HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

So you can stay on top of who is in the lead!  heh.  http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Be safe and all that!

Score! Retina II and III Accessory viewfinder 35 / 80!

Yes.

I'm actually a bit excited about this wackiness!

Andy, http://www.flickr.com/photos/andychrome/ tipped me off to a pile of vintage Kodak camera parts at an antique mall that we both visit on occasion.  Turns out they had a bunch of hilarious, and mostly useless items. My eyebrow raised at a Kodak Retina Reflex, which was broken up pretty badly, and there were a bunch of plastic Pony cameras that were of no interest.

Then, underneath, in a large tin box...  I began digging through some of those old yellow boxes.  Hoods, series IV filters...  A really crazy Medalist macro back with pack film window and ground glass focuser.  That was weird.  I happened upon a perfect 135mm for reflex.  It was in the original bubble, and in the original yellow box.  It even had the instructions.  I started wishing I got into Retina reflex.  They only wanted $25 for it.  No, really!  There were original manuals for Retina IIIc, and others. Just got better and better.  Then I unearthed a little brown case with something really odd inside...

The Answerrrr.

The question, of course is, "How do you frame a shot with one of those horribly inconvenient alternative lenses that you attach to the Retina rangefinder?"  (Yah.  probably not that common a question.)

There are two mysterious lenses that come as accessories to the Retina.  One is an 80mm telephoto, and one is a wide angle 35mm.  The really weird part is that they aren't even entire lens systems.  The Retina II or III cameras allow you to unhook the front lens group with the turn of a small bayonet mount, and replace the front HALF of the lens with one of these specially designed alternative groups.  It might be pretty wacky, but it works a lot better than some horrible thing you screw on the front of a complete lens.  Weirder, you have to have adapter lenses of the correct manufacture.  A Schneider equipped Retina has a particular mount that will not allow a Rodenstock front group of any kind, and vice versa  Just that they were bizarre enough to design three front groups is pretty interesting.  That there is a set for each lens manufacturer, and that they are actually different...  I think these guys had a lot of spare time.  Of course, the alternative lenses probably don't perform as well as the native 50mm lens, but they do pretty amazingly well.  It is kinda wrong, really.

Problem is, if you install one of these weird lens fronts on a "small c" Retina, there is no way to know where the edge of the picture is!  The only frameline in the viewfinder is that of the regular 50mm lens.

Aside from looking gadgety, this accessory viewer gets the situation under control.  It has masks for 80 and 35mm that flip by a lever on top, and a knob at the back tilts the viewer downward for accurate framing at closer distances.  It also turns both ways with markings for feet in one direction and meters in the other.  Very cool!

Here it is with the 80mm Retina-Longar (goofy name!)

Just like the cameras, this viewer is made in Germany, and sports the same solid feel.  The vintage fabulous look doesn't hurt either.  Weird that I have never seen one before.

Wrong lens, idiot!  Now function follows form.

Would I look like too much of a moron if I left this thing on the camera permanently?

Kodak REALIST 3D camera from 1951

I don't have one of these anymore, but a friend, Tim Maupin, somehow gets a hold of this exceedingly odd Kodak camera, and we took a minute to figure it out.  It's actually a lot of fun.

1951 Kodak Realist 3D camera

Tim is a bit of a 3D enthusiast, or you could see him as just ahead of his time. 3D is moving in on society, and as there is increasing possibility of it becoming totally accepted as normal, he stands to be quite a bit ahead of us in figuring it all out.

Fascinating how he finds all the weird 3D related stuff that we might have overlooked.  Usually it has to do with futuristic technologies, like screens that allow you to watch 3D video with no glasses from anywhere in a room.  This time it happens to be something from the last time 3D attempted to take hold of our imaginations.


The Realist was designed for stereoviews.  If you don't have any, a stereoview is a standardized seven inch wide card that you load into a viewer, and observe as if you were watching the opera from the cheap seats..

Here's the wiki on all that nonsense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy

I do collect stereoviews, but don't hold it against me.

This sweet camera is horizontally rather symmetrical, and has five front lens openings, only two of which actually expose film.  The central lens gets mirrored down, and under the film area to a viewing port, and you frame your totally square picture through a tiny hole at the bottom of the back. It takes significant getting used to.

I think it is looking at you

Weirder yet, you focus through a secondary port, which splits BOTH ways to a wide pair of square rangefinder ports at the lower far corners of the camera front. Ususally in practice, at least one finger covers one or both ports, making focus impossible. Once you figure out a way to view without covering the rangefinder ports, focusing is extremely bright and easy, using a single focus dial at the upper corner of the camera. Works like a tiny Koni-Omega. Just as fast and easy

.. a what?

The koni (konica) omega was a press camera that is rather known for the huge focusing knob at the side of the camera.
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Koni-Omega
I digress...

I was kind of blown away at the block-of-steel feeling of the Realist, and the fact that all speeds, even the one second shutter speed worked perfectly. This one is an earlier model than the one I had, and it looks like earlier is clearly better when it comes to quality.  Feels like a Nikkormat, or a block of aluminum stock at the metal yard.  Very impressive.  It even has a flash shoe, cable release, bulb and T setting.

That the actual shutter speed dial is wrapped around the framing lens (the one in the middle,) now that's just bizarre. Why?  No idea.

I know you just saw this, but there's the shutter speed dial,

meaninglessly placed around the viewing lens.

Where does he find this stuff?!

Anyway, aside from their weirdo positions of things, and the weird brass clip the holds the film to the winder/counter sprocket wheel (more on this in a sec,) the camera is totally straightforward.

Yeah, Badassery firing button, and a real flash shoe.

Look! Square pictures! The shutters are linked as one, and the aperture and focus are synched, so one control does the same thing to both lenses.

You can see the viewing and framing ports at the bottom,

and the winder sprocket with the weird tab thing at the top.

The thing we totally spaced was that the film is supposed to go UNDER the little brass tab you can see at the top. I guesss this is so there is an absolute positive frame counting to make sure noting shoots over anything else. It actually spaces the first two pics alternating, and the third is a long wind to get out of the way of the used film.... if that makes any sense.  Without that correct, the camera just wound until you felt like stopping, reducing a full roll to about four wildly placed pics.  In focus?  not sure about that either as there is only one pressure plate for both pictures.  We shall see.

This camera is fifty eight years old and works absolutely perfectly. I wonder how many more of my point and shoot cameras will be long gone before this needs it's first service. how many more digitals will I have long tossed in the garbage before one makes a picture this good. A stereo picture this good...

I hope Tim gets some good use out of this. Very cool.

Wordling instead of the task at hand

Not the most exciting day, but...

Somehow, I wound up at Wordle, and did one of thos blog:


Looks like it says camera, light, and lens a lot. Not that I have a new magic photocontraption today. Well, I do, but the post is not ready, so you'll just have to wait.

It's too early for this stuff anyway.

Here's a link to Wordle.net, just in case you are as uninspired as I am this morning. Hey, it's kind of interesting!

People just don't get it all over again.

I must preface that I have nothing against lomography, or the amazing job they have done bringing creative and fun materials to milions of photographers.

So, with that said, I don't think people are getting it.

The other day, the web went ablaze with the latest Lomography antic: adapter lenses that allow you to attach a Holga or Diana lens to the front of a Canon or Nikon SLR or DSLR camera.

People are understandingly going bonkers over this, but they really aren't getting that this is going to be the pancake of photography.

Once again, allow me to explain...

The pancake (mmmmmm, the pancake) sounds glorious BEFORE you indulge in it. During the munching procedure, It still seems like the greatest idea, it is the honeymoon after all... but there is something sinister going on. Little do you now that one tiny pancake is the correct quantity and as you gulp down pounds of delicious pancake, you head towards the inevitable.

An hour later you are miserable and let down.

I feel this is the exact thing that will happen to all of these uninformed people that buy these holga/diana lens adapters.

Parting you with your money is great, but let's talk for a minute in YOUR favor.

There is a plastic mask in the holga camera. you know all about this. the mask makes the image smaller, so you can shoot 16 frames at 645 instead of 12 square pictures at a full 6x6. In the new Diana cameras, there is a superslide sized plastic mask that allows you to shoot 16 smaler frames at say, 44x44 or so. Most of you may not know what the hell superslide is in the first place, but who cares about that.

The point is that to get a mysterious, dreamy, gorgeous Holga/diana image, the first thing you do is TEAR THAT DAMN THING OUT, and use the entire frame. This makes use of the entire image area, including the horribly vignetted corners and the radially blurred magic that people associate with the term LOMO, DIANA, ad HOLGA.

A 35mm camera has a tiny frame, not even close to including the glorious edges that darket to direct your attention into the image as the great painters did. Most DSLRs, including the delicious new Canon 7d have even smaller sensors, the size of the APS cameras you throw in the trash today because they suck. These cameras don't suck like those APScameras did, but the image area is so small, you will only get the center of the frame. No cool vignetting. No dreamy image corners. All you will get is a high flare, and plainly unsharp picture.

Pretty lame.

It would be better to use ACTUAL creativity ad make up a weird bokeh filter with sharpie, cardboard, and vaseline the way they did in the 1930s. Come on people. Get a grip.

The again, I have noting against rampant consumerism. Carry on in full ignorance.

ghetto auto collimator explanified better

Thought I'd elaborate on this ghetto auto collimator thing from the other day, but then I could just repost some old material on it here. Hope this works, and I hope you get a laugh out of it all.

Here goes...

Ghettocollimator? I was sitting here, with a couple of cameras, dreaming of my autocollimator, when I got this crazy Macgyver idea. I figured, a collimator just shines an infinitely far away image into a camera, and if the camera is correctly focused to infinity, the picture would look good on the film. The secret is that the film image would then be visible if you could look in there with another camera focused to infinity. With a half silvered mirror, you can have the camera and the light source on the same axis. Sounds weird, but it works. Well, I didn't have any of that crap, but there were a few slide projectors, and a magically appearing half silvered mirror floating about. Here is the completed contraption. I must say, it works very well! This nonsense is obviously unnecessarily complicated as the mirror is in front of the viewer lens, thus making two optical sysyems necessary, (one for the projector, and another one for viewing) but hey. I only had a half hour to spare, and wanted to know exactly how well calibrated several cameras were. To reduce flare, A piece of black foam core with a hole punched in it keeps the light going only where it makes an image on the film. It hepled out quite a bit. Should be pretty obvious from here. the projected image (on left) passes through the mirror, and goes into the bessa in question (on right.) Since the lens on the projector is set to make an image at infinity, the bessa lens, set to infinity, should bring the image into sharp focus on the film. The viewing camera (on the bottom) uses the half silvered mirror to look into the camera and see the film. Since that lens is also focused to infinity, you can see right in there and know exactly how good your camera really is. Turns out, this old Voigtlander Bessa 6x9 is really sharp! ... and horribly out of line. Since you are viewing an actual image on a real live piece of film, this takes into account all sorts of things like film flatness. you can even wind the film live to make sure it all stays lined up. The longer the viewing lens, the greater the magnification obviously. with a 400mm on the viewing camera, you can on ly see the a very small part of the original slide for extreme pickiness! It's really fun to watch the image distort as you bend around the camera rails, and turn sharp when the lens says something other than infinity. You can reset focus dials with perfect precision, recollimate lenses, see all sorts of stuff, and find out the real effect, or lack thereof, that features and filters have on the final image. Turns out that of all cameras tested, this Bessa 6x9 is the only one that really needs mechanical help. I had no idea the lens was so sharp. Perhaps it might be worth a little work. Here is looking into the viewfinder of the "viewing" camera, which is some sort of screwmount Vivitar thing that was laying about. That is the actual image projected on the film inside the Bessa, as looked at right in there through the bessa's lens. The magnification is rather high, so you are looking closely at a tiny piece of the image in the middle of the film. Simply rotating the camera, you can view the corners of the image to see how the camera performs at different apertures. Yea, it's stupid, but it just takes too long to build a real autocollimator. Perhaps that will be the topic when there is a full hour or two for this insanity.

Nutty. I was really bored though. Hey.

and then there was the footcandle meter.

and so the footcandle meter and it's mysterious footcandles...

Yeah... I dunno.

This very cool old foot-candle meter was in Andy's stuff. He got it in a trade or something... maybe a pile of stuff from a relative. It has two ranges, actuated with a side mounted switch, and runs on solar power, like it should. No need for batteries.. ever.

Anyway, it works, and works well! There's something satisfying about an old needle meter that is accurate, especially if it is encased in stale gray bakelite, or brittle plastics of the past.

Oh yeah, about these mysterious foot-candles:

First off, to make sure we are all totally confused here: 1 footcandle = 10.76391 lux, and none of this has much to do with the brightness of a lightbulb.

Allow me to explain.

A foot candle is a measure of "illuminance." Notice I didn't say "Luminance." It's a measure of the light that is hitting something. Namely, your subject. It doesn't measure how powerful a lightbulb is, because as you get the subjet farther away from the light source, less light is hitting the subject. the "illuminance" decreases. The subject is less "illuminated." Not that they are getting any dumber or anything. It's all about the destination, and not anything about whatever source of light. Get it? You can't possibly say that this new flashlight puts out ten foot candles right?

That makes this meter useful for photography, lighting design... all sorts of things becasue we are all taking pictures of stuff, not the lights that light it.

So, how much light is a "foot candle" and how can that be converted to something useful that has nothing to do with people's feet?

The original idea was that one foot-candle was the amount of light that would hit the inside of a one foot radius sphere if, yes, there was a one candela source of light (basically a candle,) in the middle. No, really. a two foot diameter beach ball with a candle in the middle? Anywhere on the inside of the beach ball would be one foot-candle of light. Pretty simple.

Whatever.

So it's the amount of light that hits a surface. So you could get one "foot candle" of light with one candle a foot away from you, or, say four candles two feet away. or sixteen candles four feet away. Sixteen candles. heh. Remember two things:

ONE, we are measuring the light hitting the subject, not the amount that a candle can make in total or anything weird like that.

TWO, as with anything, inverse square law applies. Maybe I'll further digress with a quick diagram.

See? It's all about the "density" of the light.
Twice as far is the same light covering twice the height and twice the width, so you get a quarter candle per foot at twice the distance. Inverse square law!

Sorry about being redundant, off the subject and and referring to ridiculous movies, but this is MY blog so I can cry if I want to.

There's a metric equivalent to all this that's in meters and all that. It's called LUX. Much sexier name, and being metric, pretty much obsoletes foot-candles, although people still use foot-candles on things here in the US.

They are measuring the same thing, so one footcandle is simply 10.764 lux. When I worked in lighting, we just multiplied by ten and that was close enough.

Oh, and blasting sunshine is about 10,000 foot-candles anywhere here on earth.

What about camera settings?

Assuming 100 speed film or setting on your digicam nonsense:

10,000 FC(foot-candles) should be almost f/16 at a 250th of a second.

100 FC would be what? 250th at f/1.4 or so.

1 foot candle is about f/2.0 at a one second exposure.

maybe a chart later.

You can figure it out. Either that or get a hold of me and I'll scorn you for not having it figured out.

This is nuts. I'm going to bed.

Argus C4 Brick.

Argus brick.


Ah, the much maligned Argus C3 "Brick."

This is a camera nobody cares about. But they should. It is totaly fascinating. Kind of like an ice cream sandwich except the ice cream filling is a block of bakelite, and the chocolate part is nickel plated cast metal. You will never have a better opportunity to shoot with a pair of Buick bumpers smashed into an old telephone.

On top of that, most come in some sort of stale leather case like this:

These cases seem to be random in design I have personally endured at least four of these nonsensical contraptions, and seen quite a few more. Weird.

About half of the cases round out the edges to make a sort of leica III facade.

The lens, Argus Cintar 50mm, is disappointingly excellent. I mean, really. The pictures look great. The pictures are sharp, and the only thing "cool" that happens is some nice vignetting wide open. Focusing, however, is I guess what you would call pretty exciting, and not really in a good way.

Then there is the inside story.

Leaf Shutter behind the lens.

The Leaf shutter is weirdly BEHIND the lens, allowing you to exchange the lens with a telephoto called the "Sandmar." The only thing I have figured out about this "Sandmar"lens is that it is probably even more inconvenient than the telephoto "Longar" adapter lens for the Kodak Retinas.

Top surface control area, where you can't see the horrible viewfinding experience. Around the shutter reease, you can turn a small collar to "B" for bulb operation, or "I" for "instant" exposure. The actual shutter speed control is on the front, and goes from about a 10th of a second to what they say is a 300th.


To wind, you twist the knob, hear the counter sprocket tearing through the film holes, scream, and press the release knob. Then repeat... minus the screaming and tearing part. You only repeat that part the next time you need to wind.

The other problem is that you have to remember if you wound the shutter first, or wound the film. ... or if you remembered to do any of these things at all.

Another weird problem is that your finger may be next to the shutter winding mechanism... yes, from winding it. Yes, and if it is still there, the lever will keep the shutter open indefinitely until you get your butterfingers out of the way. Really weird, and it happens more than people think. You finger just lands in the way naturally. After all, you are holding a brick.


There is a good part to the experience though. The best part is that you can get some nail polish remover and do this:

(chrome brick)


The argus brick. Going price... about fifteen bucks.

Busch Pressman Model "D" 4x5 Camera

So, suitably horrible pictures of a magnificent photographic piece of machinery.

This is the 4x5 Busch Pressman Model "D"

Busch Pressman Model "D"

I'd guess the most familiar contemporary to this camera is the Graflex 4x5 press camera. The first thing you might notice that is different with this thing is the raw density. The camera is made of aluminum, and closes into a tough clamshell that is significantly smaller and heavier than a Graflex. It is significantly lighter than any 4x5 linhof Technika, and lacks some of the insane flexibility, but it does feel good and tough.

I am under the impression that it comes with the same fabulously underrated Wollensak Optar 135mm f/4.5 lens as standard. could be wrong though. Mine came with a 150mm Dagor. No complaints there, except that at f/6.3 wide open with some vignetting, the viewing was almost unusably dim.

The camera has mostly machined aluminum parts istead of the stamped sheet steel components of the Graflex. It seems this was a bit of a luxury alternative to the standard. Also, the front standard has rise, fall, a bit of shift, and swings forward as well as backward, which is a glaring omission from the Speed Graphics. Not that they were ever intended for landscape.

This is not a perfect competitior though. The front standard is centered by threading a pointed post upward, holding it vertical. This isn't a precision operation, and I have had more than a few "uncertain of parallelism" moments with wide lenses that ended in the top and bottom of the picture out of focus. Sometimes in the real world there just isn't time to coddle the camera.

It does have a front drop bed for super wide lenses though, and the rails are connected to the chunks of focusing rain in the body, so there is no way you can have the front standard fly off the camera is some mysterious and horrible way.

The bellows can certainly reach a 210mm lens, and maybe a 240, but long lenses are not the speciality, and there is no extension available. Even on a 240, a telephoto is a worthwhile consideration. From my experience, 300mm is pretty much out of the story, as are anything wider than 90mm or so. I'll bet 75mm is okay with the bed lowered, but there are far better cameras for the wild lenses. I think this camera, being foldable into a nuke-proof lunch box, is best used with a normal lens, a meter, and a couple of holders anyway.

The star of the show has to do with the film side though. Although the Busch Pressman D doesn't have any rear movements, it does have a fabulous, machined aliuminum rotating back.

Rotating back locks in position


In all, it's a pretty awesome little presscamera, and I have used mine on a few continents with mostly satisfactory results. The balance between surprising ruggedness, and some minimal viewcamera flexibility are not optimal for me, but might be just the thing for you.

Now there's the question of finding one. The Busch pressman is not uncommon, but doesn't usually show up just when you need one.

Majestic "Bencher" Tripod gear head. Why not go all out?

So,

Struggling for support... and there it was:


The Majestic "Bencher" Tripod studio head. Crank it! Crank it!

I just think the world should know about an inappropriate stigma attached to these giant tripod heads. I bought this one to support an 8x10 camera that made regular tripods feel like they were made of jello. With the "Bencher," things became instantly rock solid. Compared with more fashionable alternatives, the price is good too.

The one thing that people don't seem to know is that these heads are quite reasonable in weight, and only have a mild possibility of maiming a helpless bystander. This is all relative, mind you.

I used this thing outside of the safety of the studio for years, and it was great with the 8x10, various 4x5s, and especially the Pentax 6x7s. The crank adjustment is particularly fun. Makes you feel like a machinist, and makes fine vertical adjustments weirdly satisfying. There is always a supply of them, so you can sell yours if you need the space, and not worry about being able to get another one.

Only thing to watch out for, apparently, is when the gears get worn, and some play appears, like the steering box of a 1970s Camaro. I can't imagine what camera could do that though, and being that this thing appears to be bigger AND more rugged than a detroit steering box... Hard to imagine in any case. Maybe that's just a rumor.

Worth a try.

Next week blatherings about a lesser known, but surprisingly magnificent 4x5 press camera. Oh, joy!

Ghetto autocollimator. Say that ten times fast.

Ghetto autocollimator. Say that ten times fast.

I had some projetors and junk laying about and couldn't get a hold of my autocollimator. This works great!

The image comes out of the projector carefully focused to infinity. if the lens is correct, it focuses the infinity image to the film. Being illuminated, you can look in the camera, and see the image on the film using the viewing camera and half silvered mirror in the middle.

Yes. That really is a piece of toilet paper tube.

Yes. that is supposed to be funny.