kmac

Same Franka Rolfix II folder, same expired color neg film, home processed Airshow display

Trying out the Franka Rolfix II rangefinder model. Expired color neg film, home processed. "V" tree

In my opinion the photo was doctored, because by the time the second bullet whizzed past, Mr Trump's right hand was just about to his ear. The third bullet, he was crouching down almost hidden behind the "Trump" pulpit. Slowing the video down to 0.25, gives a slow motion view of it all panning out, with the cracking sounds of all the bullets. Mr Trump's bodily movements can be matched against the sounds of each bullet. The photo doesn't match the video. Again, I will disregard this supposedly "iconic" photo, I believe it's unauthentic, and favor Vucci's brilliantly captured shot instead, albeit going down in political annals because of the nature of the rally event.

We need to tread carefully about the published visuals of the shooting incident. Mr Trump had both his hands on the pulpit when the bullet pieced his ear. But if you view Doug Mill's photo of the bullet flash, Mr Trump's right hand is up off the pulpit in one of his typical hand gestures when speaking to rally goers. How can you have your hand in two places at exactly the same time, in the microsecond the bullet hit his ear ? Also, in Mill's photo, there are no rally goers in the background. It does appear that his camera was angled up more than the YouTube camera, but some rally goers directly opposite the pulpit would still appear in the shot, not just complete blue sky as we see everywhere in Mill's shot. Given that the rally goers were cut out of the image, so too would the alleged bullet flash, if it was ever there in the first place. How did it get into Mill's shot, photoshopped possibly ? View Mr Trump's both hands on the pulpit when his ear was pieced. This link to Mill's edited photo shows Mr Trump's right hand off the pulpit as the bullet struck https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/14/politics/video/doug-mills-trump-rally-photo-src-digvid

Interests in cameras can be transient, for me at least. I went from SLRs, to interchangeable lens rangefinders, to point & shoots, and now to folders. Folders have retained my interest for quite a while, longer than the others, It's the "antiquity" in me I guess. With anything collectable, I naturally gravitate towards the "beginning stages" of engineered contraptions and their early history, and I like to study the scientific principles that make them work. Folders take up a great deal of space in my abode, and I'm running out of room to store new acquisitions. I'm easing up buying more. So I have some extra free time to post about various folders, making use of P/net's "Folding Cameras" board, for future readers who may have folders or who are interested in them, to acquire info about bellows cameras, it's the future I'm thinking about when I start a thread about folders. In the past, I have been one of those readers myself, and appreciate Photonet archiving old topics. Folders will last forever properly taken care of, the bellows themselves being the major consideration, they need special tender loving care. However, many folders have good long lasting bellows, old Kodaks' with red bellows, the Zeiss Ikonta folders, and most other folders made in Germany. So far, I've found that Japanese folders have bellows of lesser quality, they are thin and cheap looking second hand, they have bumps in them and can tear easily. Quite often I've had to change them to something better, usually with German bellows from parts camera. I'll post about other folders over time. One in particular is Zeiss's 530/15, a giant of a camera among other Zeiss folders. It takes 70mm film, but before taking pics, I need to manually roll some moderately expired color neg film from a bulk roll. The camera is in perfect working order, like it was bought new yesterday, I really am bamboozled how this camera, made in 1936, could remain in it's "new" condition for 88 years. It came with nothing else save for it's reduction mask, no case, no box, only just the camera and mask.

I enjoyed your thread about the Agifold John, but I'm still bewildered why the viewfinder is so far forward on the top plate. Could you see much through it, I mean the whole compositional frame? The Dacora Royal has a problem as well, the viewfinder peep hole is squinty small. In bright sunlight it's not too bad, but then again, I wear glasses, so any camera is a little difficult for me. The only other folder I have with auto shutter cocking is a Mamiya 6 Automat, which I haven't used yet, it's minty and I've been reluctant to take the risk of accidentally knocking it about. I will however take it out, well safe guarded, and run a film through it after which I'll post about it, with images. A little more info about the Dacora Royal is that it was produced in 1955, which is a bit sketchy because there's not a lot about it on the internet. It has a sufficiently contrasty rangefinder patch, strengthened side struts to minimize twisting, and the camera is almost as light as a feather, 506 grams. Compare that with the Zeiss 6x6 532/16, it's a whopping 979 grams, or the Mamiya 6 Automat at 846 grams. I weighed them on my kitchen digital scales just now. So the Royal will expend little energy lugging it around.

There's some suspicion about the bullet's trajectory now because it seems it was too low to have passed through the right ear, according to a guy on a site who analyzed the projectile's vapor trail. He explained the low trajectory away by saying it could have been one of the other bullets. (There is a problem with that though, the other bullets missed, and as a consequence, would have left no blood or soft tissue as a visible trail.) He also explained the length of the "vapor" trail. He said it corresponded to the length of time the shutter was opened. Obviously just for that one frame, of the series of frames. There are anomalies appearing about the image. So I'll now treat my analysis in my previous post as a hypothetical in terms of simple physics. A projectile passing through soft tissue and blood, at very high speed, will raise their temperatures with a tendency to vaporize them, forming a gaseous substance that gets caught up in the partial vacuum behind the fast moving projectile, and will form a vapor trail. I'll now admire Vucci's photo as the more authentic image, what a great shot it is, something he must be really proud of.

There is a thread already in Photonet (2003) about the Dacora Royal, however it is very brief and I wish to post a more detailed description of this light weight, easily handled camera, easy once the lever advance is mastered. I bought the camera believing that one stroke of the lever, as well as cocking the shutter, also indexed the image frames, but that wasn't the case. The lever cocks the shutter at the very end of it's stroke, and it pulls the film through at the same time, but not to the next frame number. The lever must be continually rotated to bring the next frame number to view in the red window at the back of the camera. The cocking mechanism is quite ingenious, a lot of thought must have gone into it. It starts out with rotation of the winding lever spindle, which actuates an intermediate pressed metal bar, rotating on it's axis, and finally this bar pushes on a pivoting quadrant, which has a pin on it pressing against the shutter's cocking lever. As the quadrant moves across, it takes the cocking lever with it. When cocking the shutter, the resistance on the film winding lever, at the end of it's stroke, is considerable. A new owner would be forgiven if the winding lever was thought to be at the end of it's stroke when that resistance was first felt. If the shutter cocking is missed, there is ample chance to cock the shutter before the next frame number appears in the red window, but it must be done before then, otherwise a frame is lost. The Dacora Royal has an uncoupled rangefinder, worked by a dial wheel as seen just in front of the winding lever handle, which is notched so the distance numbers on the dial can be more easily viewed, and of course, the readings are manually transferred to the front cell of the lens. Double exposures are possible if the thin cocking lever can be pushed over to cock the shutter using a tooth pick or similar, it's quite easy to push over. The shutter button is fairly smooth to press, it's a nice action that doesn't cause any camera shake. There is also a self-timer for getting in your own picture, which I often do, or for eliminating camera shake while the camera is on a tripod and a cable release may not be available at the time. Two recent pics from this rather well kept 6x6 Dacora Royal, home processed I should mention the Royal has a three element Dignar coated lens. Shutter has top speed 200 and f4.5 to f16

What we see in the photo would be a blood stream, the bullet was probably long gone. That vaporized blood perhaps hung around for a split second before it dispersed, plenty of time for the camera to capture it.

Well not so hot AJ, warm water is sufficient. My Paterson plastic reels have remained snow white over the decades with just cold water, provided they were dunked in water straight after the film is removed from the reel, which applies to the tank and other bits and pieces also.

Keep trying. It looks like a multi-start thread and the lens must be perfectly square to it's mating thread to get it started. If you get a white felt pen, you could mark the beginning of each thread on both parts, so you can clearly see the marks, and persist with trying to start threading the lens in by matching the white marks first. But it's imperative that the lens is kept absolutely square to it's mating thread.

Hi bliorg, I only just spotted this thread, I've been catching up reading later threads and missed this one. I guess by now you have figured out how to lock that focus ring, but I'll explain the whole procedure for future readers who may have Wester coupled rangefinder folders. There's also other brands with the same helicoil as the Westers. The same will apply to those cameras as well. Yes, the three screws seen in your video are the locking screws for the slipping focus ring. The screws are tightened once the focus ring is correctly positioned in relation to the "stop" pin, which is in the curved groove. Each end of the groove must hit the pin as the focus ring is rotated, first one way, and then the other way, then the three small screws are tightened moderately, so as not to strip or break them. When both ends of the groove are hitting the pin, the two infinity marks on the focus scale should automatically line up. If they don't line up with each other, a further fine adjustment of the focus ring will be necessary because one end of the curved groove will be hitting the pin too early, and other end of the groove will be stopping just shy of the pin. There is another stop in the rear of the helicoil and it acts in unison with the stop pin in the curved groove. The one at the rear is fixed, so the only way to get the two infinity marks to line up, is to ensure that the focus ring is properly adjusted with the two ends of the groove hitting their stop pin. It's a good idea to apply grease to the helicoil before doing this procedure, get the adjustment done while grease is in there, eliminating any discrepancies that might occur if the grease is applied later. The helicoil absorbs mountains of grease, applying it never seems to end, it just disappears in there and you wonder where it's all going. Eventually there's an excess at the ends of the helicoil that can be either left there or poked out with a toothpick. Wear in these helicoils can be a good indicator of how much the camera was used and whether the original owner used infinity mostly, or other focus settings consistently. One Wester I have, the focus ring was easy to rotate from infinity to 30ft on the focus scale, and firm for the rest of the way. Whoever it was, was doing long distance shots for most of the cameras life, such was the wear in the helicoil.

Good luck with the test. Hold the camera firmly when pressing the shutter button, and anticipate light leaks just in case there may be some.

This is interesting for me because I've never had reason to disassemble my circular polarizer filters, all six of them are clean and therefore no thoughts of investigating how to pull them apart. I have though, just now, checked them out to see what would be required to get one glass removed to clean the interior surfaces from each of the filters. Four of them have screwed rings holding the front glass in, and two have a circlip. In each case it would be easy to accidentally scratch the glass, so extreme care is needed. For the screwed rings, only a lens spanner is required, tightly locked up so the legs remain solidly in place. For the circlip type, I'd use a fine point tool to prise one end of the circlip out hoping I could get the clip to continue coming out all the way. It's very risky whichever way you look at it, but as long as the glass doesn't get damaged, that's all that matters.

If you could make a new metal base with the two screw holes, you could then glue the handle to it using 36 hour Araldite.