from different countries. (the high USA counts are mostly box cameras and some cinema cameras)</p><div></div>

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<p>As I said last night, I only saw a few meteors, and their directions didn't seem to correlate with the source of this shower-not.</p>

<p>Partly cloudy, hazy, and lots of light pollution. So far I've only seen a few faint meteors at nearly 1AM CDT.</p>

<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>

<p><strong>Sun 85-210mm f/4.5 lens (Spiratone)</strong><br /><br />Kadlubek Nr SUN0441<br /><br /><br />It's surely no secret by now that I am a little interested in Spiratone gear.<br /><br />After I'd got too old to enjoy the Johnson Smith ads (X-ray glasses, remember) on the backs of comic books, and started to get more seriously into photography, the Spiratone ads with hundreds of gadgets and such were a treat with each issue of one of the photo magazines. Unlike Johnson Smith, things were usually very good, too.</p><div></div>

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<p><strong>Zoomar Sport-Reflectar 500mm f/5.6</strong><br />A sad story with a slightly not-so-sad ending<br /><br /><br />Kadlubek Nr. ZOM0110<br />(w/ interchangeable Nikon F mount)<br />dates: late 1950s to 1972? Variant ("20 inch") of it listed in Modern Photography's Lens list for 1961.<br />Serial Nr. 278-0380<br /><br />Length: 24cm long with hood collapsed, 30cm long with it deployed.<br />Diameter: 12+cm in diameter<br />Mass: 3.17 kg (7.0 lbs) ! ! !<br /><br /><strong>Introduction</strong><br /><br />I pride myself on being a user-collector, so I make a strong effort to get working equipment. Recently, a friend of mine has been clearing out his house, and he gave me the Miranda cameras I posted on a while back.<br /><br />But as he dug deeper, he came up with a interesting sounding lens -- a Zoomar Sport-Reflectar 500mm f/5.6. I looked it up on eBay for him and was surprised to see prices being asked for this lens in the $1,500 to $3,000 range. Of course, as anyone who frequents these dives knows, much can be asked but few are sold. There were a few sales in the hundreds of dollars though. I told him about that and suggested that he might want sell that one. He didn't want to bother, but asked me to take a look at the lens.<br /><br />When I did, it was very clear, or rather unclear, that the lens was badly "fungused", and would probably be worth very little. So it sat for some weeks, but Sunday morning at the coffee shop he asked what I would give him for the lens. <br /><br />Here was my dilemma. The lens was unlikely to be usable. On the other hand, I had recently bought an equally unusable Biotar in M40 mount, even posted on it. <br />Would a likely shelf-queen be an interesting addition to the piles of mirror lenses I've already accumulated (e.g., http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00RaKy )? After all, I also own some old East German cameras of which there can't be more than a few examples that are still working, anywhere in the world (Pentina, anyone?).<br /><br />So I made my friend an offer that was probably too much, but he made a higher counter offer. I told him, I'd have to think about it, but later on, he said, OK to my original suggestion. <br /><br />So now I am the owner of a Zoomar Sport-Refllectar 500mm f/5.6. Proud? Maybe.<br /><br /><strong>The Lens</strong><br /><br />Marc may have better luck than I did, but I couldn't locate any Kilfitt or Zoomar ads or reviews, and as noted above, the first mention of it I found was a 20" Zoomar Reflectar in a 1961 lens list. It has been speculated that production may have ceased in the early 1970s.<br /><br /><em>Modern Photography</em> September, 1961:</p> <blockquote> <p><br /><br />20-in. f/5.6 Reflectar. Zoomar, U.S.A. Mirror<br />optics, for single-lens reflexes, reflex housings,<br />$550, basic price. Fitting, cost of reflex<br />housing extra . Consult mfr.</p> </blockquote> <p><br /><br />There is a little information out there on this lens, for example:<br /><br />http://www.pentaconsix.com/zm500.htm <br />http://www.cameraquest.com/kilzoom.htm <br />http://www.kevincameras.com/gallery/v/modified_len/kilfitt/2780368/ <br /><br />http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kilfitt <br /><br />I got out some fungicide, and after cleaning off the powder from the deteriorated foam in the case and the external fungus, confirmed that, indeed, the interior of the lens was also "infected", at least the meniscus lens on the front, and perhaps on the mirror surfaces. The dial installed, built-in rear filters also are 'clouded', but the clear one is fairly clean. If the front-silvered mirrors are also affected (and I think they are), that would probably be it for this lens as a user, but I will wait to crack it open later. There are screws on the back that allow, I suppose, the filters in the dial to be changed or removed. The front bezel has notches for a spanner, though I don't have any that large (about 120mm across).<br /><br />In looking over current offerings of this lens on eBay, at least some of them seem to be in similar condition, so perhaps the really pricy ones are clean? <br /><br />So, after cleaning the exterior surfaces, metal and glass, I reassembled the Nikon mount that was with it (there was another mount of some kind that I can't identify - perhaps for use as a spotting scope?). I very briefly attached it to my Nikon F2, verified that it would focus to infinity, but also verified that optical quality was definitely compromised.<br /><br />Here is the lens on my Nikon F2:<br /><br /></p><div></div>