Some things I have been working on

The other day I was reminded of an item that I bought some time ago.  It is a thing that attaches to the filter part of a lens and it lets me take a picture of a slide or negative.  I don't remember when or why I bought it.  Although it must have been some time ago since I have had a scanner for slides and negative for a long time.  Anyway I decided to take another look at it.

This one is from an Ektachrome slide from around 1975.  I used a standard Canon 50mm to mount the slide copier.  This is the first one that I have processed from the slides that I copied and I am satisfied with the result.  As I get time I plan to experiment with this thing a little more. I may do a longer post when I have more results.

I also have been working some on doing a post about the Canon 24mm f/2.8 lens.  I was struck by this image.  When I finished working on it I was thinking that I would probably have to use some kind of hdr technique to get such a result in digital.  The film was Legacy Pro 100 stand developed in Rodinal.

Some Black & White Images

Taken with an Argus A-Four on Arista.edu Premium 400.  I got this camera a while back mostly because it is an Argus and I like the name A-Four.  If you want to know more about the Argus A-Four I think it is covered well  here. Some people say that Arista.Edu Premium is actually Tri-X




If you know me well you would know that I tend to be a seasonal person.  I would guess that comes from growing up in the Midwest on a farm.  While I may use Black & White film at any time, my two main seasons for B&W are after Christmas until Spring and Mid-Summer until Fall. I offer no analyses for this  personal inclination.  Instead I am just saying that now is one of my black & white seasons.  And so today I am posting some B&W images from a variety of films and cameras.  Mostly these are cameras that so far haven't sustained my interest enough to make a post or gallery about them. 

Taken with Argus C4 on Kentmere 400.  I probably will do a post on the C4 one day since it is my favorite Argus.  After having tried some inexpensive 400 ISO films I decided to get a bulk roll of Kentmere 400. At times it is a little more grainy than I would like, however I think some of that is working out the best way to develop it .

Taken with Konica C35 AF the first auto focusing camera. It does a decent job, however for me I mostly have it because it was a first of its type and inexpensive to buy.  The film is Legacy Pro 100. I liked Legacy Pro 100 a great deal.  It worked well with Rodinal stand development. I made a mistake in not stocking up on it, thinking it would be available longer than it turned out to be. 

Taken with Minolta Maxxum 5000i on Fomapan 100.  I used the 35-80mm zoom which isn't highly regarded although some of the results weren't bad.  Fomapan 100 is another fairly inexpensive b&w film.

Canon T50 50mm f/1.8 using the reliable classic Kodak Tri-X.

Lastly, Sears 35 motor AF using Arista.Edu 400.  This camera is a typical 80's point & shoot.  Can't find much info on it.   Looks like it had some potential, however it stopped working about mid-way through the first roll.

Minolta Hi-matic 7SII

So far the Minolta Hi-matic 7SII has been my best find in an antique shop.  I got it for $10 last fall.  The camera is in excellent condition and came with a case and flash in the same condition.  I didn't know much about this camera when I saw it, however its condition and obvious quality told me it was worth the $10.  A funny thing is that in the same group of cameras there was a fairly common SLR that looked like it had had its hot shoe pulled off with a pair of pliers. The asking price for that camera was $25.  All I can figure is that the dealer was pricing the cameras by size. 


The Minolta Hi-matic 7SII is a compact and light-weight rangefinder with a sharp 40mm f/1.7 Rokkor lens.  It has a very quiet mechanical copal shutter with speeds from 1/8 to 1/500 and B. The rangefinder on mine is bright and easy to see.  I started out in photography at the time when SLRs were taking over from rangefinders.  I had never actually used a rangefinder until a year or so ago.  Back in the old days my eyesight was much sharper than today and focusing an SLR was easy.  Now with my decreased eyesight I often find the rangefinder easier to focus.  


The Minolta Hi-matic 7SII uses a CdS cell that was originally powered by a 1.35v mercury battery.  Since these batteries are now banned you will have to work out a substitute like one of the Wein Cells. Without the battery the camera will still work fine in manual mode.  With the battery you have the option of using shutter priority auto-exposure.  So far I have been using the camera in manual mode and a hand-held meter, however I just got a battery and plan to test out the auto-exposure soon.  I imagine that in auto-exposure mode that this light weight quiet camera will be very good for things like street photography.  


I have been well-satisfied with the results I have had with this camera and it is definitely a keeper.  In fact it is a camera that I think I would enjoy even if it didn't work just because I like the way it looks.  The B&W photos in the gallery below are Legacy Pro 100.  Fuji 800 is the color film. 
Minolta Hi-matic 7SII Gallery

Agfa Isomat Rapid

Agfa introduced Rapid film in 1964. It was supposed to be easier to load than regular 35mm film. Unfortunately for Agfa, Kodak 126 film propelled by the poplar Instamatic Cameras eclipsed the Rapid Film System. By the end of the 60′s even Agfa was selling 126 cameras. With the Rapid System you need two cassettes. One with film and one to take up the film. You place both cassettes in the camera and slide the film leader into the empty cassette and close the camera. When you are finished you remove the take-up cassette for processing. There is no rewinding. With this system the film also is protected if you should open the back of the camera before the roll is finished. The Cassettes also have a metal plate that sets the film speed for cameras that are capable of reading it. The Rapid cassettes use standard 35mm film and it is easy to reload an empty cassette. For me Rapid film is far and away the easiest of the obsolete film systems to work with.

I bought the Agfa Isomat Rapid for a few dollars on Ebay because it had a couple of Rapid Film Cassettes that I needed for Yashica half frame. It is a funny thing that on Ebay often a camera with a Rapid cassette will sell for less than people are selling the casssettes for by themselves. When I got it it appeared that the shutter would not fire which didn’t bother me since I hadn’t bought the camera to use. Lately I have been interested in using the square format. When looking to see if there were any 35mm cameras that did the square format I saw the Isomat Rapid mentioned. I thought it was too bad that the one I had appeared not to work. However in reading further I found that this camera has to be loaded with film and have the back closed for the shutter to work. And when I loaded the film and closed the back the Agfa Isomat Rapid did work.

The Agfa Isomat Rapid came out in 1965. It has a 38 mm 3-element Color-Agnar f:4.5 lens. The lens is zone focus either by symbols at the top of the lens or by a length scale at the bottom. It has two exposure modes, automatic and flash. The mode is set by a lever upper-right of the lens. For automatic exposure set the lever to “A” and the camera will automatically select an aperture setting. At automatic the shutter is fixed at 1/70. In automatic mode when you press the shutter halfway you will see a green light in the viewfinder if the exposure is okay. If not okay there will be a red light. The exposure system is powered by a selenium cell so no batteries are needed. Surprisingly the cell in my camera still works. For the flash mode you use the lever to set an aperature that will work with your flash. The shutter speed in the flash mode is 1/30.

So far I have just ran a couple of rolls of Legacy Pro 100 b&w film throught the Isomat. I took two feet of bulk film and pushed it into the Rapid cassette. This yields 16 square images. I have only used the automatic mode and found it gave good results. I haven’t been too particular about the focusing going mostly by the symbols. I do think that with some care this lens could give reasonably sharp results. So far I have been pleased with the ease of use of the Isomat and the images it gives. I imagine it will be a camera that will get regular use. If you would like some square images in 35 mm along with a kinda interesting camera then the Agfa Isomat Rapid can often be found for less than $10 on Ebay. You will probably need to ask the dealer about the cassettes since they usually don’t mention them.

Agfa Rapid Cassettes








Agfa Isomat Rapid Gallery