OFFICIAL I HAVE A NEW (FILM RELATED) TOY THREAD!!

My daughter bought me a Kodak #1A Autographic camera which she saw in a charity shop and it is in VGC for a circa 90 year old camera. It seems light tight and the shutter "sounds" OK, perhaps a bit slow at 1/100 but I haven't yet bothered to dig out the gear to perform more accurate tests. Anyway the sticking point has been that it takes 116 film and adaptors for 116 to 120 seem to be out of stock. So today I finally got around to digging out my long neglected lathe from the back of the shed and making some spacers.

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I refurbished one of those cameras ( or one very similar) yonks ago Chris( c.2010 maybe)…… you may recall the thread showing the treatment of the body and re attachment of the leatherette .

Not having the tools nor the skills like yourself, I resorted to plastic rawlplugs to space the film spools.
It worked though!

Iirc the framing in the viewer was practically square for the original format so I masked it to make composing easier with the narrower 120 film.
 
I wasn't on here in 2010 so missed that thread, I've made the 120 mask full width for some pano's, could be interesting :)
 
My new (to me) Hasselblad 150mm CFi Sonnar will be with me tomorrow.

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Just picked up a Voigtlander Vito viewfinder camera. Lovely little thing and I plan to set myself a Project on a Theme. If it works out, I'll be shaming the local town councils by August/September this year.
 
Pedaldog said:
Just picked up a Voigtlander Vito viewfinder camera. Lovely little thing and I plan to set myself a Project on a Theme. If it works out, I'll be shaming the local town councils by August/September this year.
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Nice, someone gave me one last year, or may be the year before, if yours is the same the exposure setting took a bit of getting used to.

And welcome to Talk Photography Stephen (y)
 
I have my Dad's Vito I which he bought in 1950 secondhand. I also have all his negatives and slides taken with it. I don't use this particular camera as I have a Vito II for everyday use. Cracking cameras capable of top class results. Here is the Vito I.

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Couldn't resist again. Front right hand side, a Tamron SP 500mm macro mirror lens. For comparison the 500mm and humungous 1000mm MTO lenses. The Tamron musty be about a fifth of the weight of the corresponding MTO and sits nicely on my EOS 3 as well as another Canon which uses a completely different method of recording images. The lens is so light it doesn't have a tripod screw. I've only tested it digitally so far, looks like it performs really well. It's a more complex optical design than the MTO lenses but works on the same principle.

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RaglanSurf said:
Wow, it's amazing what you can find in a cardboard box.
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Came across it on fleabay ! ;)

Not often complete set ups come along like that and definetly not in such condition. :)

The only bit that is missing is the rear lens cap for the wide angle adapter but as the two adapters live in their dedicated leather case, it’s a minor detail.

I may consider a nice strap to attach to the camera so open to suggestions/ recommendations.

Just took the recently purchased roll of 120 FP4 out of the fridge ( the 35mm roll will have to wait its turn) ……. I’ll have to read the destructions as it’s been an age since I loaded any small format camera.
I can anticipate several exposure errors using such a complicated device ( compared to a LF outfit !)
:p
 
Plastic Pentax cameras arrive now and then. I like them (even better if they work).

But better than other recent arrivals, from the 60's, a 120 roll film Agfa Isoly III. It uses 120 film (rather wastefully) to produce 16 4x4 negatives on a roll. The odd choice of frame size has something to do with the "super slides" of the day, I read. It's in lovely condition, but rather than commit a roll of film to its initial test, I made a 35mm adapter and ran a half dozen frames through it in the back yard. It will be great fun, and perhaps it will stay with 35mm film for a while.

Isoly.jpg

Edit: 35mm film exposed over the sprocket holes is a novelty, but the film has a slight curl across its width giving out of focus strips at the long edge.. So, fun but limited. It exposed well over a few speeds and gives sharp enough images. I've ordered a few rolls of film to play with, so my GAS may expand to 120 cameras.
 
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And, perhaps unusually in F&C, at the cutting edge of technology.
 
New Hasselblad lens added to the arsenal, will be heading to Jeff at Classic V for a CLA.
 

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PC35AF! Had one as a kid (still have it but it's dead) and I've been looking for one for a while. Took a few tries, but this one seems to work and I got it for a good price. I'm not much of a P&S shooter, but even when I started SLRing, the PC35AF always went along and I got a lot of good pictures with it. Really happy to have one again!!!

Aaron
 
New (well newly working). Picked this Canon AL-1 up about 9 years ago at a car boot. It has spent all but one day of that time in my "Oh well, that was a waste of money" box as it would not turn on ! Was looking in the box yesterday for a spare part and decided to load batteries, still no joy, turned selector to self timer it gave 3 flashes of the LED and worked! It must have been waiting all that time. The Canon AL-1 produced in 1982 is a manual focusing SLR with a focus aid showing two red LEDs telling you which way to turn focus ring and a green one when you have hit focus. It uses three distance CCD sensors as later used by autofocus SLRs behind the strangest looking SLR mirror that has patterned part silvering that you can see through lens in bottom right of photo.


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dmb said:
New (well newly working). Picked this Canon AL-1 up about 9 years ago at a car boot. It has spent all but one day of that time in my "Oh well, that was a waste of money" box as it would not turn on ! Was looking in the box yesterday for a spare part and decided to load batteries, still no joy, turned selector to self timer it gave 3 flashes of the LED and worked! It must have been waiting all that time. The Canon AL-1 produced in 1982 is a manual focusing SLR with a focus aid showing two red LEDs telling you which way to turn focus ring and a green one when you have hit focus. It uses three distance CCD sensors as later used by autofocus SLRs behind the strangest looking SLR mirror that has patterned part silvering that you can see through lens in bottom right of photo.


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I love my AL-1 . The focus confirmation is becoming useful as my eyesight deteriorates with age.
 
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An acquaintance today dropped in a Pentax P30 with a Pentax SMC A 50/1.7 lens for me, in an original Pentax case, in beautiful condition. New batteries in, and once I'd worked out it had an on-off switch, the meter sprang into life. Can't work out how the little LED thingies work, though; they seem to show the selected shutter speed and other arbitrary speeds, sometimes flashing! Also, it has a Program mode (eek) on the shutter speed dial, but it won't turn to that position. Will need a read of the manual, I guess!

He also dropped in a Zenit EM, with a... OMG just realised, Helios 44M 58/2! The wind lever on this seems to have about a 270 degrees throw! He demonstrated a really weird rewind spindle that appears out of nowhere. Feels like it would compete with the RB67 in the boat-anchor stakes...
 
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@ChrisR I was glad my P30 came with a manual :-) normally I'd point you to butkus.org but he only has one for the P30t which is not quite the same. Will take a look at mine. Watch out carrying the Zenith in public spaces as could count as an offensive weapon, like carrying a brick.

Edit.

The shutter speed dial does not turn to Program, that mode is set by putting lens aperture to A setting. The camera then ignores the set shutter speed and shows what speed it chooses and sets the aperture. When you take lens off A or use a non A lens then viewfinder displays M and you set shutter speed and aperture. The correct shutter speed for the aperture is steady what you have set on dial blinks you change shutter speed or aperture until you get one steady number.

Found an online manual https://simonhawketts.co.uk/manual/pentax-p30-35mm-camera-manual/
 
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Thanks David.
 
Autonerd said:
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PC35AF! Had one as a kid (still have it but it's dead) and I've been looking for one for a while. Took a few tries, but this one seems to work and I got it for a good price. I'm not much of a P&S shooter, but even when I started SLRing, the PC35AF always went along and I got a lot of good pictures with it. Really happy to have one again!!!

Aaron
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Ha - my first ever proper camera!!
 
Just received this from FILTR film - a lovely Fujica STX-1. I wanted a 70s style SLR and as a Fuji user seemed perfect. 50mm 1.9 lens. In pretty much mint condition.

Great to deal with - nice website and everything all great!

IMG_0775 by Simon Owens, on Flickr
 
dmb said:
The shutter speed dial does not turn to Program, that mode is set by putting lens aperture to A setting. The camera then ignores the set shutter speed and shows what speed it chooses and sets the aperture. When you take lens off A or use a non A lens then viewfinder displays M and you set shutter speed and aperture. The correct shutter speed for the aperture is steady what you have set on dial blinks you change shutter speed or aperture until you get one steady number.

Found an online manual https://simonhawketts.co.uk/manual/pentax-p30-35mm-camera-manual/
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So I re-read the manual this evening, and loaded a KodaColor 200 film (most of my colour film other than the expensive stuff is expired, not so good if you can't set the ISO or exposure compensation!). I couldn't get the shutter to fire. Eventually after a lot of frustration I tried t'internet and found this: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums...x-p30-doesnt-release-shutter.html#post1604809

"Dont have P30, but do have P3n bought new long time ago and a P5 bought used not quite a year ago. P3n always been sweet to me.
P5 is a little "fuss budget",meter wont come up on half press.
Just press exposure lock(twice) and I get whats needed."

Not much of a hint, but I tried pressing the "Memory Lock" (ML) button, which is for exposure locking, and this time the shutter did fire. Also fires in Program mode now. Not sure what was going on!

My idea is to shoot this test film in Program mode, though I guess I might take some shots in manual. We'll see.
 
ChrisR said:
[My friend] also dropped in a Zenit EM, with a... OMG just realised, Helios 44M 58/2! The wind lever on this seems to have about a 270 degrees throw! He demonstrated a really weird rewind spindle that appears out of nowhere. Feels like it would compete with the RB67 in the boat-anchor stakes...
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I was a bit daunted by this camera, but the very next day an extended review appeared on KosmoFoto: https://kosmofoto.com/2022/03/zenit-em-review/ . Helps to explain a lot about the camera. Slightly annoying comment policy, though; I left a comment on the co-incidence and thanking the author, appears to have been moderated away!

I also found a video on the tube site about all the (8!) variants of the Hellios 44m lens (not the 44M-4 etc). It appears I have the first production version, with 8 bladed iris. God, bad, indifferent, who knows?

I must admit I still feel little love for the Zenit EM, but even if I'm going to auction it off for Ukraine I really ought to run a test film through it, I suppose.
 
ChrisR said:
So I re-read the manual this evening,...
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What I didn't notice was that the two pages that deal with the Program mode (Auto exposure) were missing from that manual. I only found this when I was trying to work out how the camera chose whether to change shutter speed or aperture for a different exposure.

Quick search I found a PDF manual here: http://retro-camera.ru/files/Pentax-P30-Manual-EN.pdf . Yes, it's Russian, but getting a copy of the manual from there is OK, I figure.

Of course, the relevant two pages describing "Shooting in Programmed AE Mode", don't actually have the answer to my question!

I also realised this morning that I didn't follow my own advice to run through all the shutter speeds to try to listen for oddities, BEFORE loading the test film! Oh well.

Anyway, it's a nice, blue sky day, so off we go!
 
dmb said:
Just arrived, nicely chilled as was the postie ️

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So some film for the dark days of this year's Spring
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This reminds me that I forgot to post my recent toys .

A box of 12x16 multigrade FB paper
A couple of rolls of 120 rollei film for the yashica.
A replacement 1000ml grad for the 600ml that I dropped!
And some 16x20 developing trays so I can now have a play with this rather old pack of Agfa 16x20 paper that I have sat here.
Fingers crossed that it’s not fogged.
 
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