Argenticien

<p>Then there was this...</p><div></div>

<p>Georg: Nice camera pr0n, possibly the most unusual composition I've seen. Brilliant!<br> Bill: I see your friend OA made the Spring migration out of Hawai'i with you!<br> I'll contribute three from the new-to-me Minolta XE-7, with my pre-existing MC Rokkor-PF 58mm 1:1.4 lens. Exposures unrecorded. Ilford Delta 100 through Rodinal. The first is nothing special but was the first picture from the first roll through...</p> <div></div>

<p>Indeed David. Rick, it's superb what you can squeeze out of a very limited camera. This reminds me of a time when I handed a clumsy folder to a dear old friend of mine, who is a natural photographic talent and in fact one of the people who inspired me to get into this hobby way back in high school. The camera was an old 6x9 Bessa with nearly unusable rangefinder. Although it was technically superior to Rick's Clicks (a Helomar triplet, rather than a meniscus or doublet), I still struggled to get one keeper per roll out of it. My friend proceeded to bang away with it, about six shots in rapid succession, of which four proved upon development to be excellent environmental portraits. I felt bad having to limit her, but we were in the field and I was low on film; she was familiar only with 35 mm and had no concept of a camera that gets only 8 shots per roll. (You can't bang away with it for very long, no matter how good you are!) I was in complete disbelief at what she could produce that easily with a 70-year-old manual camera that she had never picked up before.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>RIGHT! Rick already wrote me a pass two weeks ago to post XE-7 pictures without fear of the Classicality and Manualness Police. And now Mike is also actually doing so! Next week-end I shall have to contribute some. (I've been unable to put down the XE-7 since it arrived, so all my recent work is through it.)<br> Nice pictures as always, everyone. I especially like Tony's pelicans.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>A few observations ... <br> Re: need for more light in medium format -- I've read somewhere that one should not blast away with flash in the face of a newborn. I haven't researched it very far, and not sure how accurate that is or how serious it is if true, but give it a Google at least before you rely on bolting on "a big flash gun" :)<br> Re: a big new MF camera in general -- If you're going to do this at all, get on with choosing and obtaining the camera very soon, and go shoot it constantly for the next three months in order to familiarize yourself with the kit and ensure it's in full working order. You get only one chance to shoot baby's first days, so you do not want to be doing it with Roll #1 (or probably even Roll #10) through an unfamiliar large, manual camera.<br> Re: TLRs/WLFs, keep the following in mind for when your kid begins walking -- With my toddler nieces, I found that cameras with waist-level finders greatly intrigued them, probably because their frame of reference was parents/grandparents shooting with phones, so my looking down into a large black box was very different. Therefore I became a distraction, and far from being able to shoot candids of them, in fact they sometimes stopped what they were doing to wander up and look at the camera. My giant TLR (Mamiya C330) was even worse in this respect with its strange double-vision appearance.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p><a href="http://www.micro-tools.com/subgrouping.htm?cat=14316">MicroTools</a>, although it can be hard to translate from what your screw looked like (especially if you now no longer have it to measure it or check its thread pitch) to their descriptions. I've ordered a few parts from them and sometimes had them not fit, probably due to my user error in measuring the existing specimens (let alone guessing at lost ones). <br> See also further Googleable discussions such as at http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00Ll7V<br> Good luck with the quest!<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Very nice work with such a simple camera, Rick. Lake 003 is quite beautiful. I've got a Kodak Six-20 Flash Brownie that is of much the same design, but I'd say a lesser execution. It's metal, but stamped, I think: it feels sharp-edged, tinny, and ill-fitting all round. After mucking about with film re-spooling, triple-checking that it is closed properly, and then finding ideal conditions (bright but non-flaring, or 'light overcast' as you said), the Brownie can do passable work. Maybe it's time I tried a Clack. Either way, there certainly is a bit more, er, adventure in using these cameras as compared to, say, a Rolleiflex.<br> 'Fairly severe disagreements with the Germans in the North African desert' wins the Epic Understatement Award for the entire 20th Century, by the way. Fabulously formulated!<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Tori, I'd concur on staying with Minolta, both on its merits and in order to preserve your existing investment. I was for a long time a moderate Pentax fanboy, but have increasingly converted to Minolta. Buy into whatever lenses satisfy your need for automation. I go for the MC ones, which can do open-aperture metering but not shutter priority. For that added automation (shutter priority), you need the MD ones, which may cost a bit more. If you are comfortable with <em>less </em>automation than the MC, you could get the very old plain (non-MC) Rokkors and they might be a bit cheaper. All the glass, though, is pretty affordable, other than the ones that are very fast for their focal length (50/1.2, 35/1.8, 85/1.7, 100/2). And you don't <em>need</em> those; you <em>want </em>them. :)<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>5sm -- an easy mistake to make. Someone Ukrainian must have been mentally transliterating it as a Cyrillic "C" to a Latin "S," as indeed <em>would </em>be appropriate for most words. It must be 5 CMEHAmeter lens...<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>That polyspheroid will never stop being the butt of jokes...</p> <p>Good to see you and your knowledge back here, JDM. It's not just anyone what quotes Kadlubek when posting...<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p><strong>Rick Drawbridge</strong>, 'Exits' especially is brilliant. Ain't that Vitessa great? Even though mine was CLAed, I have a nagging fear that some day as I depress the plunger to wind on, there will be a small mechanical explosion resulting in a terminal mess of springs, sprockets, and shredded film upon removing the back. Unless/until that happens, they're great, if wacky, little machines.<br> Sorry I had nothing to contribute for the weekend; I'm out and about with a new Minolta XE-7. Great camera, but if I posted pictures from that with its electronic shutter and auto mode, I would probably be defenestrated by the Manualness Police here.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Indeed Rick, part of my hesitance to dip further into this class of cameras is down to the likelihood that I'll never top the Vitessa! The f/2.0 Ultron is almost unmatched, so I'm willing to put up with the strange design and controls on that one. In addition to some of the weirdness you've mentioned here, the Vitessa also requires a manual reset of the frame counter. Does the Paxette need that as well? (And/or if not that, what <em>does </em>the toothed wheel at upper-back above the "Super III" label do?)<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Rick, the more I see these 1950s German rangefinders, the more I think I'd be keen to get one, with its solid metal feel, large VF/RF, and usually good glass (if, like you, one knows enough to dodge Cassarits and the like). But then each time your exposition touches upon the ridiculous ergonomics that seemingly all these cameras share, I quickly get out of the mood to click "Buy." A removable back seems less inconvenient than the bottom-load of a Barnack, but is still problematic if you're reloading someplace where the only surface to set down the back is problematic (<em>e.g</em>., beach, barn, factory floor) so you must hang onto it and then you need three to four hands to execute a film change. Then the Paxettes really clinch it with the "looks compatible but is inextricable" lens situations. Wow. My Vitessa seems poised to remain the only one of its class!<br> Great pictures despite the seeming challenges of working with the Paxette.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Rick, I do like those film test pictures, although I must admit that my Rokkors were at the top of my list of lenses to adapt and in fact the thing that drove me across the line to get into a Sony a7 in the first instance. In addition to their performance, there was some kind of nice continuity in adapting Minolta lenses to the thing--with Sony cameras' direct lineage from Minolta--even though I'm now adapting lenses from thee or four other systems as well. All that said, I still/again shoot the Rokkors more on film than on the Sony. It's great that one can add SRT*.* cameras to that system almost for beer or pizza money, and I just got an XE-7 for not terribly much more. (First test roll still awaiting processing.) I still lack an old full-metal 50/1.7 (non-rubberized, non-"-X" MC lens), but that gap would only want filling for curiosity's sake; I have enough other normals.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Nice work as always, Rick. I've got a 58/1.4 MC Rokkor PF for my Minolta SRT/XE kit, and it looks <em>exactly</em> the same as your 57/1.4 in size, design, layout, chrome aperture ring, and 55 mm filter size, but is evidently a five-element lens. I like the Minolta 58 and it seems you've had a good time with the Hexanon 57. Seven or eight millimetres may not seem like much, but I do sometimes notice the difference in angle of view between the 58 and a 50; did you? I will accordingly attach my 50 rather than the preferred 58 if I suspect I'll find myself in a small space. (There are confounding variables though; my 50 is a much lighter, partly plastic unit, so it sometimes gets selected for weight savings, or deselected explicitly for plastickiness; and it is a 1.7--not 1.4--so may get deselected if I'll need every last photon of available light.)<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>I'm late to the thread as always, but I'll pile onto the accolades. I have exactly the same camera and lens, for a similar total investment, and love them. Brad, your wheel and axle photographs with this kit, in the other thread, were superb. Like you, I have made some of my best (or in my case, least-bad anyway) photographs with that 50/1.8 lens. It performs such that I have no interest in spending more to get the more pricey 1.4 "Japanese Summilux." I do have a secondhand Voigtlander 35/2.5 as well.</p> <p>I will say, re: the Canon P being 'better' for 35mm lens users, this depends on your eyesight. With my eyeglasses at least, I cannot see the whole 35mm frame line, which is way out toward the edge of the viewfinder. I can sort of shift my eye around and see 1/4 of it at a time. For best results with that frame line, you need uncorrected vision, or contact lenses, or a dioptre correction on the camera (not cheap/simple, with my prescription), or eyeglasses that you can so mash into your orbit that they don't get in the way.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Cannot QL17 (non-GIII) with, of course, 40/1.7 lens; I had the thing wide open at f/1.7 and manually set on 1/30 sec for the whole night in this dark venue; no metering. TMax 400, Ilfotec DD-X 8 mins. At the Evening Muse in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Lucy Kaplansky had performed a song so new that she had to bring written lyrics.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p><div></div>

<p>Mike, the mobile phone panels atop your water tower look like a crown on the head of a princess! Hilarious. As stated in Monty Python's Eric the Half-a-Bee sketch, "I never seen so many bleedin' aerials!"<br> <br />I hope to post some images this weekend if I can get the scanning done...<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>I agree with all the superlatives , and would add my congratulations to whomever of SP's family or friends made the portrait. It is a nice one, featuring mostly attractive lighting with just enough overexposure at the table-lamps to remind us of one of the key ingredients in camera repairs: lots of light to see what's going on among all those minute parts (many of them black). I was awed to see the world-famous ostdeutsch kamera/ruski fotoaparat resurrection room.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Brad, the P is a really nice body. I wanted to get into an LTM camera, but wasn't relishing the small peep-hole rangefinder of a Leica Barnack (as I am bespectacled) or its fiddly, Arse-wise loading. The P solves both, except I still have slight trouble seeing the entire 35mm frame lines with eyeglasses on; this may or may not be relevant to you. You can Google/research to death the tradeoffs among the P and other models out there (Canon, Leica, and otherwise) as concerns rangefinder and viewfinder windows: flare vs. frame-line visibility vs. size vs. magnification ... all vs. cost, etc. etc. The P came out my winner at my price point. I believe I paid about USD 300 on eBay for the P with the 50/1.8, perhaps 6 or 7 years ago, in very nice user condition (not museum quality) and luckily working right out of the box with no CLA needed.<br /><br />All this is not to denigrate Canon's various V and VI models (which I have not tried) that are seemingly pretty similar to the P and maybe more interesting if you like a trigger winder. But the P appears to be more widely available.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Brad, nice work here as well. I have that same 50/1.8 (Canon, not Serenar; black, not chrome). I find it excellent, underrated, compact, great value for money, and easy to find. For most applications, f/1.8 is fast enough. Canon's f/1.4 model gets somewhat silly in price; the f/1.2 very silly; and the f/0.95 ridiculous (and not LTM anyway, if one is seeking that), so I chuckle a bit at people lusting after those. I shoot the 50/1.8 on a Canon P, and have just begun to play with it on a Sony a7 via adapter. It's in the latter use that its main shortcoming becomes evident: the minimum focusing distance of something like 1 meter. Especially when I've just swapped out a 50mm SLR lens of some kind, it feels like one must step back quite far by comparison for the RF lens. Small price to pay...<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>I'm late to the thread, but that's great work, Brad! Good job photographing these cars with the Retina from about the same period. You've managed to compose these well while excluding stray humans (other than reflected ones). At car shows it can be challenging to balance those two competing priorities.<br> There's something just photographically irresistible about a Bel Air fin, isn't there? A few years ago, I made a picture that is almost exactly the mirror image of your first one<em>. </em>(By mirror image, I mean the fin on the other side of the car, obviously not a vertically inverted Bel Air! I was about to write, "on the passenger side of the car," but then remembered how many readers we have here from right-hand drive countries, so that wasn't going to be helpful.)<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>Good work with a great lens, Tony. I bet you'll want to stop underusing that Tak now. Indeed the 85s seem to be the expensive point in many manufacturers' line-ups, these days costing USD 300 to 400, while two-digit dollar figures can get you a 28, a 35 (if not unusually fast), a 50 other than f/1.2, or a 135/3.5. After much deliberation, I went with an 85 in my Minolta collection rather than my M42 Pentax stable, but it was a close call. I hope I won't regret it later as regards adaptability.</p> <p>It's a good job you didn't go out that day with a 28 mm as your one lens and try to make that Flames picture; you'd have melted some kit and/or yourself.</p> <p><em>--Dave</em></p>

<p><strong>Rick</strong>, funny you should mention the Beautycord. My better half has me looking for a user Beautyxxxx TLR of almost any kind, because she's afraid to take out my "expensive" Rolleiflex (a user 2.8E -- reasonably valuable, but not like say a late-model 2.8GX) <em>and </em>she finds the Beautyxxxx names to be appealingly fun for a girl camera. Corny, I say, but if it will get a TLR into her hand, I'm out there looking for one. I'm not sure the Beauty<em>flex </em>gets me Tomioka glass, or whether that's only on the Beauty<em>cord</em>, but I suspect either one will be reasonably competent, for a fair price, like most Japanese TLRs of the time.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>

<p>"Tri-Lausar" doesn't bring to mind "lousy" for me; I think "three-time loser." But either way, it's right up there among daft lens names with "Lentar" (think: "slow" as in French <em>lent</em>, Spanish <em>lento</em>, etc.) and "Cassar" (think: "broken" as in French <em>casser</em><em>, </em>to break).<br> Anyway, the Tri-Lausar actually looks like a winner based on your pictures, at least among lenses of that simplicity and on a camera that had, I'm guessing, only a two-figure £ price tag.<br> <em>--Dave</em></p>